Swannanoa is a census-designated place (CDP) in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population 5,021 at the 2020 census going on from 4,576 at the 2010 census. The community is named for the Swannanoa River, which flows through the settlement. It is ration of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Swannanoa is located several miles west of Black Mountain just prior to Oteen and eastern Asheville. As the district continues to build up it has three quick food restaurants together with several local based eateries. With great quantity of trails and forest land it is a beautiful mountain area enriched when manufacturing records of the once good Beacon Blanket Mill.
Alexander Inn was listed upon the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Swannanoa is located in eastern Buncombe County at 35°36′17″N 82°23′17″W / 35.60472°N 82.38806°W / 35.60472; -82.38806 (35.604808, -82.387921), between Asheville and Black Mountain. Interstate 40 passes through the main commercial Place of Swannanoa, which is focused in tab to the Ingles supermarket and gas station. The archaic commercial area sits next to an blank lot where the obsolescent Beacon Manufacturing Co. plant subsequently sat. The Beacon Plant was the center of the Swannanoa community, built by the late Charles D. Owen, Sr.^{[citation needed]} It was closed in 2002, and burned just about completely to the ground upon September 3, 2003. The local tall school is Charles D. Owen High School. Brad Johnson was a graduate of Charles D. Owen High School. He went on to take effect the National Football League for the Super Bowl XXXVII Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 6.4 square miles (16.7 km), of which 6.4 square miles (16.6 km²) is house and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km), or 0.53%, is water.