Anderson County area

Population and density of Anderson County

The Census Bureau estimates that 219,930 people lived in Anderson County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #329 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #9 of 46 in South Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 203,721, the population has grown by 16,209 (+8%), compared with +8.8% for South Carolina as a whole.

With 713.9 square miles of land, that is 308 people per square mile (119 per km²), placing Anderson County #498 nationally for density and #10 in South Carolina. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the South Carolina median is 78. Put another way, there are about 2.1 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 Anderson County

11 incorporated places lie at least partly in Anderson County. Together they are home to 51,851 people (23.6%); the other 168,079 (76.4%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Anderson city, with 31,323 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Honea Path town grew fastest since then (+7.3%).

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

Metropolitan area

Anderson County is an outlying county of the Greenville-Anderson-Greer, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 1,014,101 residents on 2,709.6 square miles of land; Anderson County accounts for 26.3% of the land and 21.7% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #114 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #56 by population. It belongs to the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

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

29611296212962429625296262962729630296312964229643296542965529657296692967029673296842968929697

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 Anderson County

Anderson County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in Georgia. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Greenville County (785.9 mi²) and the smallest is Hart County (232.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Anderson County forms a block of 3,698.1 mi² of land, of which it holds 19.3%.

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

Anderson County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.4 times as much. South Carolina’s county land could hold about 42 areas the size of Anderson County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 26.7 miles (43 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 Anderson County?

Anderson County has more land than 1,944 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 Anderson County at #1,270 nationally by total area, 8 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 5.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 4.4 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 Anderson 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.