Person County area

Population and density of Person County

The Census Bureau estimates that 40,636 people lived in Person County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,199 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #63 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 39,081, the population has grown by 1,555 (+4%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 392.4 square miles of land, that is 104 people per square mile (40 per km²), placing Person County #961 nationally for density and #55 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 6.2 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 Person County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Person County. Together they are home to 8,380 people (20.6%); the other 32,256 (79.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Roxboro city, with 8,380 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Person County is an outlying 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; Person County accounts for 22.3% of the land and 6.5% 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

10 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Person County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

27231272912730527343275412756527572275732757427583

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 Person County

Person County shares a land border with 5 county equivalents, including 1 in Virginia. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Halifax County (817.7 mi²) and the smallest is Durham County (287.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Person County forms a block of 2,852.7 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.8%.

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

Person 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 124 areas the size of Person County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 19.8 miles (31.9 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 Person County?

Person County has more land than 658 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 Person County at #2,582 nationally by total area, 18 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 3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.8 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 Person 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.