ZIP code profile · 2024 county data

ZIP Code 28531

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

Data updated 2026-08-24

507
Property rate /100K (county)
1,104
Population (ZIP)
86
Violent rate /100K (county)

Is ZIP code 28531 safe? Honest data snapshot

ZIP code 28531 sits within Carteret 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: 86 violent incidents and 507 property incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024, per county-level agency submissions.

ZIP 28531 carries a Census-reported population of 1,104, ranking #7 of 17 ZIPs in Carteret County, spread across 2.24 square miles (about 493 people per square mile). For a full breakdown of Carteret County's crime categories and year-over-year trend, see the Carteret County crime page linked below.

ZIP 28531 has no FBI-native crime rate (postal codes are not police jurisdictions). The property-led county proxy above is from Carteret County agency submissions; see methodology for the ZCTA plurality map. Methodology.

ZIP 28531 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
$67,888
Median age
58.3 years
Owner-occupied homes
80%
Occupied homes
437

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 28531?

Within the participating-agency records for Carteret County, reported violent and property crime rates both sit below their U.S. benchmarks: violent crime is 76% below and property crime is 70% 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 28531. 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.

ZIP 28531 sits near the middle of Carteret County's ZIP population ordering (#7 of 17). The county comparison is useful regional context, but it cannot say how reported incidents are distributed within this postal area.

Carteret County UCR book ZIP 28531 inherits

ZIP 28531 itself is about 493 people per Census sq mi across 2.2 sq mi (1,104 residents), a postal settlement fact independent of the county UCR proxy.

ZIP 28531 is about 1.6% of the county reporting population (1,104 of 67,686), so most of the denominator and submitted incidents sit outside this postal code.

Carteret County leans on larceny-theft at 58% of reported offenses (mix index 3,977). ZIP 28531 has no separate FBI offense book.

Carteret County 2024 vs 2023: violent counts +32% vs 2023; property counts -23% vs 2023. Year-over-year moves are county agency submissions, still not ZIP-native.

Carteret 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 28531

Similar county violent rate (~86/100K)

Similar Census population (~1,104)

County detail: Carteret 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.