United States › South Carolina › Richland County

Richland County, South Carolina

190,218 Black residents · 45.7% of the county · ranked 1 of 46 in South Carolina by Black population

Richland County is a South Carolina county entry in the gazetteer's first edition in the Black Belt heartland. In the 2020 Census, Richland County held 416,147 residents in all, of whom 190,218 — 45.7% — 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	416,147
Black residents (alone), 2020	190,218
Black share of the county, 2020	45.7%
Rank by Black population among South Carolina counties	1 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 Richland County: 176,538 Black residents in 2010 and 190,218 in 2020. The population grew by 7.7%, and the Black share in Richland County moved from 45.9% to 45.7%.

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

Richland 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 Richland County's 190,218 of them give it rank 1 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 Richland County are the published redistricting counts, reproduced as released.

Institutions

For the institutions of Black Richland 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 Richland County page is their frame: 416,147 residents, 190,218 of them Black, and the movement of the last two censuses.