United States › North Carolina › Union County

Union County, North Carolina

26,981 Black residents · 11.3% of the county · ranked 19 of 100 in North Carolina by Black population

In Union County, North Carolina, the 2020 Census counted 238,267 people, 26,981 of them Black alone. At 11.3%, Union 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	238,267
Black residents (alone), 2020	26,981
Black share of the county, 2020	11.3%
Rank by Black population among North Carolina counties	19 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 Union County counted 23,558 Black residents; in 2020 it counted 26,981. The population grew by 14.5% across the decade, and the Black share in Union County moved from 11.7% to 11.3%.

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

Union 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 Union County's 26,981 of them give it rank 19 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 Union County are the published redistricting counts, reproduced as released.

Institutions

The institutions of Black Union County, North Carolina, are recorded in this gazetteer through its place entries — the towns and communities inside the county's borders, each entered on its own published count. Read with those entries, the Union County page gives the frame they stand in: 238,267 residents in all, 26,981 of them Black, and the county's direction across the last two censuses.