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Laurens County, South Carolina

16,024 Black residents · 23.7% of the county · ranked 22 of 46 in South Carolina by Black population

Laurens County is a South Carolina county entry in the gazetteer's first edition in the Black Belt heartland. In the 2020 Census, Laurens County held 67,539 residents in all, of whom 16,024 — 23.7% — were Black alone, the count this gazetteer records for every place on the same terms.

Black share of state population — South 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	67,539
Black residents (alone), 2020	16,024
Black share of the county, 2020	23.7%
Rank by Black population among South Carolina counties	22 of 46

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

The two-census record for Laurens County: 16,933 Black residents in 2010 and 16,024 in 2020. The population declined by 5.4%, and the Black share in Laurens County moved from 25.4% to 23.7%.

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

Laurens County is one of 46 counties and county equivalents the Census Bureau counts in South Carolina. Together they hold the state's 1.3 million Black residents, and Laurens County's 16,024 of them give it rank 22 of 46 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 Laurens County are the published redistricting counts, reproduced as released.

Institutions

Black Laurens County's institutions live at the scale of its towns and communities, and the gazetteer records them there, place by place. The Laurens County page holds the frame around them — 67,539 people in all, 16,024 of them Black — and the trend that runs through both censuses.