Decatur, the DeKalb County seat, covers about four square miles and borders the city of Atlanta roughly six miles east of downtown. At the 2020 Census it had 24,928 residents.
A Decatur mailing address doesn’t always mean a house is in Decatur. The city says thousands of properties with Decatur addresses actually sit in unincorporated DeKalb County, where homeowners don’t receive city services or pay city taxes.
That line matters when you hire for gutter work. The city’s rules on building permits, historic districts and yard waste, covered on our Decatur service pages, reach only as far as the city limits. Past them, DeKalb County is the one to ask. The first question below explains how to tell which side you’re on.