Why This is Important
Total population indicates the number of people living in a selected area. Trends of population increase or decrease can help the City, County and other service providers know where infrastructure and other services may be needed.
On the Neighborhood Compass map, you'll see population density rather than total population to allow easier visual comparisons between different areas of the County. But if you select an area on the map, the legend will show the total population. Population density indicates the number of people living in a selected boundary divided by the area (in square miles) of the boundary. Density of population helps the City, County and other service providers know where infrastructure and other services are used most. Businesses might use population density to understand where markets exist for goods and services.
About the Data
For 2010, this data is from the 2010 Decennial Census 100% population counts. For 2015 and later years, this data comes from the American Community Survey, a sample-based survey largely conducted by telephone.
Source: U.S. Decennial Census, 2010; Source: US 2010, Census 2010 tract-normalized population data; American Community Survey (ACS) for years between each decennial Census.
Additional Resources
| Resource | Learn More and Take Action |
|---|---|
| Durham City/County Comprehensive Plan | Comprehensive plans are intended to guide growth and development in an organized, efficient, and sustainable manner. To do so, they look to the future to anticipate trends and issues that could impact how growth and development occur. |
| North Carolina Population Projections | The State Demographics branch of OSBM is responsible for producing population estimates and projections. The annual estimates of the population of North Carolina counties and municipalities are used in the distribution of state shared revenues to local governments. |
| Durham County | Durham County government and its departments, including Public Health, Social Services and the Board of Elections. |
| Durham City-County Planning | The Durham City-County Planning Department is the planning agency for the City and County of Durham. The Department works with the community to develop long-range and special area plans containing policies to direct growth. |
| Triangle J Council of Governments | Serving Chatham, Durham, Johnston, Lee, Moore, Orange and Wake counties. In this diverse seven-county region, TJCOG promotes collaboration among local governments, stakeholders and partners, tackling challenges that cross jurisdictional lines. |
| Decennial Census 2010 | The source of information about and data from the U.S. Decennial Census. |
| US2010 | The Longitudinal Tract Data Base (LTDB) provides public-use tools to create estimates within 2010 tract boundaries for any tract-level data (from the census or other sources) that are available for prior years as early as 1970. |
| American Community Survey (ACS) | A primary source of neighborhood-level data for the whole country, provided by the US Census Bureau. |
Select a base geography (depending on the dataset, different geographies may be available).
Data Distribution, 2021
Population Density
