What is the population of Chowan County?

Chowan County has 13,814 residents on Census ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates.

What is the median household income in Chowan County?

Median household income in Chowan County is $56,982 a year, 27.4% below the national figure of $78,538.

How much does it cost to rent or buy in Chowan County?

Median gross rent is $766 a month and the median home value is $204,400, so rent absorbs about 16.1% of median household income.

Is Chowan County affordable compared with the rest of the US?

Homes cost about 3.6× the local median income here versus roughly 3.9× nationally, so Chowan County is more affordable to buy in than the typical US market, and rent takes 16.1% of median income against the 30% cost-burden line.

Historic small-town main street building, illustrating the US counties directory

North Carolina · FIPS 37041

Chowan ZIP codes — Chowan County, North Carolina

Quick answer

Chowan County is home to 13,814 residents with a median household income of $56,982 and a median home value of $204,400. 69.7% of households own their home and 20.5% of residents live below the poverty line. Looking for a Chowan ZIP code? 2 ZIP code areas fall inside Chowan County, North Carolina, listed in full below.

Population: 13,814Chowan County residents
Median household income: $56,982Past 12 months, inflation adjusted
Median home value: $204,400Owner-occupied units
Median gross rent: $766Rent plus utilities, monthly
Median age: 47.9 yrsAll residents
Homeownership rate: 69.7%Owner-occupied households

Chowan County, NC in context

How this area compares with national benchmarks.

Chowan County is a mid-size town in North Carolina, with 13,814 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates. The median age here is 47.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Chowan County earn a median of $56,982 a year, 27.4% below the national figure of $78,538. 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 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 Chowan County is valued at $204,400, 32.6% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $766 a month, 45.5% below the national figure, or roughly $9,192 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 16.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 69.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

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.

ZIP codes in Chowan County

ZIP code tabulation areas whose land area falls mostly in Chowan County.

How to read this page

What these estimates cover.

Figures are five-year rolling averages from the American Community Survey, not single-year counts, so they describe conditions across 2019-2023 ACS 5-year rather than a single date. Median home value covers owner-occupied units as valued by their owners, and median gross rent includes utilities the renter pays. Small counties carry wide margins of error; treat single-dollar differences between neighbouring counties as noise.

Source: US Census Bureau, ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates · rates as published for 2019-2023 ACS 5-year

Cities and towns in North Carolina

Largest Census places in North Carolina by population.

Nearby counties

Other counties in North Carolina.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about this area.

What is the population of Chowan County?: Chowan County has 13,814 residents on Census ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates.
What is the median household income in Chowan County?: Median household income in Chowan County is $56,982 a year, 27.4% below the national figure of $78,538.
How much does it cost to rent or buy in Chowan County?: Median gross rent is $766 a month and the median home value is $204,400, so rent absorbs about 16.1% of median household income.
Is Chowan County affordable compared with the rest of the US?: Homes cost about 3.6× the local median income here versus roughly 3.9× nationally, so Chowan County is more affordable to buy in than the typical US market, and rent takes 16.1% of median income against the 30% cost-burden line.
How current is this Chowan County data?: All figures come from the US Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year five-year estimates. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.