Columbia, NC population, income and ZIP codes

Columbia town is a very small community in North Carolina, with 674 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #536 of 777 ranked by population — larger than 31% of them. The median age here is 39.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Columbia town earn a median of $21,118 a year, 73.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 66% below the $61,228 median for the 459 North Carolina cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 35.3% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Columbia town is valued at $120,700, 60.2% below the national figure and 45% below the $219,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $573 a month, 59.2% below the national figure, or roughly $6,876 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 32.6% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 5.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 41.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

With 674 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Columbia town against its county rather than against national figures.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.