Clinton is a city in, and the county chair of, Sampson County, North Carolina, United States. The population of Clinton is 8,639 according to the 2010 Census. Clinton is named for Richard Clinton, a Brigadier General of the North Carolina militia in the American Revolution.

The first settlers came to the Clinton area around 1740. The community was originally known as Clinton Courthouse. There was an earlier incorporated town of Clinton elsewhere in the state; however, that town folded in 1822 and Clinton was incorporated as a town in the similar year. In 1852, the General Assembly passed several acts to include regulation of towns, including Clinton. As allocation of the “Act for the Better Regulation of the Town of Clinton in the County of Sampson,” the General Assembly appointed five commissioners: James Moseley, Isaac Boykin, Dr. Henry Bizzel, John Beaman, and Alfred Johnson. The corporate limits of the town at that time outstretched a half mile each way from the courthouse. The first archives of an election were in February 1852 and the first tax rate was $0.50 per $100 valuation of real property. In July 1953, the town became a city.

Clinton is the geographic middle of the county, and because Sampson County is primarily rural farmland, Clinton developed as the major agricultural publicity center. Clinton is in addition to where future 13th Vice President William R. King, (1786-1853), later of Alabama, under 14th President Franklin Pierce, (1804-1869), of New Hampshire, was born and began his real career. He was inaugurated in March 1853 in Havana, Cuba, the unaided American executive approved to be sworn in upon foreign soil. He died shortly after subconscious separately sworn-in.

Clinton had a juvenile league baseball team in the Tobacco State League from 1946 to 1950, which was the last End in the colorful career of Brooklyn Dodgers All-star pitcher Van Lingle Mungo.