The county in numbers
1The short version
Sources: U.S. Census QuickFacts , USAFacts , Cardinal News on the Weldon Cooper Center projection .
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2The full story
18,492Residents (July 2025 est.)Down 9.1% since April 2020
24,098Residents in 2010Peak was roughly double today, around 1980
9,888UVA projection for 2050A further 48% drop
25.2%Age 65 and overOnly 4.5% are under 5
33.7%Adults in the labor forceAge 16+, 2020 to 2024
$42,886Median household income23.5% in poverty
77.2%Homes with a broadband subscription86.7% have a computer
12Building permits in 2025Median home value $94,900
What the numbers say. Between 2024 and 2025 the county lost 231 people. Deaths outnumbered births by 149, and about 98 more people moved out to other U.S. counties than moved in[2]. That's a shift worth knowing for conversations: for decades the decline was driven by working-age people leaving for jobs, but now the bigger driver is simply an older population not being replaced[3]. Cardinal News notes Buchanan went from one of Virginia's youngest counties to one of its oldest (median age 47.3) within a single lifetime, and that no Virginia county is losing population faster[3]. A labor-force participation rate around one in three adults is extremely low, which helps explain why local leaders chase any project promising even 10 to 20 jobs.
3Dig deeper: every source
Every bracketed number above links to its source. Here they all are in one place. If one doesn't say what we said, tell us.
- www.census.gov/quickfacts/buchanancountyvirginia
- usafacts.org/answers/is-the-population-growing-or-shrinking/county/buchanan-county-va/
- cardinalnews.org/2025/09/08/buchanan-county-is-projected-to-lose-nearly-half-its-populatio
- commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Virginia_highlighting_Buchanan_County.svg
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