Hickory Paving Asphalt

North Carolina was inhabited for at least 10,000 years by succeeding prehistoric Indigenous cultures. The Hardaway Site saw major periods of occupation dating to 10,000 years BCE. Before 200 AD, people were building earthwork platform mounds for ceremonial and religious purposes. Succeeding peoples, including those of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture, established by 1000 AD in the Piedmont and mountain region, continued to build this style of mounds. In contrast to some of the larger centers of the classic Mississippian culture in the area that became known as the western Carolinas, northeastern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee, most of the larger towns had only one central platform mound. Smaller settlements had none, but were close to more prominent towns. This area became known as the homelands of the historic Cherokee people, who are believed to have migrated over time from the Great Lakes area.

In the 500–700 years preceding European contact, the Mississippian culture built elaborate cities and maintained far-flung regional trading networks. Its largest city was Cahokia, which had numerous mounds for different purposes, a highly stratified society, and was located in present-day southwestern Illinois near the Mississippi River. Starting in 1540, the Native polities of the Mississippian culture fell apart and reformed as new groups, such as the Catawba, due to a series of destabilizing events known as the "Mississippian shatter zone". Introduction of colonial trading arrangements and hostile native groups from the north such as the Westo Indians hastened changes in an already tenuous regional hierarchy. As described by anthropologist Robbie Ethridge, the Mississippian shatter zone was a time of great instability in what is now the American South, caused by the instability of Mississippian chiefdoms, high mortality from new Eurasian diseases, conversion to an agricultural society and the accompanying population increase, and the emergence of Native "militaristic slaving societies".

Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region include the Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the Chowanoc, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, and Coree, who were the first encountered by the English; the Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin, Cherokee, and Tuscarora of the interior; and Southeastern Siouan-speaking tribes, such as the Cheraw, Waxhaw, Saponi, Waccamaw, Cape Fear Indians, and Catawba of the Piedmont.

In the late 16th century, the first Spanish explorers traveling inland recorded meeting Mississippian culture people at Joara, a regional chiefdom near what later developed as Morganton. Records of Hernando de Soto attested to his meeting with them in 1540. In 1567, Captain Juan Pardo led an expedition to claim the area for the Spanish colony and to establish another route to reach silver mines in Mexico. Pardo made a winter base at Joara, which he renamed Cuenca. His expedition built Fort San Juan and left a contingent of 30 Spaniards there, while Pardo traveled further. His forces built and garrisoned five other forts. He returned by a different route to Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina, then a center of Spanish Florida. In the spring of 1568, natives killed all but one of the Spaniards and burned the six forts in the interior, including Fort San Juan. Although the Spanish never returned to the interior, this effort marked the first European attempt at colonization of the interior of what became the United States. A 16th-century journal by Pardo's scribe Bandera, and archaeological findings since 1986 at Joara, have confirmed the settlement.

In 1584, Elizabeth I granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom the state capital is named, for land in present-day North Carolina (then part of the territory of Virginia). It was the second American territory that the English attempted to colonize. Raleigh established two colonies on the coast in the late 1580s, but both failed. The colony established in 1587 saw 118 colonists 'disappear' when John White was unable to return from a supply run during battles with the Spanish Armada. The fate of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island remains one of the most widely debated mysteries of American history. Two native Chieftains, Manteo and Wanchese, of which the former helped the colonists and the latter was distrustful, had involvement in the colony and even accompanied Raleigh to England on a previous voyage in 1585. Manteo was also the first Indigenous North American to be baptized by English settlers. Upon White's return in 1590, neither native nor Englishman were to be found. Popular theory holds that the colonists either traveled away with or assimilated into local native culture. Virginia Dare, the first English person to be born in North America, was born on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1587; the surrounding Dare County is named for her.

As early as 1650, settlers from the Virginia colony had moved into the Albemarle Sound region. By 1663, King Charles II of England granted a charter to start a new colony on the North American continent; this would generally establish North Carolina's borders. He named it Carolina in honor of his father, Charles I. By 1665, a second charter was issued to attempt to resolve territorial questions. This charter rewarded the Lords Proprietors, eight Englishmen to whom King Charles II granted joint ownership of a tract of land in the state. All of these men either had remained loyal to the Crown or aided Charles's restoration to the English throne after Cromwell. In 1712, owing to disputes over governance, the Carolina colony split into North Carolina and South Carolina. North Carolina became a crown colony in 1729.

