Knoxville, TN population, income and ZIP codes

Knoxville city is a mid-size city in Tennessee, with 193,721 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #3 of 504 ranked by population — larger than 99% of them. The median age here is 33.3 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. At this size the Census also publishes one-year estimates; the five-year values used here are steadier and let you compare against smaller neighbours on the same basis.

Households in Knoxville city earn a median of $50,994 a year, 35.1% below the national figure of $78,538 and 9% below the $55,988 median for the 307 Tennessee cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 20.5% 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 Knoxville city is valued at $214,000, 29.5% below the national figure and 12% above the $191,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,116 a month, 20.6% below the national figure, or roughly $13,392 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 26.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 46.6% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.