Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States

🇺🇸 Fayetteville is a city in Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Cumberland County, and is best known as the home of Fort Bragg, a major U.S. Army installation north-west of the city.

Fayetteville has received the All-America City Award from the National Civic League three times. It is the 6th-largest city in North Carolina. Fayetteville is in the Sandhills in the western part of the Coastal Plain region, on the Cape Fear River.

The Fayetteville metropolitan area is the largest in south-eastern North Carolina, and the fifth-largest in the state. Suburban areas of metro Fayetteville include Fort Bragg, Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Raeford, Pope Field, Rockfish, Stedman, and Eastover.

Early settlement The area of present-day Fayetteville was historically inhabited by various Siouan Native American peoples, such as the Eno, Shakori, Waccamaw, Keyauwee, and Cape Fear people. They followed successive cultures of other indigenous peoples in the area for more than 12,000 years.

After the violent upheavals of the Yamasee War and Tuscarora Wars during the second decade of the 18th century, the colonial government of North Carolina encouraged colonial settlement along the upper Cape Fear River, the only navigable waterway entirely within the colony. Two inland settlements, Cross Creek and Campbellton, were established by Scots from 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Campbeltown, Argyll and Bute, Scotland.

Merchants in Wilmington wanted a town on the Cape Fear River to secure trade with the frontier country. They were afraid people would use the Pee Dee River and transport their goods to Charleston, South Carolina. The merchants bought land from Newberry in Cross Creek. Campbellton became a place where poor whites and free blacks lived, and gained a reputation for lawlessness.

In 1783, Cross Creek and Campbellton united, and the new town was incorporated as Fayetteville in honor of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, a French military hero who significantly aided the American forces during the war. Fayetteville was the first city to be named in his honor in the United States. Lafayette visited the city on March 4 and 5, 1825, during his grand tour of the United States.

American Revolution The local region was heavily settled by Scots in the mid/late 1700s, and most of these were Gaelic-speaking Highlanders. The vast majority of Highland Scots, recent immigrants, remained loyal to the British government and rallied to the call to arms from the Royal Governor. Despite this, they were eventually defeated by a larger Revolutionary force at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. The area also included a number of active Revolutionaries.

Geography The city limits extend west to the Hoke boundary. It is bordered on the north by the town of Spring Lake.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Fayetteville has a total area of 147.7 square miles (382.6 km²), of which 145.8 square miles (377.7 km²) is land and 1.9 square miles (4.8 km²) is water. The total area is 1.926% water.

Geography: Topography Fayetteville is in the Sandhills of North Carolina, which are between the coastal plain to the south-east and the Piedmont to the northwest. The city is built on the Cape Fear River, a 202-mile-long (325 km) river that originates in Haywood and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Carver's Falls, measuring 150 feet (46 m) wide and two stories tall, is on Carver Creek, a tributary of the Cape Fear, just north-east of the city limits. Cross Creek rises on the west side of Fayetteville and flows through to the east side of Fayetteville into the Cape Fear River.

Economy Fort Bragg is the backbone of the county's economy. Fort Bragg and Pope Field pump about $4.5 billion a year into the region's economy, making Fayetteville one of the best retail markets in the country. Fayetteville serves as the region's hub for shops, restaurants, services, lodging, health care and entertainment.

As of March 2019 Fayetteville reflected an unemployment rate of 5.2%, which is higher than the national average of 3.8% and the North Carolina average of 4%.

Economy: Top employers According to the Fayetteville 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city include: 1 Department of Defense (Civilian) (Fort Bragg); 2 Cape Fear Valley Health System; 3 Cumberland County Public School System; 4 Wal-Mart; 5 Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company; 6 Cumberland County Government; 7 Veterans Administration; 8 City of Fayetteville; 9 Fayetteville Technical Community College; 10 Fayetteville State University.

Defense industry The Fayetteville area has a large and growing defense industry and was ranked in the top five areas in US for 2008, 2010, 2011 by a trade publication. Eight of the ten top American defense contractors are located in the area, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and L-3 Communications. The city hosts Partnership for Defense Initiatives (PDI), a trade association promoting defense contractors.

Education: University • Carolina College of Biblical Studies • Manna University (formerly Grace College of Divinity) • Fayetteville State University • Fayetteville Technical Community College • Methodist University • Shaw University Satellite Campus.