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Upstate SC · Spartanburg County

Spartanburg, SC

Newcomer's Guide

A straight, sourced answer to "what's it actually like to live here" — for anyone considering Spartanburg County's namesake city, home to BMW's largest manufacturing plant in the world and two well-known colleges, Wofford and Converse.

39,978Population (2025)
~30 miTo Downtown GVL
+3.2%Growth Since 2020
SD7School District
Photo: "Main Street Downtown Spartanburg" by Hitkiller666, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Spartanburg is the third leg of the Upstate's "Greenville-Anderson-Greer" metro identity, and — like Anderson — it's an established city growing steadily rather than exploding: 39,978 people in 2025, up a modest 3.2% from 38,732 in 2020. It has a genuinely walkable, recently revitalized downtown (Main Street), two respected private colleges (Wofford and Converse University), and it's the closest thing the Upstate has to BMW's company town — the automaker's largest plant in the world sits just outside the city. Housing is the most affordable of any town covered on this site, and like Anderson, the tradeoff is distance from downtown Greenville — worth knowing if a Greenville commute is part of the plan.

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Quick Stats

Distance to downtown Greenville~30 mi (about 39 min via I-85)
CountySpartanburg County (county seat)
School districtSpartanburg School District 7
Mean commute time (all workers)20.2 min (Census ACS 2020-2024)
Population (2025, up from 38,732 in 2020)39,978

What Feeds Where

District: Average Spartanburg County School District 7 — most recent statewide report card rating shown above.

Ratings sourced from the SC Department of Education's 2025 School Report Card data (screportcards.com) and updated annually when the state releases new report cards.

What Homes Are Going For

$236,520 avg
Average home value $236,520 (Zillow, June 2026). Median sale price $215,000 (Zillow, May 2026). Median listing price $270,000 (Realtor.com, June 2026). The most affordable of any town covered on this site so far.

Commute & Access

I-85 connects Spartanburg to Greenville (about 30 miles southwest, roughly 39 minutes) and continues northeast toward Charlotte, NC (about 75 miles). BMW Manufacturing's plant — the company's largest in the world — sits just south of the city along I-85, and is one of the Upstate's largest employers; a meaningful share of Spartanburg residents have a notably short commute if they work there directly.