Most of the English colonists had arrived as indentured servants, hiring themselves out as laborers for a fixed period to pay for their passage. In the early years the line between indentured servants and African slaves or laborers was fluid. Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong status. Most of the free colored families formed in North Carolina before the Revolution were descended from unions or marriages between free whites and enslaved or free Africans or African-Americans. If the mothers were free, their children were born free. Many had migrated or were descendants of migrants from colonial Virginia. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in Great Britain, planters imported more slaves, and the state's legal delineations between free and slave status tightened, effectively hardening the latter into a racial caste. Conditions for both slaves and workers worsened as the ranks of the former eclipsed the latter and expansion of farming operations into former Indigenous territories lowered prices. Unable to establish deep water ports such as at Charles Town and Norfolk, the economy's growth and prosperity was thus based on cheap labor and slave plantation systems, devoted primarily to the production of tobacco, then later cotton and textiles.

In 1738–1739, smallpox caused high fatalities among the Native Americans, who had no immunity to the new disease (it had become endemic over centuries in Europe). According to the historian Russell Thornton, "The 1738 epidemic was said to have killed one-half of the Cherokee, with other tribes of the area suffering equally."

After the Spanish in the 16th century, the first permanent European settlers of North Carolina were English colonists who migrated south from Virginia. Virginia had grown rapidly and land was less available. Nathaniel Batts was documented as one of the first of these Virginian migrants. He settled south of the Chowan River and east of the Great Dismal Swamp in 1655. By 1663, this northeastern area of the Province of Carolina, known as the Albemarle Settlements, was undergoing full-scale English settlement. During the same period, the English monarch Charles II gave provincial land grants to the Lords Proprietors, the group of noblemen who had helped restore him to the throne in 1660. These grants were predicated on an agreement that the Lords would use their influence to bring in colonists and establish ports of trade. This new Province of Carolina was named in honor and memory of his father, Charles I (Latin: Carolus).

Lacking a viable coastal port city due to geography, towns grew at a slower pace and remained small. By the late 17th century, Carolina was essentially two colonies, one centered in the Albemarle region in the north and the other located in the south around Charleston. In 1705 South Carolinian John Lawson purchased land on the Pamlico River and laid out Bath, North Carolina's first town. After returning to England, he published the book A New Voyage to Carolina, which became a travelogue and a marketing piece to encourage new colonists to Carolina. Lawson encouraged Baron Christoph Von Graffenried, the leader of a group of Swiss and German Protestants, to immigrate to Carolina. Von Graffenried purchased land between the Neuse and the Trent Rivers and established the town of New Bern. After an attack on New Bern in which hundreds were killed or injured, Lawson was caught then executed by Tuscarora Indians. A large revolt happened in the state in 1711, known as Cary's Rebellion. In 1712, North Carolina became a separate colony, and in 1729 it became a royal colony, with the exception of the Earl Granville holdings.

In June 1718, Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of pirate Blackbeard, ran aground at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in present-day Carteret County. After the grounding, her crew and supplies were transferred to smaller ships. In November 1718, after appealing to the governor of North Carolina, who promised safe-haven and a pardon, Blackbeard was killed in an ambush by troops from Virginia. In 1996, Intersal, Inc., a private maritime research firm, discovered the remains of a vessel likely to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

North Carolina became one of the Thirteen Colonies and with the territory of South Carolina was originally known as the Province of North Carolina. The northern and southern parts of the original province separated in 1712, with North Carolina becoming a royal colony in 1729. Originally settled by small farmers, sometimes having a few slaves, who were oriented toward subsistence agriculture, the colony lacked large cities or towns. Pirates menaced the coastal settlements, but by 1718 piracy in the Carolinas was on the decline. Growth was strong in the middle of the 18th century, as the economy attracted Scots-Irish, Quaker, English and German immigrants. A majority of the North Carolina colonists generally supported the American Revolution, although there were some Loyalists. Loyalists in North Carolina were fewer in number than in some other colonies such as Georgia, South Carolina, Delaware, and New York.

