Land Lead Directory

North Carolina Land Ownership Statistics 2026

How much of North Carolina is vacant land, how many of its property owners live away from what they own, and which counties stand out — counted from NC OneMap parcels parcel records for 47 counties (2026-06 statewide publication).

Every number below is free to quote. Each one has a copy button with the sentence, the source and this page's link, and the county-level data is a one-click CSV.

Download the county data (CSV)See it on the county map

Key statistics

  1. 3,455,978

    North Carolina has 3,455,978 parcels on record across the 47 counties with published parcel rolls.

    Scope: 47 counties with published parcel rolls.

  2. 14%

    473,202 North Carolina parcels — 14% of all parcels — are vacant land with no building on them.

    Scope: 47 counties with published parcel rolls.

  3. 44,417

    Surry County has the most vacant land parcels in North Carolina: 44,417, followed by Duplin County (43,612) and Columbus County (30,777).

    Scope: 47 counties with published parcel rolls.

  4. 1 ac

    In the typical North Carolina county, the median vacant parcel is 1 acres; county medians run from 0 to 19.7 acres.

    Scope: 47 counties with published parcel rolls.

By county

47 counties, A to Z. Owner-location columns are blank where the county's records can't support the mailing-vs-parcel comparison.

CountyParcelsVacant parcelsVacant %Median vacant acres
Alamance County79,4956,5928%2
Bertie County18,78800%0
Bladen County34,16118,02453%0
Brunswick County151,7547under 1%0.5
Buncombe County134,7415,6894%0
Burke County59,37419,56733%1
Camden County7,9551,32417%5.8
Cherokee County35,66918,63052%1.5
Columbus County51,70930,77760%0
Craven County59,84010,85018%0.5
Currituck County27,8856,43223%0.5
Dare County40,4836,17015%0.4
Duplin County43,61243,612100%1.2
Durham County133,07518,76714%0.4
Edgecombe County31,59100%0
Forsyth County166,75524,43415%0.6
Gaston County117,25215,81013%0.5
Greene County12,72000%0
Guilford County222,4432,8941%0.4
Halifax County39,40300%0
Harnett County84,50811,56514%0.5
Henderson County75,37314,89820%1
Iredell County109,25400%0
Johnston County125,58324,18519%1.1
Lincoln County56,86200%0
Madison County21,38110,20048%2.3
Mecklenburg County442,28700%0
Montgomery County30,28300%0
Moore County76,65721,83728%1
Nash County55,7179,58117%0.9
New Hanover County103,48900%0
Pasquotank County22,78800%0
Pender County55,02500%0
Person County28,2727,47226%1.8
Randolph County80,94016,48020%1.1
Rockingham County56,3622,9155%19.7
Rutherford County57,59919,37734%1.3
Sampson County50,53800%0
Stanly County44,17112,63629%1.5
Stokes County31,9829,78431%4.7
Surry County44,41744,417100%1.3
Union County117,53900%0
Vance County26,5198,46232%1.1
Watauga County47,38816,99336%1
Wayne County70,71100%0
Wilson County43,30800%0
Yadkin County28,32012,82145%2.8

How these numbers are counted

  • Parcels are every record on the county's published parcel roll; vacant land is the county's own vacant land-use codes (no building value).
  • Absentee means the owner's mailing address differs from the parcel's address; out-of-state means the mailing address is in another state. Both are shares of owners with a mailable address, and are omitted for counties whose parcel addresses can't support the comparison.
  • Counts are deduplicated by owner and mailing address where the source allows it. Figures change when a county publishes a new roll.
  • Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Cite as: Land Lead Directory, "North Carolina Land Ownership Statistics 2026", NC OneMap parcels (2026-06 statewide publication). https://landleaddirectory.com/statistics/north-carolina
  • The same county files for every state we cover are also on Kaggle, Hugging Face and GitHub.