Destination profile
Wake County, North Carolina
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Cost of living and taxes
Effective property tax rate
0.68%
North Carolina county average: 0.62%
Median property tax bill
$3,533
On a median home of $521,600
This is the rate actually paid on the median home in Wake County — the median bill divided by the median value. It is not the headline millage, and it does not include any senior or homestead exemption you may qualify for.
Income tax, sales tax, insurance and everyday prices for NC are handled in the moving-cost calculator, which lets you put your own income and home value in.
Source: county median property tax and median home value, tax year 2026, loaded 2026.
Health care
Nearest emergency room
REX HOSPITAL
1.9 miles
5 of 5 CMS stars
Straight-line distance from the county’s population centre. Road travel is longer.
Nearest major teaching hospital
WAKEMED, RALEIGH CAMPUS
5.1 miles
Major medical-school affiliation on the Medicare Provider of Services file — where complex care and specialist referrals usually end up.
Primary-care doctors per 100,000 people
82.3
North Carolina county median: 42.7 per 100,000
Specialists: 169.9 per 100,000
Hospital beds: 2.04 per 1,000
HRSA designates part of this county — a service area or a specific population group — a Health Professional Shortage Area for primary care. Whether it affects you depends on where in the county you land.
Sources: HRSA Area Health Resources File 2024–25 (physicians, beds, shortage areas); CMS Hospital General Information and Provider of Services file, 2026 release.
Physicians are counted where they practise, not where patients live, so a county next to a medical hub can look thinner than it is — which is why we lead with distance to the nearest hospital.
Climate
Average January low
31°F
Average July high
90°F
Climate burden: mild
4,856 heating and cooling degree days a year.
Source: NOAA nClimDiv county climate normals, 1991–2020 (2020 release).
Arts and culture
Places you can name in Wake County
- Spiritual Twist Productions — Performing arts
- North Carolina Railway Museum — Museum
- A-VIN-Garde — Museum
- Apex Historical Society, Maynard-pearson House — Museum
- Art Museum Trails — Museum
- Aurora, NC — Museum
Museums and performing-arts venues in the county
114
North Carolina county median: 8
In and around, within about an hour
215
Includes venues in neighbouring counties within 60 miles of this county’s population centre — not just the county itself.
Places on the National Register of Historic Places
164
North Carolina county median: 14
Active arts and museum nonprofits
70
Combined annual revenue: $14.3 million
Businesses on the Census County Business Patterns file
- Theatre companies
- 12
- Event and music promoters
- 16
- Museums
- 11
- Historic sites
- Fewer than 3 (withheld)
The Census withholds any count below three to protect individual businesses, so “fewer than 3” means exactly that — it does not mean none.
Sources: Overture Maps Foundation places (venue names and locations, CDLA-Permissive-2.0); National Park Service National Register of Historic Places; National Center for Charitable Statistics Business Master File at the Urban Institute (ODC-BY 1.0); Census County Business Patterns 2023.
These are counts of what exists, not a rating of how good it is. A county with one much-loved theatre can be a better fit than one with a dozen you would never visit.
Family proximity
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Nearest commercial airport
Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) is 9.8 miles away with 38 nonstop destinations.
Sources: OurAirports (airport names and locations, public domain); Bureau of Transportation Statistics On-Time Performance, 2026 (nonstop destinations flown by reporting carriers in the most recent month). Distances are great-circle from the county centre point.
Every figure above is named by source and vintage. See our data & methodology for the agency, licence and limits behind each dimension.