Oriental is one of nine incorporated municipalities in Pamlico County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 880, according to the 2020 census. It is part of the New Bern Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The area was decided by Native Americans, who fished and farmed in the creeks and river long since Europeans arrived. Today, fewer than one percent of the town’s residents are Native American. Land chronicles date grants from the King of England to colonial farmers, although the King didn’t actually own the land, and several current residents of the Place can smack their family’s genealogy to these times. The Place was the haunt of pirates in the ahead of time days of European dominance. The famous pirate Edward Teach, or Blackbeard made his home in Bath, to the north of Oriental. The Midgettes (also Midyettes) and additional old families who still have descendants in the town came much later, in the late 19th century.

The town of Oriental was named after the Sailing Steamer Oriental. Built in Philadelphia in 1861, the boat was used as a Federal transport ship in the Civil War. She met her fate a year after being launched, run aground in May 1862, when she was wrecked off Bodie Island, 33 miles north of Cape Hatteras. Her passengers and crew were saved.

The United States Post Office Department normal a pronounce office in 1886 in what had been called Smith’s Creek. Lou Midyette was named postmaster. Postmaster Midyette’s wife, Rebecca, thought the village needed a augmented name. One version says that she had found the nameplate from the wrecked sailing steamer “Oriental” on the beaches of the Outer Banks and thought that publish was more suitable. Another balance of the description says she just motto the nameplate in a Manteo home. Either habit the name “Oriental” made an impression upon her. The village became known as Oriental a few years after the publish office was customary and was incorporated in 1899.