Warren County area

Population and density of Warren County

The Census Bureau estimates that 18,898 people lived in Warren County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,946 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #83 of 100 in North Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 18,641, the population has grown by 257 (+1.4%), compared with +7.2% for North Carolina as a whole.

With 429.4 square miles of land, that is 44 people per square mile (17 per km²), placing Warren County #1,664 nationally for density and #88 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 15 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 Warren County

3 incorporated places lie at least partly in Warren County. Together they are home to 1,847 people (9.8%); the other 17,051 (90.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Norlina town, with 924 residents in the county. The county seat, Warrenton town, has 819 residents. By land, Warrenton town is the largest at 1.017 mi².

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

Metropolitan area

Warren 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

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

27537275512755327563275702758927594278422784427850

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 Warren County

Warren County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Virginia. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Halifax County (723.7 mi²) and the smallest is Vance County (252.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Warren County forms a block of 3,625.8 mi² of land, of which it holds 11.8%.

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

Warren County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 2.4 times as much. North Carolina’s county land could hold about 113 areas the size of Warren County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 20.7 miles (33.3 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 Warren County?

Warren County has more land than 853 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 Warren County at #2,369 nationally by total area, the same position as its land rank. Changing the area definition does not change its position in this release.

Its water share is 3.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 2.2 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 Warren 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.