The City of Oaks and the capital of the Research Triangle — where Duke University, NC State, and the University of North Carolina drive one of the highest concentrations of PhD-holders and startup companies in the United States, a James Beard Award-winning food scene has emerged around local farms and craft breweries, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is the most visited museum in the Southeast
Raleigh (480,000; metro 1.5 million — the Research Triangle including Durham and Chapel Hill) is the capital of North Carolina and one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States — an unbroken run of population growth since the 1980s fuelled by the Research Triangle Park (27 square miles of corporate and research facilities between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill that houses IBM, Cisco, GlaxoSmithKline, Credit Suisse, and 300+ other companies), the three major research universities, and a consistently strong job market in technology, biotech, and finance. Downtown Raleigh has undergon…
Raleigh is named for Sir Walter Raleigh, who sponsored the ill-fated Roanoke Colony — the 'Lost Colony' of 1587–1590 whose settlers disappeared from Roanoke Island (120 miles southeast), one of the most persistent mysteries in American history. North Carolina was one of the original 13 colonies, and Raleigh was established as the state capital in 1792 specifically because its central location would be equidistant from the state's eastern and western populations. Andrew Johnson (17th President of the United States, born Raleigh December 29, 1808) was the first President to be impeached — in 18…