During colonial times, Edenton served as the state capital beginning in 1722, followed by New Bern becoming the capital in 1766. Construction of Tryon Palace, which served as the residence and offices of the provincial governor William Tryon, began in 1767 and was completed in 1771. In 1788, Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital, as its central location protected it from coastal attacks. Officially established in 1792 as both county seat and state capital, the city was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island. The population of the colony more than quadrupled from 52,000 in 1740 to 270,000 in 1780 from high immigration from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, plus immigrants from abroad.

North Carolina did not have any printer or print shops until 1749, when the North Carolina Assembly commissioned James Davis from Williamsburg Virginia to act as their official printer. Before this time the laws and legal journals of North Carolina were handwritten and were kept in a largely disorganized manner, prompting the hiring of Davis. Davis settled in New Bern, married, and in 1755 was appointed by Benjamin Franklin as North Carolina's first postmaster. In October of that year the North Carolina Assembly awarded Davis a contract to carry mail between Wilmington, North Carolina and Suffolk, Virginia. He was also active in North Carolina politics as a member of the Assembly and later as the Sheriff. Davis also founded and printed the North-Carolina Gazette, North Carolina's first newspaper, printed in his printing house in New Bern.

Differences in the settlement patterns of eastern and western North Carolina, or the Atlantic coastal plain and uplands, affected the political, economic, and social life of the state from the 18th until the 20th century. Eastern North Carolina was settled chiefly by immigrants from rural England and Gaelic speakers from the Scottish Highlands. The Piedmont upcountry and western mountain region of North Carolina was settled chiefly by Scots-Irish, English, and German Protestants, the so-called "cohee". Arriving during the mid-to-late 18th century, the Scots-Irish, people of Scottish descent who migrated to and then emigrated from what is today Northern Ireland, were the largest non-English immigrant group before the Revolution; English indentured servants were overwhelmingly the largest immigrant group before the Revolution.

During the American Revolutionary War, the English and Gaelic speaking Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to remain loyal to the British Crown, because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German settlers of western North Carolina tended to favor American independence from Britain. British loyalists dubbed the Mecklenburg County area to be 'a hornet's nest' of radicals, birthing the name of the future Charlotte NBA team. On April 12, 1776, the colony became the first to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence from the British Crown, through the Halifax Resolves passed by the North Carolina Provincial Congress. The date of this event is memorialized on the state flag and state seal. Throughout the Revolutionary War, fierce guerrilla warfare erupted between bands of pro-independence and pro-British colonists. In some cases the war was also an excuse to settle private grudges and rivalries.

North Carolina had around 7,800 Patriots join the Continental Army under General George Washington; and an additional 10,000 served in local militia units under such leaders as General Nathanael Greene. There was some military action, especially in 1780–81. Many Carolinian frontiersmen had moved west over the mountains, into the Washington District (later known as Tennessee), but in 1789, following the Revolution, the state was persuaded to relinquish its claim to the western lands. It ceded them to the national government so the Northwest Territory could be organized and managed nationally.

A major American victory in the war took place at King's Mountain along the North Carolina–South Carolina border; on October 7, 1780, a force of 1,000 Patriots from western North Carolina (including what is today the state of Tennessee) and southwest Virginia overwhelmed a force of some 1,000 British troops led by Major Patrick Ferguson. Most of the soldiers fighting for the British side in this battle were Carolinians who had remained loyal to the Crown (they were called "Tories" or Loyalists). The American victory at King's Mountain gave the advantage to colonists who favored American independence, and it prevented the British Army from recruiting new soldiers from the Tories.

The road to Yorktown and America's independence from Great Britain led through North Carolina. As the British Army moved north from victories in Charleston and Camden, South Carolina, the Southern Division of the Continental Army and local militia prepared to meet them. Following General Daniel Morgan's victory over the British Cavalry Commander Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, southern commander Nathanael Greene led British Lord Charles Cornwallis across the heartland of North Carolina, and away from the latter's base of supply in Charleston, South Carolina. This campaign is known as "The Race to the Dan" or "The Race for the River".

