ZIP code profile · 2024 county data

ZIP Code 28709

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

Data updated 2026-08-24

451
Property rate /100K (county)
2,305
Population (ZIP)
65
Violent rate /100K (county)

Is ZIP code 28709 safe? Honest data snapshot

ZIP code 28709 sits within Buncombe 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: 65 violent incidents and 451 property incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024, per county-level agency submissions.

With 2,305 residents, ZIP 28709 is among the smaller ZIPs in Buncombe County (#14 of 16 by population), spread across 51.54 square miles (45/sq mi). For a full breakdown of Buncombe County's crime categories and year-over-year trend, see the Buncombe County crime page linked below.

ZIP 28709 has no FBI-native crime rate (postal codes are not police jurisdictions). The property-led county proxy above is from Buncombe County agency submissions; see methodology for the ZCTA plurality map. Methodology.

ZIP 28709 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
$67,566
Median age
51.7 years
Owner-occupied homes
72%
Occupied homes
1,005

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 28709?

Within the participating-agency records for Buncombe County, reported violent and property crime rates both sit below their U.S. benchmarks: violent crime is 82% below and property crime is 74% 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 28709. 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.

Within the county, 28709 is among the smaller ZIPs by population (#14 of 16). County-wide counts are especially coarse context for a smaller postal area because most of the denominator and reported incidents may sit elsewhere in the county.

Buncombe County UCR book ZIP 28709 inherits

ZIP 28709 itself is about 45 people per Census sq mi across 51.5 sq mi (2,305 residents), a postal settlement fact independent of the county UCR proxy.

ZIP 28709 is about 0.9% of the county reporting population (2,305 of 269,452), so most of the denominator and submitted incidents sit outside this postal code.

Buncombe County leans on larceny-theft at 48% of reported offenses (mix index 3,385). ZIP 28709 has no separate FBI offense book.

Buncombe County 2024 vs 2023: violent counts -1% vs 2023; property counts +7% vs 2023. Year-over-year moves are county agency submissions, still not ZIP-native.

Buncombe 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 28709

Similar county violent rate (~65/100K)

Similar Census population (~2,305)

County detail: Buncombe 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.