Blackshear, Georgia
Seal of Georgia
Blackshear · Pierce County, Georgia
Population 3,562 (est. 2026: ~3,600)
Source: Census ACS 2023 · ACS 2023 + 0.45% annual growth projection

Blackshear, Georgia

Pierce County, Georgia · Population 3,506

Blackshear sits at the heart of Pierce County in the Coastal Plain of southeastern Georgia, roughly 60 miles northwest of Brunswick and about 70 miles south of Savannah. It functions as the county seat, which means it carries the administrative weight of a county of nearly 20,000 people while remaining a small town itself. The surrounding landscape is flat, heavily forested with longleaf pine and wetlands, and cut through by the Satilla River. This is not a suburb of anywhere — Blackshear is a self-contained rural community, the kind of place where the county school system, the county library, and the county government all operate from the same town. Life here is shaped by that rural independence, and also by the vulnerabilities that come with it.

People & Demographics

Blackshear's population of 3,521 skews significantly older than most Georgia communities. The median age is 47.5 years — well above Georgia's statewide median, which hovers in the mid-30s. That aging profile shows up in household composition too: 1,622 total households with an average size of just 2.07 people, and only 564 children under 18 in the entire city. Family households number 862 out of 1,622 total.

Racially, the city is 77% white and 20% Black, with 46 residents identifying as Hispanic or Latino. No Asian population is recorded in the 2022 ACS data.

Pierce County as a whole holds 19,716 residents, meaning Blackshear — the county seat — accounts for roughly 18% of the county's population. The surrounding unincorporated county likely draws heavily on Blackshear for services, shopping, and employment.

Economy & Employment

The economic picture here is modest by any measure. Median household income sits at $34,963, and per capita income is $27,714. For context, Georgia's statewide median household income runs considerably higher — typically in the mid-to-upper $60,000s — which means Blackshear households earn well under half the state median. Poverty is real and measurable: 585 residents fall below the poverty line, representing a meaningful share of the population.

Of 1,520 people in the labor force, 51 are unemployed — an unemployment rate of roughly 3.4%. Employment in this part of Georgia tends to center on timber, agriculture, light manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and public sector work tied to county government and the school system.

Housing

Housing in Blackshear is affordable in absolute terms. The median home value is $119,600, and median rent is $767 per month. Of 1,691 total housing units, 1,622 are occupied and only 69 sit vacant — a vacancy rate of about 4%, which is low and suggests stable demand rather than population flight.

Ownership is the dominant tenure: 1,173 households own their homes versus 449 who rent, putting the homeownership rate at 72%. That's a high ownership rate by most standards, consistent with the town's older demographic profile.

Schools

All four schools serving Blackshear operate under Pierce County Schools, a consolidated county district.

Total K–12 enrollment across the district runs to roughly 3,161 students. The high school and middle school in particular serve the whole county, not just the city, which is typical for rural county-seat communities like this one.

Getting Around

Blackshear is car-dependent without exception. Of 1,469 workers, 1,305 drive alone and 154 carpool. Zero workers use public transit, and zero report walking to work. Only 10 work from home. Aggregate commute time across all workers totals 29,720 minutes, implying an average one-way commute of roughly 20 minutes — not extreme, but entirely by car.

There is no local transit system. Anyone without a vehicle faces a genuine access problem.

Healthcare

No hospital operates within Blackshear itself. The nearest regional hospital access points are in Waycross (Ware County), approximately 20 miles to the west, which has the most substantial medical infrastructure in this part of the state. Providers practicing in Blackshear can be searched through the CMS National Provider Identifier Registry.

Library

The Pierce County Public Library serves Blackshear and the surrounding county. Phone: (912) 449-7040. It operates as the primary public library resource for all of Pierce County — there is no separate municipal library system for the city.

Parks & Recreation

Fort Frederica National Monument, administered by the National Park Service, is located on St. Simons Island — roughly 70 miles southeast of Blackshear. It preserves the site of a British colonial fort and town established in the 1730s and is one of the notable NPS units within a day's drive. Closer to home, the Satilla River corridor and the surrounding pine flatwoods offer fishing, hunting, and outdoor recreation that define leisure life in this part of Georgia.

Natural Hazards

Pierce County has one of the more substantial FEMA disaster declaration records in Georgia. The county has been hit repeatedly and recently:

That's 15 declarations since 2005 — an average of more than one per year. Residents here deal with tropical weather threats routinely. Being 150+ miles inland provides no meaningful buffer; storm systems consistently track far enough north and west to affect the Coastal Plain. Flood insurance, storm preparation, and awareness of evacuation routes are not optional considerations in this county.

Government & Municipal Code

Blackshear's municipal code is published and maintained by Municode and is publicly available at library.municode.com/ga/blackshear. Note that Blackshear does not maintain a local building code — construction and building standards default to state or county-level rules.

Weather

Current forecasts and conditions are available through the National Weather Service:

The nearest observation station is BLACKSHEAR 0.3 NNE, approximately 2.2 miles from the town center. Given the tropical hazard history above, checking active alerts before and during hurricane season (June through November) is routine practice for residents.

References

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