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Rutherford County, Tennessee

53,977 Black residents · 15.8% of the county · ranked 4 of 95 in Tennessee by Black population

Rutherford County is a Tennessee county entry in the gazetteer's first edition. In the 2020 Census, Rutherford County held 341,486 residents in all, of whom 53,977 — 15.8% — were Black alone, the count this gazetteer records for every place on the same terms.

Black share of state population — Tennessee 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	341,486
Black residents (alone), 2020	53,977
Black share of the county, 2020	15.8%
Rank by Black population among Tennessee counties	4 of 95

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 Rutherford County: 32,886 Black residents in 2010 and 53,977 in 2020. The population grew by 64.1%, and the Black share in Rutherford County moved from 12.5% to 15.8%.

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

Rutherford County is one of 95 counties and county equivalents the Census Bureau counts in Tennessee. Together they hold the state's 1.1 million Black residents, and Rutherford County's 53,977 of them give it rank 4 of 95 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 Rutherford County are the published redistricting counts, reproduced as released.

Institutions

For the institutions of Black Rutherford 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 Rutherford County page is their frame: 341,486 residents, 53,977 of them Black, and the movement of the last two censuses.