Hoke County area

Population and density of Hoke County

The Census Bureau estimates that 56,939 people lived in Hoke County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #946 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #48 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 52,074, the population has grown by 4,865 (+9.3%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 390.2 square miles of land, that is 146 people per square mile (56 per km²), placing Hoke County #789 nationally for density and #42 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 4.4 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 Hoke County

2 incorporated places lie at least partly in Hoke County. Together they are home to 4,703 people (8.3%); the other 52,236 (91.7%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Raeford city, with 4,703 residents in the county.

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Hoke County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Hoke County is a central county of the Fayetteville, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 395,412 residents on 1,042.7 square miles of land; Hoke County accounts for 37.4% of the land and 14.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #274 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #145 by population. It belongs to the Fayetteville-Lumberton-Pinehurst, NC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

9 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Hoke County; 2 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

283042830628315283572836428371283762837728386

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Hoke County

Hoke County shares a land border with 4 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Robeson County (947.3 mi²) and the smallest is Scotland County (319.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Hoke County forms a block of 3,006.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 13%.

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

Hoke County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.6 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 125 areas the size of Hoke County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.8 miles (31.8 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 Hoke County?

Hoke County has more land than 649 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 Hoke County at #2,632 nationally by total area, 59 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 0.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.8 percentage points lower. 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 Hoke 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.