Raleigh Demographics

The Greek roots of the word demographics translate to “measurement of people”. This simple idea is a crucial part of effective governance at all scales and especially for the City of Raleigh. It has come to include a range of topics like age, race, employment, household size, and marital status. Elected officials and city staff must understand national and regional trends as well as characteristics unique to Raleigh in order to maintain the quality of life that citizens enjoy.

The City Planning Department maintains a collection of demographic and economic statistics called the Data Book. This document is an important source of data and analysis that informs policy decisions and city administration. Raleigh’s Office of Economic Development maintains a Data Center that visualizes many of the same metrics from the Data Book and adds other statistics related to business and economic growth. The City of Raleigh has also created an Open Data portal where citizens and professionals can access and analyze nearly all of the publicly available data on city operations and demographic trends.

This page is an introduction to Raleigh’s demographic profile and the data sources that can help you find out more.

The Data Book

The Data Book is a yearly publication of the City Planning Department at the City of Raleigh. It serves as an update to the Community Inventory Report published in 2008. Planning staff combines data from federal, state, and regional agencies with city records to produce a wide-ranging snapshot of the residents, economy, resources, and infrastructure of the City. The Community Profile offers a condensed version of the Data Book for quick access and sharing.

Open Data

Raleigh has joined some of the leading cities in the United States in making public data readily available and all in one digital location. That location is the Open Data portal at data.raleighnc.gov. Open Data is a nationwide standard being adopted by many cities that empowers cities to share public data with citizens and between departments. When data is freely shared, citizens can understand and participate in the process of governance. City departments break down organizational barriers and start to find coordinated solutions for improving city services.