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Data on this report is based on areas within the legal city boundary, outlined in black on the map. Any additional neighborhoods shown on the map are associated with the city by name and are included for reference only.

Chapel Hill, NC
Real Estate & Demographic Data






Chapel Hill profile


Living in Chapel Hill



Chapel Hill is a larger medium-sized town located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 62,098 people and 26 associated neighborhoods, Chapel Hill is the 15th largest community in North Carolina.

Chapel Hill home prices are not only among the most expensive in North Carolina, but Chapel Hill real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.

Also of interest is that Chapel Hill has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Chapel Hill has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 24.95% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Chapel Hill is also a major college town with a large number of people who are 18 years or older and attending college. As is often the case in college towns, the many students that live in Chapel Hill have a strong influence on the local culture and entertainment scene, which may seem dormant by comparison in the summer months when much of the student population is away. In the fall, the return of students has a reinvigorating effect on the community. Because colleges are lasting institutions, they have a stabilizing effect on the economy by providing direct local benefits such as jobs for faculty and staff and spending by students. Chapel Hill’s economy is one such example of this.

Not only is Chapel Hill a town with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a very large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. That’s because Chapel Hill is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Chapel Hill a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

For the size of the town, public transportation in Chapel Hill is quite heavily used. Mostly, people who use it for their daily commute are taking the bus. For Chapel Hill, the benefits are reduced air pollution and congestion on the highways.

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Chapel Hill, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Chapel Hill is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 77.43% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.

The per capita income in Chapel Hill in 2018 was $47,631, which is wealthy relative to North Carolina and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $190,524 for a family of four. However, Chapel Hill contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Chapel Hill is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Chapel Hill home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Chapel Hill residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Chapel Hill include English, German, Irish, Italian, and Polish.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Chapel Hill's cultural character, accounting for 15.98% of the town’s population.

The most common language spoken in Chapel Hill is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.