DeKalb County, Georgia


DeKalb County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,382, making it Georgia's fourth-most populous county. Its county seat is Decatur.
DeKalb County is included in the Atlanta metropolitan area. It contains roughly 10% of the city of Atlanta. Stonecrest is the largest city that is entirely within the county. DeKalb is primarily a suburban county.
In recent years, some communities in North DeKalb have incorporated, following a trend in other suburban areas around Metro Atlanta. Stonecrest, Dunwoody and Brookhaven are now the largest cities that are entirely contained within the county.

History

The area of DeKalb county was acquired by the state of Georgia as a result of the 1821 Treaty of Indian Springs with a faction of the Muscogee. DeKalb County, formed in 1822 from Henry, Gwinnett and Fayette counties, took its name from Baron Johann de Kalb, a Bavarian-born former officer in the French Army, who fought for the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. The oldest existing house in the county is the 1831 Goodwin House along Peachtree Road in Brookhaven. Much of the area was forested; a section of old-growth forest is preserved at Fernbank Forest.
In 1853, Fulton County formed from the western half of DeKalb, divided along a perfectly straight and due north–south line down the middle. Until this time, the growing city of Atlanta had been inside DeKalb. Atlanta grew because the city of Decatur did not want to become the railroad terminus in the 1830s, thus a spot at the Thrasherville encampment in western DeKalb was picked to become Terminus and then Marthasville, before becoming Atlanta a few years after its founding. North and southwest Fulton came from two other counties: Milton and southeast Campbell, respectively. DeKalb once extended slightly further north to the Chattahoochee River, but this strip was later given to Milton, and is now the panhandle of Sandy Springs.
During the American Civil War, much of the Battle of Atlanta took place in DeKalb.
Until the 1960s, DeKalb was a mainly agricultural county, but as the sprawl of the metropolitan Atlanta region expanded, DeKalb became increasingly urbanized. Finished in 1969, the eastern half of the Interstate 285 beltway, called "the Perimeter", ringed the northeastern and southern edges of the county, placing most of it "inside the Perimeter" along with nearly all of Atlanta. Interstate 675 and Georgia 400 were originally planned to connect inside the Perimeter, along with the Stone Mountain Freeway connecting with the Downtown Connector near Moreland Avenue, destroying many neighborhoods in western DeKalb, but community opposition in the early 1970s spared them this fate of urbanization, although part of the proposed Stone Mountain Tollway later became the Freedom Parkway. Only Interstate 20 and Interstate 85 were successfully built through the county. DeKalb also became one of only two counties to approve MARTA rapid transit in the 1970s; the county now contains the east and northeast heavy rail lines.
In April 2018, more than 350 bus drivers for DeKalb County School District went on strike over low pay and poor working conditions, resulting in seven bus drivers being fired.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and is water. The county is located within the upper Piedmont region of the state. The shape of DeKalb county in a way resembles a miniature Georgia itself, with similar river borders and straight lines.
The county is crossed by the South River and numerous creeks, including Nancy Creek, Snapfinger Creek and two forks of Peachtree Creek. Peachtree Creek and Nancy Creek drain into the Chattahoochee River and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. South River drains into the Ocmulgee River and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean.
In 2021, the non-profit American Rivers named DeKalb's South River the fourth-most endangered river in the United States, citing "the egregious threat that ongoing sewage pollution poses to clean water and public health."
The southern two-thirds of DeKalb County, in a line from Druid Hills northeast to Tucker, is located in the Upper Ocmulgee River sub-basin of the Altamaha River basin, while the portion of the county north of that line is located in the Upper Chattahoochee River sub-basin of the ACF River Basin.
Stone Mountain lies near the eastern border of the county. Soapstone Ridge, parallel to the southern border, was heavily quarried between 1400 and 100 BC and objects made from the soapstone have been found as far away as the Great Lakes.

Adjacent counties

Cities

Race / Ethnicity Pop 2000Pop 2010% 2000% 2010
White alone 214,685203,395215,89532.24%29.40%28.24%
Black or African American alone 358,381370,963384,43853.82%53.62%50.29%
Native American or Alaska Native alone 9641,2391,1610.14%0.18%0.15%
Asian alone 26,48335,17350,0763.98%5.08%6.55%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone 2562452020.04%0.04%0.03%
Other race alone 1,6741,6444,7190.25%0.24%0.62%
Mixed race or Multiracial 10,88011,41026,4201.63%1.65%3.46%
Hispanic or Latino 52,54267,82481,4717.89%9.80%10.66%
Total665,865691,893764,382100.00%100.00%100.00%

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 764,382 residents, with 302,243 households and 157,737 families.
The median age was 35.8 years. 22.1% of residents were under the age of 18 and 12.8% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 89.7 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 85.9 males age 18 and over. 99.8% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.2% lived in rural areas.
The racial makeup of the county was 29.5% White, 50.9% Black or African American, 0.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 6.6% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 5.9% from some other race, and 6.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 10.7% of the population.
Of the 302,243 households in the county, 29.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 36.6% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 31.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 326,101 housing units, of which 7.3% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 52.8% were owner-occupied and 47.2% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.8% and the rental vacancy rate was 8.3%.

2010 census

In 2010, the median income for a household in the county was $51,349 and the median income for a family was $60,718. Males had a median income of $43,663 versus $40,288 for females. The per capita income for the county was $28,412. About 12.4% of families and 16.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.2% of those under age 18 and 11.2% of those age 65 or over.

2000 census

The county recorded a population of 665,865 in the 2000 census.

Economy

Major employers in DeKalb County include:
  • AT&T Mobility, headquartered in the Lenox Park neighborhood of Brookhaven
  • Emory Healthcare, located off of Clifton Road
  • Emory University, located off of Clifton Road
  • Kroger, which operates its Atlanta-area offices at 2175 Parklake Drive NE in Northlake
  • DeKalb County School District, headquartered in Stone Mountain

    Culture

Visitor attractions

The DeKalb County 9/11 Memorial was dedicated on September 11, 2011.
U.S. Marine and sculptor Curtis James Miller designed a memorial that is located in front of the Dekalb County Fire and Police Headquarters. The memorial pays homage to the 343 New York Firefighters, 60 New York Police Department and Port Authority Police Officers, and the more than 2800 civilian victims of the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.
A piece of steel from one of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City is the centerpiece of this monument.