Kernersville is a town in Forsyth County, North Carolina, and the largest suburb of Winston-Salem. The population was 26,481 at the 2020 census, an increase from 23,123 in 2010. While Kernersville is in the Winston-Salem Metropllitan area, the municipal limits of the town is also located inside the overall center of the Piedmont Triad, with the very small outskirts of the town also extending inside Guilford County, in which access to Downtown Kernersville from the east is via I-40 Exit 206 in the Guilford County municipality of Colfax.