Bear Poplar is an unincorporated community mostly within Steele Township in Rowan County, North Carolina, United States.

The community extends about a mile in each direction from this intersection; the eastern border is located right before Bear Poplar Road.

At some point Bear Poplar had four stores, two cotton gins, a foundry, a garage, a blue granite quarry, a school, a blacksmith shop, and a post office.

[2] An ancestral seat of Cowan and Krider families, Wood Grove, is located just outside Bear Poplar.

The Bear Poplar Post office first opened on 12 Sep 1878 with Lucy J. Kistler postmistress.