Coverage analysis
What 5 minutes covers in Charlotte.
Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing metros in the Southeast and has a relatively young highway network (I-485 only fully closed in 2015). Drive-time studies need to be refreshed often here because new interchanges and corridors keep reshaping reach in measurable ways.
At 5 minutes, the Charlotte isochrone captures the hyperlocal footprint — the area where customers make routine, repeat visits without deliberate trip planning. Unlike a 2–4 km² in a suburban grid; far less in a grid with barriers circle, the real road-network polygon follows Charlotte's actual highway corridors, accounts for bridge and interchange chokepoints, and respects the natural and built barriers that force drivers to detour.
Best-fit categories at 5 minutes: QSR, coffee, convenience, pharmacy, urgent care, car wash, gas station. The 5-minute isochrone is the standard input for footprint mapping and proximity-marketing radius decisions.
The city-level population of 874,579 and a median household income of $65,359 give a sense of Charlotte's economic density, but the figure that matters for site selection is the population inside the polygon — not the city as a whole. That number shifts dramatically depending on whether you're drawing from a high-density urban core or a lower-density suburban corridor. Use the tool above to set your actual candidate location, then generate the isochrone to see the real catchment.