In the Battle of Cowan's Ford, Cornwallis met resistance along the banks of the Catawba River at Cowan's Ford on February 1, 1781, in an attempt to engage General Morgan's forces during a tactical withdrawal. Morgan had moved to the northern part of the state to combine with General Greene's newly recruited forces. Generals Greene and Cornwallis finally met at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in present-day Greensboro on March 15, 1781. Although the British troops held the field at the end of the battle, their casualties at the hands of the numerically superior Continental Army were crippling. Following this "Pyrrhic victory", Cornwallis chose to move to the Virginia coastline to get reinforcements, and to allow the Royal Navy to protect his battered army. This decision would result in Cornwallis' eventual defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, later in 1781. The Patriots' victory there guaranteed American independence. On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

After 1800, cotton and tobacco became important export crops. The eastern half of the state, especially the Coastal Plain region, developed a slave society based on a plantation system and slave labor. Planters owning large estates wielded significant political and socio-economic power in antebellum North Carolina. They placed their interests above those of the generally non-slave-holding yeoman farmers of North Carolina. While slaveholding was slightly less concentrated compared to some other Southern states, according to the 1860 census, more than 330,000 people, or 33% of the population out of 992,622 people in total, were enslaved African Americans. They lived and worked chiefly on plantations in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions of the state. In addition, 30,463 free people of color lived in the state. They were also mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal plain, especially at port cities such as Wilmington and New Bern, where a variety of jobs were available. Most were descendants from free African Americans who had migrated along with neighbors from Virginia during the 18th century. The majority were the descendants of unions in the working classes between white women, indentured servants or free, and African men, indentured, slave or free.

After the American Revolution, Quakers and Mennonites worked to persuade slaveholders to free their slaves. Some were inspired by their efforts and the language of the Revolution to arrange for manumission of their slaves. The number of free people of color rose markedly in the first couple of decades after the Revolution. Many free people of color migrated to the frontier, along with their European-American neighbors, where the social system was looser. By 1810, nearly three percent of the free population consisted of free people of color, who numbered slightly more than 10,000. The western areas of North Carolina were mainly white families of European descent, especially Scotch-Irish, who operated small subsistence farms. In the early national period, the state became a center of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, with a strong Whig presence, especially in the western part of the state. After Nat Turner's slave uprising in 1831, North Carolina and other southern states reduced the rights of free blacks. In 1835, the legislature withdrew their right to vote.

In mid-century, the state's rural and commercial areas were connected by the construction of a 129 mi (208 km) wooden plank road, known as a "farmer's railroad", from Fayetteville in the east to Bethania (northwest of Winston-Salem). On October 25, 1836, construction began on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad to connect the port city of Wilmington with the state capital of Raleigh. In 1840, the state capitol building in Raleigh was completed, and still stands today.

In 1849, the North Carolina Railroad was created by act of the legislature to extend that railroad west to Greensboro, High Point, and Charlotte. During the Civil War, the Wilmington-to-Raleigh stretch of the railroad was vital to the Confederate war effort; supplies shipped into Wilmington were moved by rail through Raleigh to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

In 1860, North Carolina was a slave state, in which one-third of the state's total population were African-American slaves. The state did not vote to join the Confederacy until President Abraham Lincoln called on it to invade its sister state, South Carolina, becoming the last or penultimate state to officially join the Confederacy. The title of "last to join the Confederacy" has been disputed; although Tennessee's informal secession on May 7, 1861, preceded North Carolina's official secession on May 20, the Tennessee legislature did not formally vote to secede until June 8, 1861.

Around 125,000 troops from North Carolina served in the Confederate Army, and about 15,000 North Carolina troops (both black and white) served in Union Army regiments, including those who left the state to join Union regiments elsewhere. Over 30,000 North Carolina troops died from combat or disease during the war. Elected in 1862, Governor Zebulon Baird Vance tried to maintain state autonomy against Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond. The state government was reluctant to support the demands of the national government in Richmond, and the state was the scene of only small battles. In 1865, Durham County saw the largest single surrender of Confederate soldiers at Bennett Place, when Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee and all remaining Confederate forces still active in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, totalling 89,270 soldiers.

Confederate troops from all parts of North Carolina served in virtually all the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's most famous army. The largest battle fought in North Carolina was at Bentonville, which was a futile attempt by Confederate General Joseph Johnston to slow Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's advance through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865. In April 1865, after losing the Battle of Morrisville, Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place, in what is today Durham. North Carolina's port city of Wilmington, was the last Confederate port to fall to the Union, in February 1865, after the Union won the nearby Second Battle of Fort Fisher, its major defense downriver.

