Orange County, North Carolina

About Orange County Nestled in the hills of the North Carolina Piedmont, Orange County is located between the Research Triangle Park and the Triad cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point. With more than 140,000 residents, Orange County includes historic Hillsborough, the county seat; Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina; and Carrboro and Mebane, former railroad and mill towns. When Orange County was founded in 1752, five Native American tribes were already living in this area. Two years later, William Churton laid out the boundaries of Hillsborough on land where the Great Indian Trading Path crossed the Eno River. Center of North Carolina Politics Hillsborough was the center of North Carolina politics in the colonial era and hosted the state's Constitutional Convention in 1778, where North Carolina delegates demanded that a Bill of Rights be added before they would ratify the U.S. Constitution. University of North Carolina In 1789, the North Carolina General Assembly chartered the University of North Carolina, the nation's first state university to admit undergraduates. UNC-Chapel Hill is the flagship campus of a 16-member state university system and is consistently rated as one of the country's finest state institutions of higher learning.