Gates County area

Population and density of Gates County

The Census Bureau estimates that 10,234 people lived in Gates County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,464 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #96 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 10,476, the population has declined by 242 (−2.3%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 340.6 square miles of land, that is 30 people per square mile (12 per km²), placing Gates County #2,004 nationally for density and #94 in North Carolina. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the North Carolina median is 116. Put another way, there are about 21 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Gates County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Gates County. Together they are home to 260 people (2.5%); the other 9,974 (97.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Gatesville town, with 260 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Gates County is an outlying county of the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 18 county equivalents have 1,797,213 residents on 3,201.9 square miles of land; Gates County accounts for 10.6% of the land and 0.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #96 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #38 by population. It belongs to the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake, VA-NC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Gates County, and each lies mostly inside the county.

27926279352793727938279462796927979

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Gates County

Gates County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 2 in Virginia. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Southampton County (599.2 mi²) and the smallest is Chowan County (172.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Gates County forms a block of 2,579.2 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.2%.

How big is Gates County compared with U.S. states?

Gates County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 143 areas the size of Gates County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.5 miles (29.7 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Gates County?

Gates County has more land than 514 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Gates County at #2,743 nationally by total area, 35 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 1.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Gates County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.