The first Confederate soldier to be killed in the Civil War was Private Henry Wyatt from North Carolina, in the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the 26th North Carolina Regiment participated in Pickett/Pettigrew's Charge and advanced the farthest into Union lines of any Confederate regiment. During the Battle of Chickamauga, the 58th North Carolina Regiment advanced farther than any other regiment on Snodgrass Hill to push back the remaining Union forces from the battlefield. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865, the 75th North Carolina Regiment, a cavalry unit, fired the last shots of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. The phrase "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox", later became used through much of the early 20th century.

After secession, some North Carolinians refused to support the Confederacy. Some of the yeoman farmers chiefly in the state's mountains and western Piedmont region remained neutral during the Civil War, with others covertly supporting the Union cause during the conflict. Approximately 15,000 North Carolinians (both black and white) from across the state enlisted in the Union Army. Numerous slaves also escaped to Union lines, where they became essentially free.

Following the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, North Carolina, along with other former Confederate States (except Tennessee), was put under direct control by the U.S. military and was relieved of its constitutional government and representation within the United States Congress in what is now referred to as the Reconstruction era. To earn back its rights, the state had to make concessions to Washington, one of which was ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment. Congressional Republicans during Reconstruction, commonly referred to as "radical Republicans", constantly pushed for new constitutions for each of the Southern states that emphasized equal rights for African-Americans. In 1868, a constitutional convention restored the state government of North Carolina. Though the Fifteenth Amendment was also adopted that same year, it remained in most cases ineffective for almost a century, not to mention paramilitary groups and their lynching with impunity.

The elections in April 1868 following the constitutional convention led to a narrow victory for a Republican-dominated government, with 19 African-Americans holding positions in the North Carolina State Legislature. In attempt to put the reforms into effect, the new Republican Governor William W. Holden declared martial law on any county allegedly not complying with law and order using the passage of the Shoffner Act.

A Republican Party coalition of black freedmen, northern carpetbaggers and local scalawags controlled state government for three years. The white conservative Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1870, in part by Ku Klux Klan violence and terrorism at the polls, to suppress black voting. Republicans were elected to the governorship until 1876, when the Red Shirts, a paramilitary organization that arose in 1874 and was allied with the Democratic Party, helped suppress black voting. More than 150 black Americans were murdered in electoral violence in 1876.

Post–Civil War-debt cycles pushed people to switch from subsistence agriculture to commodity agriculture. Among this time the notorious Crop-Lien system developed and was financially difficult on landless whites and blacks, due to high amounts of usury. Also due to the push for commodity agriculture, the free range was ended. Prior to this time people fenced in their crops and had their livestock feeding on the free range areas. After the ending of the free range people now fenced their animals and had their crops in the open.

Democrats were elected to the legislature and governor's office, but the Populists attracted voters displeased with them. In 1896 a biracial, Populist-Republican Fusionist coalition gained the governor's office and passed laws that would extend the voting franchise to blacks and poor whites. The Democrats regained control of the legislature in 1896 and passed laws to impose Jim Crow and racial segregation of public facilities. Voters of North Carolina's 2nd congressional district elected a total of four African-American congressmen through these years of the late 19th century.

Political tensions ran so high a small group of white Democrats in 1898 planned to take over the Wilmington government if their candidates were not elected. In the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, white Democrats led around 2,000 of their supporters that attacked the black newspaper and neighborhood, killed an estimated 60 to 300 people, and ran off the white Republican mayor and aldermen. They installed their own people and elected Alfred M. Waddell as mayor, in the only successful coup d'état in United States history.

In 1899, the state legislature passed a new constitution, with requirements for poll taxes and literacy tests for voter registration which disenfranchised most black Americans in the state. Exclusion from voting had wide effects: it meant black Americans could not serve on juries or in any local office. After a decade of white supremacy, many people forgot North Carolina had ever had thriving middle-class black Americans. Black citizens had no political voice in the state until after the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed to enforce their constitutional rights. It was not until 1992 that another African American was elected as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina.

