Lancaster County area

Population and density of Lancaster County

The Census Bureau estimates that 114,296 people lived in Lancaster County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #570 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #15 of 46 in South Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 96,012, the population has grown by 18,284 (+19%), compared with +8.8% for South Carolina as a whole.

With 549.2 square miles of land, that is 208 people per square mile (80 per km²), placing Lancaster County #628 nationally for density and #13 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 3.1 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 Lancaster County

4 incorporated places lie at least partly in Lancaster County. Together they are home to 13,586 people (11.9%); the other 100,710 (88.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Lancaster city, with 9,623 residents in the county. By land, Van Wyck town is the largest at 10.4 mi². Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Kershaw town grew fastest since then (+18.8%).

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

Metropolitan area

Lancaster County is an outlying county of the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 11 county equivalents have 2,938,830 residents on 5,597.4 square miles of land; Lancaster County accounts for 9.8% of the land and 3.9% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #39 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #21 by population. It belongs to the Charlotte-Concord, NC-SC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

5 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Lancaster County; 4 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

2905829067297072971829720

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 Lancaster County

Lancaster County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 2 in North Carolina. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Chesterfield County (799 mi²) and the smallest is Mecklenburg County (523.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Lancaster County forms a block of 5,178.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 10.6%.

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

Lancaster County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 1.9 times as much. South Carolina’s county land could hold about 55 areas the size of Lancaster County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 23.4 miles (37.7 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 Lancaster County?

Lancaster County has more land than 1,320 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 Lancaster County at #1,992 nationally by total area, 90 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 1.1%, 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 Lancaster 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.