United States › North Carolina › Wayne County

Wayne County, North Carolina

35,795 Black residents · 30.5% of the county · ranked 11 of 100 in North Carolina by Black population

Wayne County is a North Carolina county entry in the gazetteer's first edition. In the 2020 Census, Wayne County held 117,333 residents in all, of whom 35,795 — 30.5% — were Black alone, the count this gazetteer records for every place on the same terms.

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	117,333
Black residents (alone), 2020	35,795
Black share of the county, 2020	30.5%
Rank by Black population among North Carolina counties	11 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

The two-census record for Wayne County: 38,499 Black residents in 2010 and 35,795 in 2020. The population declined by 7.0%, and the Black share in Wayne County moved from 31.4% to 30.5%.

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

Wayne 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 Wayne County's 35,795 of them give it rank 11 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 Wayne County are the published redistricting counts, reproduced as released.

Institutions

For the institutions of Black Wayne 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 Wayne County page is their frame: 117,333 residents, 35,795 of them Black, and the movement of the last two censuses.