Pitt County area

Population and density of Pitt County

The Census Bureau estimates that 182,936 people lived in Pitt County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #385 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #16 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 171,817, the population has grown by 11,119 (+6.5%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 652.4 square miles of land, that is 280 people per square mile (108 per km²), placing Pitt County #533 nationally for density and #22 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 2.3 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 Pitt County

10 incorporated places lie at least partly in Pitt County. Together they are home to 122,323 people (66.9%); the other 60,613 (33.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Greenville city, with 96,443 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Greenville city grew fastest since then (+8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Pitt County is a central county of the Greenville, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Pitt County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the metro area has the same 652.4 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #331 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #251 by population. It belongs to the Greenville-Washington, NC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

18 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Pitt County; 11 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

278122782727828278292783427837278522785827871278792788427886278882788928513285302858628590

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 Pitt County

Pitt County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Beaufort County (832.7 mi²) and the smallest is Greene County (266.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Pitt County forms a block of 4,186.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 15.6%.

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

Pitt County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.6 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 75 areas the size of Pitt County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 25.5 miles (41.1 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 Pitt County?

Pitt County has more land than 1,777 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 Pitt County at #1,560 nationally by total area, 115 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 0.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 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 Pitt 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.