Iredell County, North Carolina

Iredell County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. According to current US Census projections in 2014, the population was 166,675. Its county seat is Statesville, and its largest town is Mooresville. The county was formed in 1788, annexed from Rowan County. It is named for James Iredell, a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States nominated by George Washington.

Iredell County is included in the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 597 square miles (1,550 km²), of which 574 square miles (1,490 km²) is land and 23 square miles (60 km²) (3.9%) is water.

Iredell County is located within the Piedmont Region of central North Carolina. The northwestern section of the county contains the Brushy Mountains, a deeply eroded spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains far to the west. The highest point in Iredell County, Fox Mountain, is in the Brushies; it rises to 1,760 feet. Although the "Brushies", as they are often called locally, are not high in the normal sense, they do rise prominently above the surrounding countryside. The remainder of Iredell County consists of gently rolling countryside occasionally broken by low hills and small river valleys. The county's largest river, the Catawba, forms much of its western border. Lake Norman, North Carolina's largest manmade lake, is the most prominent geographic feature of southern Iredell County; it is often called North Carolina's "inland sea".