character
Veterans
Why this matters
Veterans are adults who served in the U.S. armed forces and are no longer on active duty. Counting them helps a community understand a group that may qualify for special health care, education, housing, and disability benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
This number guides local planning. Areas with many veterans may need VA clinics, mental health and disability services, job programs, and outreach to make sure people know what they have earned.
Veterans bring valuable skills and leadership to their communities as workers, volunteers, and neighbors.
About the Charlotte region
This explorer covers the 14-county, two-state Charlotte region (11 North Carolina and 3 South Carolina counties). Many of these indicators connect to a defining regional story: a landmark Harvard study ranked Charlotte last, 50th of the 50 largest U.S. metros for economic mobility (a child raised in the poorest fifth had about a 4.4% chance of reaching the top fifth), a finding that launched the region's Leading on Opportunity agenda. Updated 2024 data show Charlotte has since climbed to 38th.
Opportunity here is also unevenly mapped. An affluent “wedge” fanning southeast from uptown holds a large majority of the city's wealth on under a quarter of its land, while a ”crescent” to the north, west, and east carries higher poverty, a legacy of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and highway routing that recurs across the race, income, health, tree-canopy, and school maps in this tool. No single indicator is good or bad on its own; together they describe how the region sorted opportunity.
Companion resources: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Quality of Life Explorer · UNC Charlotte Urban Institute · Opportunity Atlas · Methods & sources
Learn more
- U.S. Census Bureau — About the Veterans Population census.gov
How the Census defines and counts veterans and what the data cover.
- VA — National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics va.gov
Official VA veteran population data and projections by age, sex, and location.
About the data
Calculated from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (2014–2024), at the Census-tract level, with margins of error. ACS 5-year vintages overlap year to year, so the series is a rolling estimate; compare only non-overlapping periods.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.