Swain County area

Population and density of Swain County

The Census Bureau estimates that 14,024 people lived in Swain County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,233 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #89 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 14,115, the population has declined by 91 (−0.6%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 527.7 square miles of land, that is 27 people per square mile (10 per km²), placing Swain County #2,102 nationally for density and #96 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 24 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 Swain County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Swain County. Together they are home to 1,525 people (10.9%); the other 12,499 (89.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Bryson City town, with 1,525 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Swain County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

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

2870228713287192877128789

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 Swain County

Swain County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Tennessee. It has more land than 3 of them. The largest neighbor is Sevier County (592.5 mi²) and the smallest is Graham County (292 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Swain County forms a block of 3,531.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 14.9%.

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

Swain 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 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 92 areas the size of Swain County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23 miles (37 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 Swain County?

Swain County has more land than 1,239 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 Swain County at #2,042 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 2.3%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1.1 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 Swain 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.