Durham is a colorful, creative, and entrepreneurial community and is the proud home of Research Triangle Park, Duke and North Carolina Central universities. The community prides itself on its diversity, heritage, and culture, always welcoming Durham newcomers with its infectious Southern hospitality.

Through its engaged citizens and entrepreneurial spirit, Durham is preserving its rich history while paving the way for the future. With world-class research facilities, universities and schools consistently named among the nation's finest, and some of the nation’s top medical centers, it is easy to see how research, education, and medicine have replaced tobacco and textiles as the fuel the drives Durham’s economic engine.

Durham has earned its reputation as the City of Medicine, USA, for its outstanding hospitals, major national and multinational health care companies, specialty clinics, nationally recognized medical teaching facilities, and acclaimed centers for weight management.

Durham’s innovative and creative workforce is on the leading edge of biotech, high-tech, and telecommunications research, development, and implementation. Add education, health care, and hospitality and you can see why Durham’s economic and business climate is so highly regarded.

A vibrant quality of life and commitment to arts and culture contribute to Durham’s ever-growing popularity. Durham is home to more than a dozen historic sites, three major art centers, six science and nature centers, and great spectator sports venues and teams.

Whether you want to relive history, let the kids loose in an interactive and educational science museum, or gaze in awe at masterpieces from centuries past, Durham offers stimulating, engaging, entertaining, and family-friendly choices.

Durham’s neighborhoods encompass Research Triangle Park, Duke and North Carolina Central universities, and range from historic homes on tree-canopied streets to renovated Downtown lofts to planned communities around lakes or golf courses to farmhouses with acreage.

With its four distinct seasons, diverse population, and vibrant quality of life, it’s no wonder Durham is consistently ranked among the best places to live by sources like Ladies Home Journal (#3 Best Small City for Women), Utne magazine (#3 Most Enlightened City), Business Development Outlook (#14 Best City for Quality of Life), Out magazine (Top 10 Best Cities for Gays and Lesbians to Live), and CNN/Money magazine (#92 Best Place to Live 2005).