After the reconstruction era, North Carolina had become a one-party state, dominated by the Democratic Party. The state mainly continued with an economy based on tobacco, cotton textiles and commodity agriculture. Large towns and cities remained in few numbers. However, a major industrial base emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, in the counties of the Piedmont Triad, based on cotton mills established at the fall line. Railroads were built to connect the new industrializing cities.

The state was the site of the first successful controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air flight, by the Wright brothers, near Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903.

In the first half of the 20th century, many African Americans left the state to go North for better opportunities, in the Great Migration. Their departure changed the demographic characteristics of many areas.

North Carolina was hard hit by the Great Depression, but the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt for cotton and tobacco significantly helped the farmers. After World War II, the state's economy grew rapidly, highlighted by the growth of such cities as Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham in the Piedmont region.

Research Triangle Park, established in 1959, serves as the largest research park in the United States. Formed near Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, the Research Triangle metro is a major area of universities and advanced scientific and technical research.

The Greensboro sit-ins in 1960 played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement to bring full equality to American blacks. By the late 1960s, spurred in part by the increasingly leftward tilt of national Democrats, conservative whites began to vote for Republican national candidates and gradually for more Republicans locally.

Since the 1970s, North Carolina has seen steady increases in population growth. This growth has largely occurred in metropolitan areas located within the Piedmont Crescent, in places such as Charlotte, Concord, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham and Raleigh. The Charlotte metropolitan area has experienced large growth mainly due to its finance, banking, and tech industries.

By the 1990s, Charlotte had become a major regional and national banking center. Towards Raleigh, North Carolina State, Duke University, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have helped the Research Triangle area attract an educated workforce and develop more jobs.

In 1988, North Carolina gained its first professional sports franchise, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The hornets team name stems from the American Revolutionary War, when British General Cornwallis described Charlotte as a "hornet's nest of rebellion". The Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) became based in Charlotte as well, with their first season being in 1995. The Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League (NHL) moved to Raleigh in 1997, with their colors being the same as the NC State Wolfpack, who are also located in Raleigh.

By the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, economic industries such as technology, pharmaceuticals, banking, food processing, vehicle parts, and tourism started to emerge as North Carolina's main economic drivers. This marked a shift from the state's former main industries of tobacco, textiles, and furniture. Factors that played a role in this shift were globalization, the state's higher education system, national banking, the transformation of agriculture, and new companies moving to the state.

North Carolina is bordered by South Carolina on the south, Georgia on the southwest, Tennessee on the west, Virginia on the north, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The United States Census Bureau places North Carolina in the South Atlantic division of the southern region. It has a total area of 53,819.16 square miles (139,391.0 km), of which 48,617.91 square miles (125,919.8 km) is land and 5,201.25 square miles (13,471.2 km) (9.66%) is water.

North Carolina consists of three main geographic regions: the Atlantic coastal plain, occupying the eastern portion of the state; the central Piedmont region, and the mountain region in the west, which is part of the Appalachian Mountains. The coastal plain consists of more specifically defined areas known as the Outer Banks, a string of sandy, narrow barrier islands separated from the mainland by sounds or inlets, including Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound, the native home of the venus flytrap, and the inner coastal plain, where longleaf pine trees are native.

So many ships have been lost off Cape Hatteras that the area is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic"; more than a thousand ships have sunk in these waters since records began in 1526. The most famous of these is the Queen Anne's Revenge (flagship of the pirate Blackbeard), which went aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718.

The coastal plain transitions to the Piedmont region along the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, the elevation at which waterfalls first appear on streams and rivers. The Piedmont region of central North Carolina is the state's most populous region, containing the six largest cities in the state by population. It consists of gently rolling countryside frequently broken by hills or low mountain ridges. Small, isolated, and deeply eroded mountain ranges and peaks are located in the Piedmont, including the Sauratown Mountains, Pilot Mountain, the Uwharrie Mountains, Crowder's Mountain, King's Pinnacle, the Brushy Mountains, and the South Mountains. The Piedmont ranges from about 300 feet (100 m) in elevation in the east to about 1,500 feet (500 m) in the west.

The western section of the state is part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of the larger Appalachian Mountain range. Among the subranges of the Blue Ridge Mountains located in the state are the Great Smoky Mountains and the Black Mountains. The Black Mountains are the highest in the eastern United States, and culminate in Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet (2,037 m), the highest point east of the Mississippi River.

