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North Carolina
North Carolina is a
southern state in the
United States. North
Carolina was one of the
thirteen colonies that State nickname: Tar Heel State
revolted against British
rule in the American
Revolution. It is
bordered by South
Carolina on the south,
Georgia on the Capital Raleigh
southwest, Tennessee on Largest City Charlotte
the west, Virginia on
the north, and the Area Ranked 28th
Atlantic Ocean on the - Total 139,509 km2
east. It was named in - Land 126,256 km2
honor of King Charles I - Water 13,227 km2
of England. - % water 9.5%
Population Ranked 11th
USS North Carolina was - Total (2000) 8,049,313
named in honor of this - Density 57.7/km2
state.
Admittance into Union
- Order 12th
- Date November 21, 1789
Time zone Eastern: UTC-5/-4
Latitude 34æN to 36æ21'N
Longitude 75æ30'W to 84æ15'W
Length 805 km
-Highest 2,037 meters
-Mean 215 meters
-Lowest 0 meters
ISO 3166-2: US-NC
History
Originally inhabited by a number of native tribes, including the Cherokee,
North Carolina was the first American territory the English attempted to
colonize. Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom the state capital is named, chartered
two colonies on the North Carolina coast in the late 1580s, both ending in
failure. The demise of one, the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island, remains one
of the great mysteries of American history.
By the late seventeenth century, several permanent settlements had taken
hold in the Carolina territory, which encompassed present-day South Carolina
and Tennessee as well. In 1712, North Carolina became a separate colony. It
reverted to a royal colony seventeen years later. In April 1776, the colony
became the first to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to
vote for independence from the British crown.
On November 21, 1789, North Carolina ratified the Constitution to become the
twelfth state in the Union. Between the American Revolutionary War and the
American Civil War, North Carolina worked to establish its state and local
governments. In 1840, it completed the state capitol building in Raleigh,
still standing today. In mid-century the state's rural and commercial areas
were further connected by construction of a 129 mile wooden plank road,
known as a "farmer's railroad," from Fayetteville in the east to Bethania
(northwest of Winston-Salem).
Divided on whether to support the North or the South in the Civil War, North
Carolina seceded from the Union in 1861.
Over the past century, North Carolina has grown to become a leader in
agriculture and industry. The state's industrial output--mainly textiles,
chemicals, electrical equipment, paper and paper products--ranked eighth in
the nation in the early 1990s. Tobacco, one of North Carolina's earliest
sources of revenue, remains vital to the local economy.
North Carolina has had three constitutions:
* 1776: This one was ratified December 18, 1776, as the first
constitution of the independent state. The Declaration of Rights was
ratified the preceding day.
* 1868: This was framed in accordance with the Reconstruction Acts after
North Carolina was readmitted into the Union. It was a major
reorganization and modification of the original into fourteen articles.
* 1971: This is a minor consolidation of the 1868 constitution and
subsequent amendments.
Law and Government
The capital of North Carolina is Raleigh and its governor is Mike Easley
(Democrat). Its two U.S. senators are John Edwards (Democrat) and Elizabeth
Dole (Republican).
Geography
The State of North Carolina is included between the parallels 34æ and 36æ30'
north latitude, and between the meridians 75æ30' and 84æ30' west longitude.
Its western boundary is the crest of the Smoky Mountains, which, with the
Blue Ridge, forms a part of the great Appalachian system, extending almost
from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River to the Gulf of Mexico; its
eastern is the Atlantic Ocean. Its mean breadth from north to south is about
one hundred miles; its extreme breadth is one hundred and eighty-eight
miles. The extreme length of the State from east to west is five hundred
miles. The area embraced within its boundaries is fifty-two thousand two
hundred and eighty-six square miles.
The climate of North Carolina is mild and equable. This is due in part to
its geographical position; midway, as it were, between the northern and
southern limits of the Union. Two other causes concur to modify it; the one,
the lofty Appalachian chain, which forms, to some extent, a shield from the
bleak winds of the northwest; the other, the softening influence of the Gulf
Stream, the current of which sweeps along near its shores.
