Lancaster County Is The Fastest Growing County Around Charlotte

Indian Land, SC — No area around Charlotte is growing faster than Lancaster county. The census shows an increase of nearly 13% from 2020-2023.

Some call Indian Land the Ballantyne of the South, others call it the driving force for the massive expansion of Lancaster County.

“As Ballantyne expanded, so did Indian Land,” said Sean Sowers with Giving Tree Realty.

Sowers grew up around Lancaster County. He’s seen the growth from the beginning.

“That was nothing but farmers market and now you’ve got strip malls, you’ve got liquor stores, fireworks shops,” said Sowers of US Route 521.

Growth is the common denominator for all of Lancaster County. From 2020 to 2023, the latest census numbers show the county population jumped from 96,011 to 108,215. That 12.7% increase is the largest of any county in the Charlotte region.

“The recent census numbers really just validate what has been going on in Lancaster County,” explained Dennis Marstall.

Marstall is the county administrator. He’s in charge of keeping up with and staying ahead of the growth which comes with a fair share of challenges like overcrowded roads and schools.

“Have we been able to keep up with roads? No, not as much. But we’ve got plans to work on that. But even schools you see similar to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, we have a lot of our schools have mobile units and overcrowding,” said Marstall.

That traffic down 521 isn’t scaring off business. In fact, it’s bringing more in. Maybe the biggest addition, Costco, is in early construction stages.

“Costco, as soon as they pegged it, they were going to put a location there. I think that piqued a lot of people’s interest that that was the next place that was going to be tremendous growth,” Sowers said.

As subdivisions with a thousand plus homes are being built, the county projects an additional 25% population increase within the next 15 years.