Raleigh

Sister cities

• Xiangyang

History

Bath, the oldest town in North Carolina, was the first nominal capital of the colony from 1705 until 1722, when Edenton took over the role. The colony had no permanent institutions of government until the new capital, New Bern, was established in 1743. In December 1770, Joel Lane successfully petitioned the North Carolina General Assembly to create a new county. On January 5, 1771, the bill creating Wake County was passed in the General Assembly. The county was formed from portions of Cumberland, Orange, and Johnston counties, and was named for Margaret Wake Tryon, the wife of Governor William Tryon. The first county seat was Bloomsbury. New Bern, a port town on the Neuse River from the Atlantic Ocean, was the largest city and the capital of North Carolina during the American Revolution. When the British Army laid siege to the city, that site could no longer be used as the capital. From 1789 to 1794, when Raleigh was being built, the state capital was Fayetteville. Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital in 1788, as its central location protected it from attacks from the coast. It was officially established in 1792 as both county seat and state capital. The city was incorporated on December 31, 1792, and a charter granted January 21, 1795. The city was named for Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island. No known city or town existed previously on the chosen city site. Raleigh is one of the few cities in the United States that was planned and built specifically to serve as a state capital. Its original boundaries were formed by the downtown streets of North, East, West and South. The plan, a grid with two main axes meeting at a central square and an additional square in each corner, was based on Thomas Holme's 1682 plan…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (0.72%) is water. northeast of Fayetteville; northwest of Wilmington; southwest of Richmond, Virginia; and northeast of Charlotte. A small portion of Raleigh is located in Durham County, North Carolina. Raleigh is divided into several major geographic areas, each of which use a Raleigh address and a ZIP code that begins with the digits 276. PNC Plaza, formerly known as RBC Plaza, is the largest and tallest skyscraper in the city of Raleigh. The tower rises to a height of , with a floor count of 34. One common division of Raleigh is to differentiate the central part of the city, which lies inside of the circumferential highway known as the Raleigh Beltline (I-440 and I-40) from areas outside of the Beltline. The area inside of the beltline includes the entirety of the central business district known as Downtown Raleigh, as well as several more residential areas surrounding it. The downtown area is home to historic buildings such as the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel built in the early 20th century, the restored City Market, the Fayetteville Street downtown business district (which includes the PNC Plaza and Wells Fargo Capitol Center buildings), as well as the North Carolina Museum of History, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina State Capitol, William Peace University, the City of Raleigh Museum, Raleigh Convention Center, Shaw University, Campbell University School of Law, and St. Augustine's College. In the 2000s, an effort by the Downtown Raleigh Alliance was made to separate this area of the city into five smaller districts: Fayetteville Street, Moore Square, Glenwood South, Warehouse, and Capital District. The nearby Blount Street Historic…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  69,289
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  62,578
• Carolina Chickadee

  Poecile carolinensis (Audubon, 1834) · Aves
  55,235
• Tufted Titmouse

  Baeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  54,534
• Eastern Bluebird

  Sialia sialis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  47,326
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  46,552
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  46,314
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  43,714