ZIP code profile · 2024 county data

ZIP Code 28020

Cleveland County, North Carolina: Census demographics for this ZIP plus the containing county's FBI UCR crime rate.

Data updated 2026-08-24

490
Property rate /100K (county)
2,450
Population (ZIP)
147
Violent rate /100K (county)

Is ZIP code 28020 safe? Honest data snapshot

ZIP code 28020 sits within Cleveland County, NC, a county whose reported crime runs below the national average (see the county-level FBI figures below, not a ZIP-specific calculation).

Reported crime here runs well below the national average: 147 violent incidents and 490 property incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024, per county-level agency submissions.

ZIP 28020 carries a Census-reported population of 2,450, ranking #7 of 12 ZIPs in Cleveland County, spread across 46.27 square miles (about 53 people per square mile). For a full breakdown of Cleveland County's crime categories and year-over-year trend, see the Cleveland County crime page linked below.

ZIP 28020 has no FBI-native crime rate (postal codes are not police jurisdictions). The property-led county proxy above is from Cleveland County agency submissions; see methodology for the ZCTA plurality map. Methodology.

ZIP 28020 Census context

These are ZIP/ZCTA demographic estimates, separate from the county-level FBI proxy above. They describe the local settlement, not a crime rate.

Median household income
$36,958
Median age
31.8 years
Owner-occupied homes
79%
Occupied homes
745

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2022 5-year ZCTA estimates (income, age, and occupied housing tenure).

How useful is the county proxy for ZIP 28020?

Within the participating-agency records for Cleveland County, reported violent and property crime rates both sit below their U.S. benchmarks: violent crime is 58% below and property crime is 71% below. The two submitted measures point in the same direction, but they do not establish complete county coverage or turn the result into a ZIP-level rating for 28020. Both comparisons use the same 2024 county reporting population and FBI-submitted counts, so the two directions are internally comparable for this release, not evidence about a different year.

28020 is comparatively spread out at about 53 people per square mile. That settlement pattern may differ sharply from the county's population centers, another reason to use the county rates as regional context rather than a local estimate.

Cleveland County UCR book ZIP 28020 inherits

ZIP 28020 itself is about 53 people per Census sq mi across 46.3 sq mi (2,450 residents), a postal settlement fact independent of the county UCR proxy.

ZIP 28020 accounts for roughly 2.5% of the county reporting population (2,450 of 99,519).

Cleveland County leans on larceny-theft at 41% of reported offenses (mix index 2,797). ZIP 28020 has no separate FBI offense book.

Cleveland County 2024 vs 2023: violent counts -19% vs 2023; property counts -17% vs 2023. Year-over-year moves are county agency submissions, still not ZIP-native.

Cleveland County offense mix (2024)

Mix index is HHI × 10,000 on county offense-type shares. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero; still county-agency data, not a ZIP-native FBI table.

Nationwide peers for ZIP 28020

Similar county violent rate (~147/100K)

Similar Census population (~2,450)

County detail: Cleveland County · State atlas: North Carolina

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (ZIP population, land area, 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file, ACS 5-year estimates) and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States (CIUS) Table 10 (county-level crime, attributed via ZIP-to-county crosswalk).

Verify with Census.gov Geography and FBI.gov UCR.

Read our methodology , how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page combines Census ZIP-level figures with a ZIP-to-county crosswalk to attribute FBI UCR crime data honestly, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.