North Carolina has 17 major river basins. The five basins west of the Blue Ridge Mountains flow to the Gulf of Mexico, while the remainder flow to the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 17 basins, 11 originate within the state of North Carolina, but only four are contained entirely within the state's border—the Cape Fear, the Neuse, the White Oak, and the Tar–Pamlico basin.

Elevation above sea level is most responsible for temperature change across the state, with the mountainous regions being coolest year-round. The climate is also influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream, especially in the coastal plain. These influences tend to cause warmer winter temperatures along the coast, where temperatures only occasionally drop below the freezing point at night. The coastal plain averages around 1 inch (2.5 cm) of snow or ice annually, and in many years, there may be no snow or ice at all.

The Atlantic Ocean exerts less influence on the climate of the Piedmont region, which has hotter summers and colder winters than along the coast, though winters are still mild.

North Carolina experiences severe weather both in summer and in winter, with summer bringing threat of hurricanes, tropical storms, heavy rain, and flooding. Destructive hurricanes that have hit North Carolina include Hurricane Fran, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Hugo, and Hurricane Hazel, the latter being the strongest storm ever to make landfall in the state, as a Category 4 in 1954. Hurricane Isabel ranks as the most destructive of the 21st century.

North Carolina averages fewer than 20 tornadoes per year, many of them produced by hurricanes or tropical storms along the coastal plain. Tornadoes from thunderstorms are a risk, especially in the eastern part of the state. The western Piedmont is often protected by the mountains, which tend to break up storms as they try to cross over; the storms will often re-form farther east. A phenomenon known as "cold-air damming" often occurs in the northwestern part of the state, which can weaken storms but can also lead to major ice events in winter.

In April 2011, the worst tornado outbreak in North Carolina's history occurred. Thirty confirmed tornadoes touched down, mainly in the Eastern Piedmont and Sandhills, killing at least 24 people. In September 2019 Hurricane Dorian hit the area.

North Carolina provides a large range of recreational activities, from swimming at the beach to skiing in the mountains. North Carolina offers fall colors, freshwater and saltwater fishing, hunting, birdwatching, agritourism, ATV trails, ballooning, rock climbing, biking, hiking, skiing, boating and sailing, camping, canoeing, caving (spelunking), gardens, and arboretums. North Carolina has theme parks, aquariums, museums, historic sites, lighthouses, elegant theaters, concert halls, and fine dining.

North Carolinians enjoy outdoor recreation using numerous local bike paths, 34 state parks, and 14 national parks. National Park Service units include the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site at Flat Rock, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site at Manteo, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro, Moores Creek National Battlefield near Currie in Pender County, the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, Old Salem National Historic Site in Winston-Salem, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, and Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.

National Forests include Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina, Croatan National Forest in Eastern North Carolina, Pisgah National Forest in the western mountains, and Nantahala National Forest in the southwestern part of the state.

In 2024, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2023 population estimates for municipalities in North Carolina. Charlotte has the largest population, while Raleigh has the second-largest population in North Carolina.

After the 2020 census, Wake County—with a population of 1,129,410—became the most populous county in the state, overtaking Mecklenburg County—with a population of 1,115,482—by a margin of about 14,000. Both counties are still the only to have populations over one million in North Carolina and the Carolinas region.

North Carolina has four major combined statistical areas (CSA) with a population over 1 million (as of 2023):

The United States Census Bureau determined the population of North Carolina was 10,439,388 at the 2020 census. Based on numbers in 2012 of the people residing in North Carolina 58.5% were born there; 33.1% were born in another state; 1.0% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. island areas, or born abroad to American parent(s); and 7.4% were foreign-born.

According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 9,382 homeless people in North Carolina.

The top countries of origin for North Carolina's immigrants were Mexico, India, Honduras, China and El Salvador, as of 2018.

At the 2010 census, the racial composition of North Carolina was: White: 68.5% (65.3% non-Hispanic white, 3.2% White Hispanic), Black or African American: 21.5%, Latin and Hispanic American of any race: 8.4%, some other race: 4.3%, Multiracial American: 2.2%, Asian American: 2.2%, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 1%. In 2020, North Carolina like much of the U.S. experienced a decline in its non-Hispanic white population; at the 2020 census, non-Hispanic whites were 62.2%, Blacks or African Americans 20.5%, American Indian and Alaska Natives 1.2%, Asians 3.3%, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders 0.1%, people from other race 5.9%, and multiracial Americans 6.8%.

