Raleigh ( RAH-lee) is the capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte), tenth most populous city in the Southeast, the largest city in the Research Triangle area, and the 39th-most populous city in the U.S. Known as the "City of Oaks" for its oak-lined streets, Raleigh covers 148.54 square miles (384.7 km2) and had a population of 467,665 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Wake County and is named after Sir Walter Raleigh, who founded the lost Roanoke Colony.
Raleigh is home to North Carolina State University and is part of the Research Triangle, which includes Durham (home to Duke University and North Carolina Central University) and Chapel Hill (home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). The Research Triangle area, centered around Research Triangle Park, has a population of over 2.37 million people. The Raleigh–Cary metropolitan statistical area alone has an estimated population of 1.51 million. Raleigh lies primarily in Wake County, with a small portion of the city extending into Durham County. Nearby suburbs include Apex, Cary, Clayton, Fuquay-Varina, Garner, Holly Springs, Knightdale, Morrisville, Rolesville, Wake Forest, Wendell, and Zebulon.
Raleigh is an early example in the United States of a planned city. Following the American Revolutionary War when the U.S. gained independence, the area was chosen as the site of the state capital in 1788 and incorporated in 1792 as such. The city was originally laid out in a grid pattern with the North Carolina State Capitol at the center, in Union Square. During the American Civil War, the city was spared from any significant battle. It fell to the Union in the closing days of the war and struggled with the economic hardships in the postwar period, related to the reconstitution of labor markets, over-reliance on agriculture, and the social unrest of the Reconstruction Era. The establishment of the Research Triangle Park in 1959 helped create thousands of jobs in the fields of science and technology.
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 35 mi (56 km) 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 for Philadelphia. The city was developed on the land of various plantations including Crabtree, Mordecai, Oak View, Pine Hall, Pullen, Spring Hill, and Wakefield.
The North Carolina General Assembly first met in Raleigh in December 1794, and granted the city a charter, with a board of seven appointed commissioners and an "Intendant of Police" (which developed as the office of Mayor) to govern it. After 1803, city commissioners were elected. In 1799, the N.C. Minerva and Raleigh Advertiser was the first newspaper published in Raleigh. John Haywood was the first Intendant of Police.
In 1808, Andrew Johnson, the United States' future 17th President, was born at Casso's Inn in Raleigh. The city's first water supply network was completed in 1818, although due to system failures, the project was abandoned. In 1817, the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina was established and headquartered in Raleigh. In 1819, Raleigh's first volunteer fire company was founded, followed in 1821 by a full-time fire company.
In 1831, a fire destroyed the North Carolina State House. Two years later, reconstruction began with quarried gneiss being delivered by the first railroad in the state. Raleigh celebrated the completion of the new State Capitol and new Raleigh & Gaston Railroad Company in 1840. The first State Fair was held near Raleigh in 1853. The first institution of higher learning in Raleigh, Peace College, was established in 1857. Raleigh's Historic Oakwood contains many houses from the 19th century that are still in good condition.
North Carolina seceded from the Union during the American Civil War on May 20, 1861. After the war began, Governor Zebulon Baird Vance ordered the construction of breastworks around the city as protection from Union troops. The North Carolina State School for the Blind and Deaf, currently known as the Governor Morehead School, served as Raleigh's arsenal. Near the end of the Civil War, Governor Vance arranged his evacuation to avoid capture as Union General William Sherman's forces approached the city. Before leaving, Vance met with former governors Graham and Swain to draft a letter of surrender for Raleigh. Their intention was to protect Raleigh from the destruction inflicted on other cities by Union troops. Graham and Swain departed to meet the advancing Federal forces on the morning of April 12, 1865, and were to return by that evening. The evening struck, but Graham and Swain had not returned due to train delays and their temporary capture by Sherman. Governor Vance left the evening after Graham and Sherman failed to return, leaving behind a letter giving Mayor William H. Harrison the authority to surrender.
On the morning of April 13, Mayor Harrison among others went to the southern Wake County area to meet General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and propose surrender. Kenneth Rayner, a long-time resident of Raleigh, delivered the proposal including a promise of no resistance. Kilpatrick agreed to accept the surrender and protect Raleigh from destruction. Kilpatrick's cavalry occupied Raleigh and removed the flagpole from the state capitol, replacing it with a United States Flag above the dome. Sherman arrived shortly after and established his headquarters in the governor's mansion. The city was spared significant destruction during the war. As Confederate cavalry retreated west, Union soldiers followed, leading to the Battle of Morrisville nearby.
Due to the economic and social problems of the postwar period and Reconstruction, with a state economy still heavily dependent on agriculture, the city grew little over the next several decades.
Shaw University, the South's first African American college, began classes in 1865 and was chartered in 1875. Its Estey Hall was the first building constructed for the higher education of Black women, and Leonard Medical Center was the first four-year medical school in the country for African Americans.
In 1867, Episcopal clergy founded St. Augustine's College for the education of freedmen. The biracial Reconstruction legislature created new welfare institutions: in 1869, it approved the United States' first school for blind and deaf Black people, to be located in Raleigh. In 1874, the federal government constructed the Federal Building in Raleigh, the first federal government project in the Southern U.S. following the Civil War.