Orange County area

Population and density of Orange County

The Census Bureau estimates that 152,498 people lived in Orange County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #463 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #21 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 148,711, the population has grown by 3,787 (+2.5%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 397.6 square miles of land, that is 384 people per square mile (148 per km²), placing Orange County #419 nationally for density and #14 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 1.7 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 Orange County

5 incorporated places lie at least partly in Orange County. Together they are home to 96,273 people (63.1%); the other 56,225 (36.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Chapel Hill town, with 60,643 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county). The county seat, Hillsborough town, has 9,778 residents. By land, Durham city is the largest at 120.3 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Mebane city grew fastest since then (+49.1%).

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

Metropolitan area

Orange County is a central county of the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 625,485 residents on 1,759 square miles of land; Orange County accounts for 22.6% of the land and 24.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #178 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #94 by population. It belongs to the Raleigh-Durham-Cary, NC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

15 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Orange County; 7 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

272312724327278273022751027514275162751727541275722758327599277052770727712

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 Orange County

Orange County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents. It has more land than 2 of them. The largest neighbor is Chatham County (681.5 mi²) and the smallest is Durham County (287.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Orange County forms a block of 2,608 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.2%.

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

Orange 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 122 areas the size of Orange County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.9 miles (32.1 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 Orange County?

Orange County has more land than 685 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 Orange County at #2,601 nationally by total area, 64 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 0.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.3 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 Orange 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.