Cartersville, Georgia
Seal of Georgia
Cartersville · Bartow County, Georgia
Population 23,617 (est. 2026: ~25,200)
Source: Census ACS 2023 · ACS 2023 + 1.94% annual growth projection

Cartersville, Georgia

Bartow County, Georgia · Population 23,187

Cartersville sits at the intersection of U.S. 41 and Interstate 75, about 45 miles northwest of Atlanta in the ridge-and-valley terrain of northwest Georgia. It is the Bartow County seat and the largest city in a county of roughly 109,000 people. The Etowah River runs through the area, and the region's Cherokee and Civil War history is visible in the landscape and in its museums. Cartersville is not a suburb in the conventional sense — it has its own economic center, its own hospital, and its own school system — but Atlanta's orbit is impossible to ignore. Many residents commute south on I-75. The town has grown steadily as the metro has expanded, bringing new housing and retail without fully erasing the older downtown core anchored by Main Street and the historic Tellus Science Museum.

People & Demographics

Cartersville's population of 23,103 (ACS 2022) skews slightly younger than the state median. The median age is 36.8 years. The city is majority White (17,568), with Black residents numbering 3,065 and a Hispanic/Latino population of 3,017 — the latter representing a significant and long-established community tied in part to the region's manufacturing and construction sectors. Asian residents number 231.

There are 8,667 occupied households with an average household size of 2.56 people. Family households account for 5,623 of the total. Children under 18 number 5,434, which reflects the active school system described below.

Economy & Employment

The median household income in Cartersville is $75,407, and per capita income sits at $37,989. Georgia's statewide median household income runs lower than this for most rural counties, so Cartersville's figures reflect the economic lift of proximity to metro Atlanta combined with local industrial employment — Bartow County has significant manufacturing, including chemical and logistics operations along the I-75 corridor.

Of the 11,441 residents in the labor force, 325 are unemployed, an unemployment rate of roughly 2.8%. That is a tight labor market by most standards. Poverty affects 2,757 residents, or about 11.9% of the population — worth watching, but not an outlier for a Georgia city of this size.

Housing

Cartersville has 9,501 total housing units, of which 8,667 are occupied and 834 are vacant — a vacancy rate of just under 8.8%. Owner-occupied units number 5,251, renters occupy 3,416, putting the ownership rate at roughly 60.6%.

The median home value is $274,800. Median gross rent is $1,096 per month. Both figures have risen with regional demand, and affordability pressure is real for renters — $1,096 a month is a significant share of income for households below the median. For buyers, $274,800 is still well below metro Atlanta figures for comparable square footage, which partly explains the continued in-migration.

Schools

Cartersville operates two distinct public school systems serving the city and surrounding Bartow County. The Cartersville City Schools system runs its own sequence: Cartersville Primary School (grades PreK–2, 1,109 students), Cartersville Elementary School (grades 3–5, 954 students), Cartersville Middle School (grades 6–8, 1,036 students), and Cartersville High School (grades 9–12, 1,398 students).

The Bartow County school system serves surrounding areas and includes schools that draw from Cartersville's edges and neighboring communities: Woodland High School (grades 9–12, 1,451 students), Cass Middle School (grades 6–8, 879 students), Clear Creek Elementary (PreK–5, 675 students), Cloverleaf Elementary (PreK–5, 654 students), Hamilton Crossing Elementary (PreK–5, 597 students), and Mission Road Elementary (PreK–5, 440 students).

Which system a student attends depends on their specific address within or outside city limits — a distinction that matters significantly to families relocating here.

Getting Around

Cartersville is a car-dependent city. Of 10,913 total workers, 8,902 drove alone to work. Another 904 carpooled. Public transit use is effectively nil — just 4 workers reported using it. Walking accounts for 139 commuters, mostly those who live and work in or near downtown. Remote work has a modest but real presence: 832 residents worked from home.

The aggregate commute time across all workers is 257,760 minutes, which averages to roughly 23.6 minutes per worker. That number likely reflects a mix of very short local commutes and longer I-75 drives toward Atlanta. Anyone considering moving here with a downtown Atlanta job should expect 45–75 minutes in traffic depending on departure time.

Healthcare

Piedmont Cartersville Medical Center is the local hospital, located within the city. It is part of the Piedmont Health system, which has expanded significantly across north Georgia. The presence of a full hospital within the city — not a satellite clinic — is meaningful for a community of this size and sets Cartersville apart from smaller Bartow County towns.

For a full directory of licensed healthcare providers in Cartersville, the CMS NPI Registry can be queried directly: NPI Provider Search — Cartersville, GA

Library

The Cartersville Public Library serves the city and is part of the Cherokee Regional Library System. Phone: (770) 382-5657. The library provides standard branch services including public computers, programming, and interlibrary loan access.

Parks & Recreation

The nearest National Park Service unit is Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, approximately 20 miles south — a heavily used battlefield and trail system from the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. The Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area lies about 32 miles southeast, offering paddling, fishing, and hiking along one of the Southeast's most accessible river corridors. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta is roughly 39.5 miles away.

Locally, the Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site sits just outside downtown Cartersville — one of the most significant pre-Columbian archaeological sites in the southeastern United States — and Allatoona Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir, provides boating, camping, and fishing within a few miles of the city.

Natural Hazards

Bartow County has a long and documented history of federally declared disasters. The county has been included in 15 FEMA declarations since 1994:

The pattern is clear: this part of northwest Georgia is vulnerable to both severe thunderstorm and tornado events in spring, tropical moisture from Gulf storms in late summer and fall, and periodic winter ice events that shut down I-75.

Government & Municipal Code

Cartersville operates under a council-manager form of government. The city's municipal code is published through Municode and is publicly available at:

https://library.municode.com/ga/cartersville

Note: The municipal code does not include a standalone building code adoption record in the available data.

Weather

Current forecast and alerts for Cartersville:

The nearest weather observation station is WHITE 4.6 SSE, located approximately 2.4 miles from the city center.

References

The law belongs to the people. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. (2020)