Pender County area

Population and density of Pender County

The Census Bureau estimates that 72,111 people lived in Pender County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #778 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #39 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 60,203, the population has grown by 11,908 (+19.8%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 871.3 square miles of land, that is 83 people per square mile (32 per km²), placing Pender County #1,126 nationally for density and #65 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 7.7 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 Pender County

7 incorporated places lie at least partly in Pender County. Together they are home to 10,135 people (14.1%); the other 61,976 (85.9%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Surf City town, with 4,712 residents in the county (the city extends into 1 other county). The county seat, Burgaw town, has 3,903 residents. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Surf City town grew fastest since then (+33.4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Pender County is an outlying county of the Wilmington, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 3 county equivalents have 492,772 residents on 1,913.1 square miles of land; Pender County accounts for 45.5% of the land and 14.6% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #165 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #113 by population.

ZIP codes

13 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Pender County; 6 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

28401284112842128425284352844328445284472844828454284572846628478

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 Pender County

Pender County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Sampson County (945.9 mi²) and the smallest is New Hanover County (192.3 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pender County forms a block of 6,249 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.9%.

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

Pender County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.2 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 56 areas the size of Pender County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 29.5 miles (47.5 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 Pender County?

Pender County has more land than 2,287 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 Pender County at #871 nationally by total area, 64 places closer to the top than its land rank. The water assigned to this geography moves it ahead of some county equivalents with more land.

Its water share is 6.7%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 5.6 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 Pender 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.