Edenton is a town in, and the county seat of, Chowan County, North Carolina, United States, on Albemarle Sound. The population was 4,397 at the 2020 census. Edenton is located in North Carolina’s Inner Banks region. In recent years Edenton has become a popular retirement location and a destination for extraction tourism.

Edenton served as the second ascribed capital of North Carolina, during the colonial times as the Province of North Carolina, though new than housing the governor’s attributed residence, it did not otherwise home any additional governmental functions. It served as capital from 1722 to 1743, when it was moved to Brunswick. The town was the site of the Edenton Tea Party, a commotion organized by several Edenton women in 1774 in solidarity in the tell of the organizers of the Boston Tea Party. It was the birthplace of Harriet Jacobs, an enslaved African American whose 1861 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is now considered an American classic. Edenton gained notoriety for a well-known wrongful conviction during the Satanic panic epoch of the late twentieth century. Today, Edenton’s local economy is primarily driven by tourism, and as a popular retirement location.

In 1658 adventurers from the Jamestown area drifted through the wilderness from Virginia and found a location on the bank 36°02′38″N 76°36′47″W / 36.044°N 76.613°W / 36.044; -76.613 of a natural harbor, the site of present-day Edenton. Edenton Colony was the first surviving European agreement in what is now the let in of North Carolina.

Edenton was expected in 1712 as “the Towne upon Queen Anne’s Creek”. It was later known as “Ye Towne upon Mattercommack Creek” and still later as “the Port of Roanoke”. It was renamed “Edenton” and incorporated in 1722 in honor of Governor Charles Eden, who had died that year.