Durham Overview & Facts

Welcome to Durham – where grit meets innovation, history fuels creativity and every street corner tells a story. Known as the Bull City, the City of Medicine, the Tastiest Town in the South and the Startup Capital of the South, Durham has earned its reputation as a place that defies easy definition. This isn't a city you just visit – it's one you experience, where community and culture collide to create something entirely its own.

WHERE IS DURHAM LOCATED?

It’s a two-hour drive from the beach, a three-hour drive from the Blue Ridge Mountains, and is North Carolina’s third largest city by population. Along the East Coast, Durham makes for the perfect mid-size city stopover, located conveniently along I-95.

WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO TRAVEL TO DURHAM, NC?

A drive to Durham will allow for freedom and convenience once you reach the city. For those outside of driving distance, travel to and from is made easy as the City and County of Durham co-own the top-ranked Raleigh-Durham International Airport that services more than 80 nonstop destinations. You can also travel to Durham by train, which will conveniently land you at the Amtrak station in the center of downtown. Our Transportation page offers more resources on how to get around once you arrive.

WHAT IS DURHAM'S HISTORY?

Durham’s rich history grew with the tobacco fields (Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco was one of the origins of the Bull City nickname) and warehouses that formed the backbone of the economy beginning after the Civil War. Three state historic sites – more than any other county in the state – offer hands-on learning opportunities about Durham's earliest history.

A thriving hub of Black-owned businesses known as Black Wall Street blossomed at the turn of the century and established Durham’s urban epicenter as a mecca for entrepreneurs and innovators of color. The historic tobacco warehouses are now modernized hubs for living, working, eating and drinking in our vibrant, walkable downtown.

Durham’s enduring spirit and bold heart define what it is known for today — a welcoming place with a high quality of life and reasonable cost of living, first-class health care, sports teams, arts, dining and entertainment.

WHY IS DURHAM KNOWN AS THE CITY OF MEDICINE?

Durham is called the City of Medicine not only because of its more than 300 outstanding medical facilities but because of the Research Triangle Park (RTP), whose 7,000 acres primarily in Durham County with extensions into Wake, now house more than 300 companies including science and technology firms, government agencies, academic institutions, startups and nonprofits. The world-renowned hub for innovation, ideas and collaboration, RTP was created by the major research universities housed in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill (“The Triangle”) and has led to developments like the barcode, AstroTurf, AZT, LED Lighting and UPCs, and major advancements in life sciences, medical and agricultural biotech and new drug discovery.

Now, with Boxyard RTP and the new Hub RTP development, RTP is more visitor-friendly than ever.

WHY IS DURHAM KNOWN FOR HIGHER EDUCATION?

Duke University, one of the world’s most prestigious research universities, and North Carolina Central University, consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top historically Black universities and the nation’s first public liberal arts institution for African American students, enrich the city with art museums, performances, talks, sporting events and visitors from all over the world.  

WHY IS DURHAM KNOWN FOR ACTIVISM?

Discussion and debate on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusiveness are part of every community conversation. Durham is proud to be a community with no racial majority: we are 41.8% white/non-Hispanic, 31.7% African American, 15.4% Hispanic. We’re also known as a welcoming place for the LGBTQIA+ community, with Pride events, the renowned annual OutSouth Queer Film Festival and the LGBTQ Center of Durham.

WHY IS DURHAM KNOWN FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

Shop small and support local are values you can see and hear as business owners greet their customers and friends in any of the locally-owned restaurants, bars, retail shops and entertainment venues that line our streets. From stats pulled by our friends at Downtown Durham, Inc., we know 90% of downtown’s retail, restaurant and personal service businesses originated in NC and 70% started right here in Durham. Our Farmers’ Market is open year-round in the heart of downtown with more than 65 local vendors who proudly produce an abundance of produce, meat, dairy, grains, baked goods, seafood, and crafts. Durham is ranked the #7 city with the highest percentage of female business owners and the 4th best place to start a business.

WHAT MAKES DURHAM, DURHAM?

Durham’s best qualities are becoming well-known; our accolades and recognition highlight the qualities we in Durham already know to be true — it's one of the best places to live in the US, one of the country's top 25 most underrated destinations, #6 for top tech innovation metro areas, #7 for best cities for working women, #3 for best cities in the US to start a small business, #2 smallest gender wage gap, and the list goes on to include many praises for individual businesses in our community. We’re a top-ten city in the country where Black Americans fare best economically and are witnessing a resurgence of Black-owned businesses opening.

Keen readers will notice how we didn’t say what makes Raleigh-Durham, Raleigh-Durham. If you follow us on social media, you very well know that we tease those who think “Raleigh-Durham" is a place beyond the airport’s boundaries. We are on numerous of these lists because we are so closely connected to our neighbors in Raleigh and Chapel Hill as part of the Triangle. We love being a part of the Triangle. But unapologetic about being one city located within the Triangle. For a bit more reasoning as to why we care about correcting the misnomer, read more about it here.

SOME ATTRACTIONS WE'RE NATIONALLY KNOWN FOR:

• The Durham Bulls, America’s most famous minor-league baseball team 
• DPAC, Durham Performing Arts Center, consistently ranked in the nation’s top five theaters for attendance 
• The Museum of Life and Science, one of NC’s top family destinations 
• Duke University’s chapel, Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Nasher Museum of Art, and, of course, basketball 
• The American Tobacco Campus, originally the hub of tobacco manufacturing in Durham, now renovated into an expanding downtown live-work-play community hub featuring restaurants, bars, and event space
• Chef Ricky Moore of Saltbox Seafood Joint won the 2022 James Beard Awards’ Best Chef in the Southeast category, considered to be the Oscars of the food world. Our cullinary community continues to bring in accolades, earning Durham many award winning restaurants and chefs.
• The MICHELIN Guide American South recognized four Durham restaurants, putting the Bull City on the international culinary map.

Discover Durham Visitor Services

Discover Durham's Visitor Info Center and the Discover Durham offices are located at:

212 W. Main St. #101Durham NC 27701
(downtown Durham, I-85 Exit 177)