Greenville County area

Population and density of Greenville County

The Census Bureau estimates that 583,125 people lived in Greenville County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #122 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #1 of 46 in South Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 525,549, the population has grown by 57,576 (+11%), compared with +8.8% for South Carolina as a whole.

With 785.9 square miles of land, that is 742 people per square mile (286 per km²), placing Greenville County #250 nationally for density and #1 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 0.863 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 Greenville County

6 incorporated places lie at least partly in Greenville County. Together they are home to 191,043 people (32.8%); the other 392,082 (67.2%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Greenville city, with 75,310 residents in the county. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Fountain Inn city grew fastest since then (+41.4%).

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

Metropolitan area

Greenville County is a central 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; Greenville County accounts for 29% of the land and 57.5% 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

27 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Greenville County; 23 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

293222935629601296052960729609296112961329614296152961729627296352964429645296502965129654296612966229669296732968029681296832968729690

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 Greenville County

Greenville County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 3 in North Carolina. It has more land than 6 of them. The largest neighbor is Spartanburg County (808.4 mi²) and the smallest is Polk County (237.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Greenville County forms a block of 4,507 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.4%.

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

Greenville County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.3 times as much. South Carolina’s county land could hold about 38 areas the size of Greenville County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 28 miles (45.1 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 Greenville County?

Greenville County has more land than 2,122 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 Greenville County at #1,193 nationally by total area, 93 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 1.2%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2%. The two percentages are within 0.1 percentage points of each other. 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 Greenville 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.