Cary North Carolina

Cary North Carolina lies between the capital, Raleigh, and Durham in the middle of the state's Piedmont area. A CNN Money magazine hot spot, its population at the 2000 census was 104,000. Part of the well-known triangle of university towns in central North Carolina, Cary offers much the same amenities as the rest of the immediate area. A host of libraries, theaters and museums are within 30 miles. The Great Smoky Mountains lie 190 miles west and the Outer Banks 150 miles east.

Things to Know about Cary North Carolina

Initially settled as Bradford's Landing about 1750, Cary was brought into its own by Francis Page. Page and his wife Catherine laid out the first streets and named the settlement Cary after Samuel Fenton Cary of Ohio in 1854. Their son Walter was ambassador to Great Britain during World War I and is commemorated by a tablet in Westminster Abbey. Cary North Carolina was incorporated in 1871 after two railroads made it a junction. Cary grew rapidly as a bedroom community to Research Triangle Park in the 1960s.

Ranked fifth safest of 350 cities nationwide, Cary North Carolina has remained, with much pride, a town. Median age in Cary is 33 years old. Some 14 percent of its population was born outside the United States. Cary's largest minority is Asian, a group that has tripled in the last 10 years.

School-aged children make up nearly 25 percent of the population. Nearly 65 percent of Cary residents are college graduates. Downtown Durham and Chapel Hill lie fewer than 25 miles away. Downtown Raleigh is immediately adjacent.