Enslaved Africans were brought to North Carolina to be sold into slavery. A majority of the black population is now concentrated in the urban areas and northeastern part of the state.

North Carolina's Hispanic population has grown rapidly. The Hispanic population more than doubled in size between 1990 and 2000. Many of North Carolina's Hispanic residents are of Mexican heritage. Many of North Carolina's newer Latino residents came from Mexico largely to work in agriculture, manufacturing, or on one of North Carolina's military installations.

The most common ancestries in North Carolina are African-American, American, German, English, and Irish.

North Carolina has the eighth-largest Native American population in the country. The state is home to eight Native American tribes and four urban Native American organizations.

North Carolina is home to a spectrum of different dialects of Southern American English and Appalachian English.

In 2010, 89.66% (7,750,904) of North Carolina residents age five and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 6.93% (598,756) spoke Spanish, 0.32% (27,310) French, 0.27% (23,204) German, and Chinese (which includes Mandarin) was spoken as a main language by 0.27% (23,072) of the population five and older. In total, 10.34% (893,735) of North Carolina's population age five and older spoke a mother language other than English. In 2019, 87.7% of the population aged 5 and older spoke English and 12.3% spoke another language. The most common non-English language was Spanish at the 2019 American Community Survey.

North Carolina residents since the colonial era have historically been overwhelmingly Protestant—first Anglican, then Baptist and Methodist. In 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention was the single largest Christian denomination, with 4,241 churches and 1,513,000 members. The second largest in 2024 was the Roman Catholic Church which is organised into two dioceses. In the west is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte which includes Charlotte and has 530,000 members in 196 parishes. In the east is the Diocese of Raleigh with a total of 80 parishes and nearly 500,000 Catholics. The third largest was the United Methodist Church, with 660,000 members and 1,923 churches. The fourth largest was the Presbyterian Church (USA), with 186,000 members and 710 congregations; this denomination was brought by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled the backcountry in the colonial era. In 2020, the Southern Baptists remained the largest with 1,324,747 adherents, though Methodists and others were collectively overtaken by non/interdenominational Protestants numbering 1,053,564.

In 1845, the Baptists split into regional associations of the Northern United States and Southern U.S., over the issue of slavery. These new associations were the Northern Baptist Convention (today the American Baptist Churches USA) and Southern Baptist Convention. By the late 19th century, the largest Protestant denomination in North Carolina were Baptists. After emancipation, black Baptists quickly set up their own independent congregations in North Carolina and other states of the South, as they wanted to be free of white supervision. Black Baptists developed their own state and national associations, such as the National Baptist Convention. Other primarily African American Baptist conventions which grew in the state since the 20th century were the Progressive National Baptist Convention and Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship.

Methodists (the second largest group among North Carolinian Protestants) were divided along racial lines in the United Methodist Church and African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist tradition tends to be strong in the northern Piedmont, especially in populous Guilford County. Other prominent Protestant groups in North Carolina as of the Pew Research Center's 2014 study were non/interdenominational Protestants and Pentecostalism. The Assemblies of God and Church of God in Christ are the largest Pentecostal denominations operating in the state, while notable minorities include Oneness Pentecostals primarily affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International.

The state also has a special history with the Moravian Church, as settlers of this faith (largely of German origin) settled in the Winston-Salem area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Historically Scots-Irish have had a strong presence in Charlotte and in Scotland County.

A wide variety of non-Christian faiths are practiced by other residents in the state, including: Judaism, Islam, Baháʼí, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The rapid influx of Northerners and immigrants from Latin America is steadily increasing ethnic and religious diversity within the state. The number of Roman Catholics and Jews in the state has increased, along with general religious diversity as a whole. There are also a substantial number of Quakers in Guilford County and northeastern North Carolina. Many universities and colleges in the state have been founded on religious traditions, and some currently maintain that affiliation, including:

The state also has several major seminaries, including the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, and the Hood Theological Seminary (AME Zion) in Salisbury.