Another notable thing is that Gatlinburg is a major vacation destination. Much of the city’s population is seasonal: many people own second homes and only live there part-time, during the vacation season. The effect on the local economy is that many of the businesses are dependent on tourist dollars, and may operate only during the high season. As the vacation season ends, Gatlinburg’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter place to live.
The city is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Gatlinburg has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Gatlinburg a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One of the benefits of Gatlinburg is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 18.29 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
Despite the fact that it is a small city, Gatlinburg has quite a few people who take public transportation – mostly taxis - for their daily commute to work. This helps to fill a real need in the city for affordable transportation.
In terms of college education, Gatlinburg is somewhat better educated than the 21.84% who have a 4-year degree or higher in the typical US community: 28.34% of adults 25 and older in the city have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Gatlinburg in 2022 was $27,682, which is middle income relative to Tennessee, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $110,728 for a family of four. However, Gatlinburg contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Gatlinburg is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Gatlinburg home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Gatlinburg residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Gatlinburg also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 12.90% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Gatlinburg include English, German, Scottish, Irish, and Scots-Irish.
In addition, Gatlinburg has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (17.16%).
The most common language spoken in Gatlinburg is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.
