Spartanburg County area

Population and density of Spartanburg County

The Census Bureau estimates that 380,857 people lived in Spartanburg County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #205 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #5 of 46 in South Carolina. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 328,000, the population has grown by 52,857 (+16.1%), compared with +8.8% for South Carolina as a whole.

With 808.4 square miles of land, that is 471 people per square mile (182 per km²), placing Spartanburg County #355 nationally for density and #4 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 1.4 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 Spartanburg County

14 incorporated places lie at least partly in Spartanburg County. Together they are home to 91,132 people (23.9%); the other 289,725 (76.1%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Spartanburg city, with 39,978 residents in the county. By land, Greer city is the largest at 24.5 mi² across all its counties. Among places with at least 1,000 residents in 2020, Greer city grew fastest since then (+45.2%).

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

Metropolitan area

Spartanburg County is a central county of the Spartanburg, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 2 county equivalents have 407,656 residents on 1,322 square miles of land; Spartanburg County accounts for 61.1% of the land and 93.4% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #240 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #138 by population. It belongs to the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area.

ZIP codes

34 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Spartanburg County; 29 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

29301293022930329306293072931629320293222932329324293292933029331293332933429335293382934629349293562936529368293692937229373293742937529376293772937829385293882965029651

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 Spartanburg County

Spartanburg County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents, including 2 in North Carolina. It has more land than every one of them. The largest neighbor is Greenville County (785.9 mi²) and the smallest is Polk County (237.7 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Spartanburg County forms a block of 4,016.9 mi² of land, of which it holds 20.1%.

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

Spartanburg 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 37 areas the size of Spartanburg County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 28.4 miles (45.8 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 Spartanburg County?

Spartanburg County has more land than 2,171 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 Spartanburg County at #1,135 nationally by total area, 84 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 1.4%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.2 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 Spartanburg 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.