Durham

City and administrative headquarters of Durham County, north-central North Carolina, USA, 40 km/25 mi northwest of Raleigh, on the Eno River; population (2000) 187,000. Tobacco is the main industry here; other products include precision instruments, textiles, furniture, and lumber. Durham is the home of Duke University (founded as Union Institute in 1838, it was enlarged by the Duke family and called Duke University in 1924), North Carolina Central University (1910), and Durham Technical Institute (1961).

Durham was settled in 1750 and developed around the tobacco industry in the 19th century; it was incorporated in 1869. Washington Duke and his sons began making tobacco products here after the American Civil War. In the 1880s, they mechanized the industry, making Durham the leading US cigarette producer. The city has also become a medical centre, relying largely on tobacco money. Bennett Place State Historical Park, 5 km/3 mi to the northwest, was the site, on 26 April 1865, of Joseph Johnston's surrender of the last Confederate force active in the East.