Wilmington

Port and largest city in Delaware, USA, at the junction of the Brandywine with the Delaware River; population (2000) 72,700. It is the focus of a metropolitan area extending into neighbouring New Jersey and Maryland. Industries include shipbuilding, and the manufacture of chemicals, textiles, and iron and steel products. It is the headquarters of E I Du Pont de Nemours and Co, founded as a gunpowder mill in 1802.

Wilmington was originally settled as Christinahamn by Swedish colonists in 1638. It passed to the Dutch in 1655, and the English in 1664. Quakers laid out the city in 1731, naming it after one of the friends of William Penn.

Features The city is the seat of Goldey–Beacom College, founded in 1886; the University of Delaware is in neighbouring Newark. Historic sites include Old Swedes Church (1698), one of the oldest churches in continuous use in the USA, and the Old Town Hall (1798). The Delaware Art Gallery houses English Pre-Raphaelite and American works. Hagley Museum describes the rise of the Du Pont corporation, and the Du Pont family mansions are popular tourist attractions: Nemours Mansion (1910), contains a formal garden modelled on that of Versailles, and the Winterthur estate, features 200 rooms displaying aspects of early-American decorative art.

History As a Swedish colony, Christinahamn was established around Fort Christina, and was the capital of New Sweden 1638–43 and in 1654; a monument now marks the site. Under the British, it was administered as part of Pennsylvania.

Wilmington

City and port in southeast North Carolina, USA, on the Cape Fear River, 50 km/30 mi from the Atlantic Ocean; population (2000) 75,800. It is the state's chief seaport; deepwater access has been provided by dredging the river to a depth of 10 m/32 ft. Agricultural products are exported, and oil is the main import. Industries include film-production, timber- and tobacco-processing, and the manufacture of chemicals, fibre optics, and textiles. Tourism is also important to the economy. Wilmington was settled in 1740, and named after the British politician Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington. During the Civil War it was the Confederates' main Atlantic port and the last to close; ‘Blockade Runners’ continued to export cotton until 1865.

Features The University of North Carolina at Wilmington was founded in 1947. Historic sites include Burgwin-Wright House, headquarters of the British general Charles Cornwallis in 1781, during the American War of Independence; and the World War II battleship USS North Carolina. Other places of interest are Cape Fear Museum, Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design Arts, and St John's Art Museum, with works by the 19th-century Impressionist Mary Cassatt.

Wilmington

Village in East Sussex, southeast England, 8 km/5 mi northwest of Eastbourne; population (2001, with Wilmington Green, Folkington, and Milton Street) 400. A ruined Benedictine monastery is now an agricultural museum. Nearby on the South Downs is a hill figure cut into the chalk of Windover Hill, the Long Man of Wilmington.