Kernersville is a town in Forsyth County, in the US state of North Carolina. The population was 17,126 at the 2000 census. In the 2010 U.S. Census, the town's population was at 23,123. Kernersville is located at the heart of a metropolitan area, which consists of the cities of Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem. Some of the rural farmland surrounding the town has been sold and turned into large middle-to-upper-class housing developments, and numerous large shopping centers have been built in the town over the past few years. Flue-cured tobacco was the major crop grown in the area and is still grown in some areas today.