Charlotte Map
Charlotte sits on the North Carolina Piedmont a few miles from the South Carolina line, and its roughly 943,000 residents in 2024 make it the largest city in the Carolinas.
Where is Charlotte?
Charlotte is in the south-central part of North Carolina, on rolling Piedmont uplands between the Blue Ridge and the coastal plain. The state line runs close enough to the south that several of the city's suburbs are in South Carolina. It is about 165 miles southwest of Raleigh, roughly 245 miles northeast of Atlanta, and about 95 miles southwest of Greensboro.
Charlotte at a glance
| State | North Carolina |
| County | Mecklenburg County |
| Population | 943,476 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 14 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Eastern Time |
| Region | South (South Atlantic division) |
No. 14 on the 2024 list is a margin of 50,112 people: that is how far Charlotte trails Austin, while Columbus is 10,213 further back. No other North Carolina city on the list comes near it: next are Raleigh, Greensboro and Durham. That is about 9% of North Carolina's 11.05 million residents inside a single municipal line. It holds about 78% of Mecklenburg County's 1,206,285 residents.
Charlotte in North Carolina
Charlotte is the seat of Mecklenburg County and, unusually for a big city, has not spread into neighboring counties — the North Carolina county map shows city and county closely aligned. North Carolina has no single dominant metropolis: Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro and Winston-Salem all rank in the national top 100, strung along the Piedmont. The North Carolina state page traces the line.
Between the mountains and the sea
The Piedmont here is a worn-down plateau of old crystalline rock, and the Catawba River runs past the western side of the city through a chain of reservoirs. About 80 miles northwest the land rises abruptly into the Blue Ridge, the eastern front of the Appalachians; about 130 miles east-southeast, near Fayetteville, the Piedmont steps down at the fall line onto the coastal plain. Charlotte's position on that middle ground, on the natural route between Virginia and Georgia, is why the railroads and later the interstates converged here.
Cities near Charlotte
Across the Carolinas and Georgia: Raleigh, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham and Atlanta. The South Atlantic division page groups them.