The result of these combined causes is shown in the character of the
seasons. Fogs are almost unknown; frosts occur not until the middle of
October; ice rarely forms of a sufficient thickness to be gathered; snows
are light, seldom remaining on the ground more than two or three days. The
average rainfall is about fifty-three inches, which is pretty uniformly
distributed throughout the year. The climate is eminently favorable to
health and longevity.
The State falls naturally into three divisions or sections -- the Western or
Mountain section, the Middle or Piedmont section, and the Eastern or
Tidewater section. The first consists of mountains, many of them rising to
towering heights, the highest, indeed, east of the Rocky Mountains. It is
bounded on the east by the Blue Ridge and on the west by the Smoky
Mountains. The section inclosed within these limits is in shape somewhat
like an ellipse. Its length is about one hundred and eighty miles; its
average breadth from twenty to fifty miles. It is a high plateau, from the
plane of which many lofty mountains everywhere rise, and on its border the
culminating points of the Appalachian system -- the Roau, the Grandfather
and the Black -- lift their heads to the sky. Between the mountains are
fertile valleys, plentifully watered by streams, many of them remarkable for
their beauty. The mountains themselves are wooded, except a few which have
prairies on their summits, locally distinguished as "balds." This section
has long been one of the favorite resorts of the tourist and the painter.
The Middle section lies between the Blue Ridge and the falls where the
rivers make their descent into the great plain which forms the Eastern
section of the State. Its area comprises nearly one-half of the territory of
the State. Throughout the greater part it presents an endless succession of
hills and dales, though the surface near the mountains is of a bolder and
sometimes of a rugged cast. The scenery of this section is as remarkable for
quiet, picturesque beauty, as that of the Western is for sublimity and grandeur.
The Eastern section is a Champaign country; relieved, however, by gentle
undulations. Its breadth is about one hundred miles. Its principal beauty
lies in its river scenery and extensive water prospects.
The cultivated productions of the Mountain section are sweetcorn, wheat,
oats, barley, hay, tobacco, fruits and vegetables. Cattle are also reared
quite extensively for market. In the Middle section are found all the
productions of the former, and over the southern half cotton appears as the
staple product. In the Eastern section cotton, corn, oats and rice are
staple crops, and the "trucking business" (growing fruits and vegetables for
the Northern markets), constitutes a flourishing industry. The lumber
business, and the various industries to which the long-leaf pine gives rise,
tar, pitch and turpentine, have long been, and still continue to be, great
resources of wealth for this section. Of the crops produced in the United
States all are grown in North Carolina except sugar and some semi-tropical
fruits, as the orange, the lemon and the banana. The wine grapes of America
may be said to have their home in North Carolina; four of them, the Catawba,
Isabella, Lincoln and Scuppernong, originated here.
The physical characteristics of the State will be better understood by
picturing to the mind its surface as spread out upon a vast declivity,
sloping down from the summits of the Smoky Mountains, an altitude of near
seven thousand feet, to the ocean level. Through the range of elevation thus
afforded, the plants and trees (or what is comprehended under the term
flora) vary from those peculiar to Alpine regions to those peculiar to semi-
tropical regions.
The variety of trees is most marked, including all those which yield timber
employed in the useful and many of those employed in the ornamental arts.
Indeed, nearly all the species found in the United States, east of the Rocky
Mountains, are found in North Carolina. Her wealth in this respect will be
appreciated when the striking fact is mentioned that there are more species
of oaks in North Carolina than in all the States north of us, and only one
less than in all the Southern States east of the Mississippi. This range of
elevation affords also a great variety of medicinal herbs. In fact, the
mountains of North Carolina are the 'storehouse' of the United States for
plants of this description.
