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Buncombe County, North Carolina

15,311 Black residents · 5.7% of the county · ranked 34 of 100 in North Carolina by Black population

In Buncombe County, North Carolina, the 2020 Census counted 269,452 people, 15,311 of them Black alone. At 5.7%, Buncombe County's Black share stands against the state's 20.5% — the comparison this entry is built around.

Black share of state population — North Carolina highlighted — the state in the national tile map, shaded by the Black share of each state's population. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census (PL 94-171), Table P1.

Civic Snapshot

Measure	Figure
Total population, 2020	269,452
Black residents (alone), 2020	15,311
Black share of the county, 2020	5.7%
Rank by Black population among North Carolina counties	34 of 100

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1 (race). Trend: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1.

Population Trend

In 2010 Buncombe County counted 15,211 Black residents; in 2020 it counted 15,311. The population grew by 0.7% across the decade, and the Black share in Buncombe County moved from 6.4% to 5.7%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1 (race). Trend: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Redistricting File (Public Law 94-171), Table P1.

The Record

Buncombe County is one of 100 counties and county equivalents the Census Bureau counts in North Carolina. Together they hold the state's 2.1 million Black residents, and Buncombe County's 15,311 of them give it rank 34 of 100 in that order. The county is the gazetteer's middle geography — larger than the places inside it, smaller than the state frame — and the figures printed here for Buncombe County are the published redistricting counts, reproduced as released.

Institutions

For the institutions of Black Buncombe County — its congregations, schools, and civic life — this gazetteer points to the place entries inside the county's borders, where each town and community is entered on its own count. The Buncombe County page is their frame: 269,452 residents, 15,311 of them Black, and the movement of the last two censuses.