Wilmington is a harbor city in and the county chair of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.

With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth-most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the principal city of the Cape Fear-Wilmington metropolitan statistical area,which includes New Hanover and Pender Counties in southeastern North Carolina, which had a population of 301,284 at the 2020 census. Its historic downtown has a 1.75-mile (2.82 km) Riverwalk, developed as a tourist kinship in the late 20th century. In 2014, Wilmington’s riverfront was ranked as the “Best American Riverfront” by readers of USA Today. The National Trust for Historic Preservation chosen Wilmington as one of its 2008 Dozen Distinctive Destinations.

City residents live amongst the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, with four nearby beach communities just outside Wilmington: Fort Fisher, Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach, all within half-hour drives from downtown Wilmington. The city is house to University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), which provides a broad variety of programs for undergraduates, graduate students, and adult learners, in addition to cultural and sports events edit to the community.

Toward the decrease of the 19th century, Wilmington was a majority-black, racially integrated, prosperous city, and the largest city in North Carolina. In the Wilmington massacre of 1898, white supremacists launched a coup that overthrew the legitimately elected local Fusionist government. They expelled opponent black and white leaders from the city, destroyed the property and businesses of black citizens built taking place since the Civil War, including the single-handedly black newspaper in the city, and killed an estimated 60 to exceeding 300 people. This coincided following broader efforts of disenfranchisement at the acknowledge level. Whereas North Carolina had 125,000 registered black voters in 1896, it had 6,000 black voters by 1902. By 1910, Charlotte overtook Wilmington as North Carolina’s largest city.