The mountains of North Carolina may be conveniently classed as four separate
chains: the Smoky, forming the western boundary of the State; the Blue
Ridge, running across the State in a very tortuous course, and shooting out
spurs of great elevation; the Brushy (which divides, for the greater part of
its course, the waters of the Catawba and Yadkin), beginning at a point near
Lenoir and terminating in the Pilot and Sauratown Mountains; and an inferior
range of much lower elevation, which may be termed, from its local name at
different points, the Uwharrie or Oconeechee Mountains beginning in
Montgomery county and terminating in the heights about Roxboro, in Person county.
Each of these mountain ranges is marked by distinct characteristics. The
Smoky chain, as contrasted with the next highest -- the Blue Ridge -- is
more continuous, more elevated, more regular in its direction and height,
and rises very uniformly from five thousand to nearly six thousand seven
hundred feet.
The Blue Ridge is composed of many fragments scarcely connected into a
continuous and regular chain. Its loftier summits range from five thousand
to five thousand nine hundred feet. The Brushy range presents, throughout
the greater part of its course, a remarkable uniformity in direction and
elevation, many of its peaks rising above two thousand feet. The last, the
Oconeechee or Uwharrie range, sometimes presents a succession of elevated
ridges, then a number of bold and isolated knobs, whose heights are one
thousand feet above the sea level.
There are three distinct systems of rivers in the State: those that find
their way to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi, those that flow
through South Carolina to the sea and those that reach the sea along our own
coast. The divide between the first and the second is the Blue Ridge chain
of mountains; that between the second and third systems is found in an
elevation extending from the Blue Ridge, near the Virginia line, just
between the sources of the Yadkin and the Roanoke, in a south-easterly
direction some two hundred miles, almost to the sea-coast below Wilmington.
In the divide between the first and second systems, which is also the great
watershed between the Atlantic slope and the Mississippi Valley, a singular
anomaly is presented, for it is formed not by the lofty Smoky range, but by
the Blue Ridge -- not, therefore, at the crest of the great slope which the
surface of the State presents, but on a line lower down. On the western
flank of this lower range the beautiful French Broad and the other rivers of
the first section, including the headwaters of the Great Khanawha, have
their rise. In their course through the Smoky Mountains to the Mississippi
they pass along chasms or "gaps" from three thousand to four thousand feet
in depth. These chasms or "gaps" are more than a thousand feet lower than
those of the corresponding parts of the Blue Ridge.
The rivers of the second system rise on the eastern flank of the Blue Ridge.
These rivers -- the Catawba and the Yadkin, with their tributaries
stretching from the Broad River, near the mountains in the west, to the
Lumber near the seacoast -- water some thirty counties in the State, a
fan-shaped territory, embracing much the greater portion of the Piedmont
section of the State.
The rivers of the third system are the Chowan, the Roanoke, the Tar, the
Neuse and the Cape Fear, usually navigable some for fifty and others to near
one hundred miles for boats of light draught. Of these the three last have
their rise near the northern boundary of the State, in a comparatively small
area, near the eastern source of the Yadkin. The Chowan has its rise in
Virginia, below Appomattox Court House. The principal sources of the
Roanoke, also, are in Virginia, in the Blue Ridge, though some of its head
streams are in North Carolina, and very near those of the Yadkin. Only one
of these rivers, the Cape Fear, flows directly into the ocean in this State;
the others, after reaching the low country, move on with diminished current
and empty into large bodies of water known as sounds.
The great rivers of these three systems, with their network of countless
tributaries, great and small, afford a truly magnificent water supply. Flat
lands border the streams in every section; they are everywhere exceptionally
rich, and in the Tidewater section, of great breadth. In their course from
the high plateaus to the low country all the rivers of the State have a
descent of many hundred feet, made by frequent falls and rapids. These falls
and rapids afford all unlimited motive power for machinery of every
description; and here many cotton mills and other factories have been
established, and are multiplying every year.
The sounds, and the rivers which empty into them, constitute a network of
waterway for steam and sailing vessels of eleven hundred miles. They are
separated from the ocean by a line of sand banks, varying in breadth from
one hundred yards to two miles, and in height from a few feet above the tide
level to twenty-five or thirty feet, on which horses of a small breed,
called "Bank Ponies," are reared in great numbers, and in a half wild state.
