Two hundred fifty years ago the Scots-Irish immigrants traveling the great wagon road from Philadelphia stopped at the crossroads of two ancient Native American trading paths just east of the Catawba River. There they built a settlement. As friends and neighbors joined them, the community grew. In 1768 the town was incorporated and named Charlotte in honor of the wife of King George III, the reigning English monarch. Local citizens again honored the Queen when they named the new county Mecklenburg after her German homeland.

 

Today Charlotte-Mecklenburg is the largest metropolitan area in the Carolinas and offers something for just about everyone: business opportunity, cultural attractions, arts, entertainment, shopping, dining and a wide variety of accommodations. Facilities such as the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, the Mint Museum of Art, the Charlotte Coliseum and Discovery Place make Charlotte the leading visitor destination in North Carolina.

 

World-class sporting draws include the NFL's Carolina Panthers, and the Charlotte Motor Speedway -- home of NASCAR's annual shoot-out race, The Winston; the UAW/GM Goodwrench 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, one of the largest sporting events in the world.

 

Charlotte is the second largest banking center in the U.S.with two of the nation's largest banks -- Bank of America (#1) and Wachovia (#4)  -- headquartered here. Charlotte is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other Carolinas city. Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the largest US Airways hub, is one of the 30 busiest airports in the world (21st in the US) with direct flights to most US cities and Canada, the Caribbean and Europe.

 

The Queen City has wide ranging post-secondary educational opportunities. Davidson College, consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the nation is located in northern Mecklenburg County. Mecklenburg County is also home to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Johnson C. Smith, Queens College, Johnson & Wales College of Culinary Arts, and Central Piedmont Community College, one of the largest two-year schools in the nation with a reputation for instruction innovation. Some of the state's other leading schools including Wake Forest, Pfeiffer and Wingate universities offer programs here.

 

Our new-South city was recently voted one of the best places in the nation to live by Newsweek magazine and has been featured in other national publications as a vibrant place to live, work and play with tremendous growth potential in the Twenty-first Century. Come to Charlotte and see why it's called the city that has "no limits."