These banks extend along the entire shore a distance of three hundred miles.
Through them there are a number of inlets from the sea to the sounds, but
they are usually too shallow except for vessels of light burden. Along its
northern coast the commerce of the State has, in consequence, been
restricted; it has, however, an extensive commerce through Beaufort Harbor
and the Cape Fear River.
The sounds, and the rivers in their lower courses, abound with fish and
waterfowl. Hunting the canvas-back duck and other fowls for the Northern
cities is a regular and profitable branch of industry; while herring, shad
and rock-fishing is pursued, especially along Albemarle Sound, with spirit,
skill and energy, and a large outlay of capital.
Major geographic features include the Blue Ridge Mountains in the west, the
Piedmont region of the south central portion of the state, and Cape Fear,
Cape Hatteras, and the Outer Banks off the eastern coast.
Economy
The state's 1999 total gross state product was $259 billion, placing it 12th
in the nation. Its 2000 Per Capita Personal Income was $27,194, 30th in the
nation. North Carolina's agricultural outputs are poultry and eggs, tobacco,
hogs, milk, nursery stock, cattle, and soybeans. Its industrial outputs are
tobacco products, textile goods, chemical products, electric equipment,
machinery, and tourism.
Demographics
According the 2000 census, North Carolina's population was 8,049,313.
Important Cities and Towns
* Asheville * Greenville
* Cary * High Point
* Charlotte * Jacksonville
* Concord * Raleigh (the capital)
* Durham * Rocky Mount
* Fayetteville * Wilmington
* Gastonia * Winston-Salem
* Greensboro
Small towns/areas with interesting names:
* Climax, North Carolina (in Guilford County, near Greensboro)
* Lizard Lick, North Carolina (in Wake County, near Raleigh)
* Soul City, North Carolina (in Warren County)
Education
Colleges and Universities
* Appalachian State University * North Carolina Central University
* Barber-Scotia College * North Carolina A and T State
* Barton College University
* Belmont Abbey College * North Carolina School of the Arts
* Bennett College * North Carolina State University
* Brevard College * North Carolina Wesleyan College
* Campbell University * Peace College
* Catawba College * Pfeiffer University
* Chowan College * Piedmont Baptist College
* Davidson College * Queens College
* Duke University * Roanoke Bible College
* East Carolina University * St. Andrews Presbyterian College
* Elizabeth City State * St. Augustine's College
University * Salem College
* Elon University * Shaw University
* Fayetteville State University * University of North Carolina at
* Gardner-Webb University Asheville
* Greensboro College * University of North Carolina at
* Guilford College Chapel Hill
* High Point University * University of North Carolina at
* Johnson C. Smith University Charlotte
* Lees-McRae College * University of North Carolina at
* Lenoir-Rhyne College Greensboro
* Livingstone College * University of North Carolina at
* Louisburg College Pembroke
* Mars Hill College * University of North Carolina at
* Meredith College Wilmington
* Methodist College * Wake Forest University
* Montreat College * Warren Wilson College
* Mount Olive College * Western Carolina University
* Wingate University
* Winston-Salem State University
Professional Sports Teams
* Carolina Panthers, National Football * Minor League Baseball
League teams
* Carolina Hurricanes, National Hockey o Charlotte Knights
League o Durham Bulls
* Charlotte Bobcats, National Basketball o Kinston Indians
Association 2004 o Winston-Salem
* Charlotte Sting, Women's National Warthogs
Basketball Association o Burlington Indians
* Carolina Courage, Women's United Soccer o Carolina Mudcats
Association (playing in Chapel Hill) o Kannapolis
Intimidators
o Greensboro Bats
o Asheville Tourists
o Hickory Crawdads
Miscellaneous Information
State Bird: Cardinal Scientific Name: Cardinalis cardinalis
State Flower: Dogwood Scientific Name: Cornus florida
State Motto: Esse quam videri (To be, rather than to seem)
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