What is the Triangle Area of North Carolina

When I get calls from people considering relocating to the Triangle I often hear “We are moving to Raleigh, will you help us find the best neighborhood?” Raleigh doesn’t usually mean Raleigh but one of the many towns in the Triangle. I want to answer the question, What is the Triangle and what towns and cities are included besides Raleigh?

Raleigh is in the Triangle area of NC

Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill are towns in NC that form the points of a triangle. The area has been called the Triangle since the 60’s, named after Research Triangle Park.

What is Research Triangle Park (RTP)

RTP is a research and technology industrial park about 7 miles long and 2 miles long located in Durham County in about the middle of the Triangle. It isn’t a town or city, it’s an area in the middle of the Triangle set aside for research and development. Many big companies are located there. Driving through RTP you would never know there is anything there because the buildings are set back behind trees and it really does look like a park. It os very convenient to RDU airport.

Each of the 3 towns has a large university. Chapel Hill is the home of the University of North Carolina (UNC), Duke University is in Durham and NC State is located in Raleigh. The 3 cities are about 30 minutes apart. Duke University Hospital and  UNC Health  are huge, award winning hospital centers.

As time has gone on more towns and 5 counties are considered part of the Triangle even though they don’t fit in the triangle of Raleigh , Durham and Chapel Hill.

Fearrington Village, Pittsboro

Counties,towns and cities I would include in the Triangle:

Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Garner, Knightdale, Morrisville, Rolesville,Wake Forest, Wendell and Zebulon and Clayton are in Wake County

Chapel Hill , Carrboro and Hillsborough are in Orange County.

Durham County and Durham City are in Durham County

Pittsboro, and some homes with a Chapel Hill address are in Chatham County.

Clayton is in Johnston County

Population of the Triangle Area

The Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill area has a population of around 2 million people.

About Triangle counties: Wake, Durham, Chatham, and Orange

Wake County

Wake County has several towns that share a school district, the Wake County Public Schools. Raleigh is in Wake County and is the state capital. There are around 425,0000 people living in Raleigh Metro Area.

Cary, Apex, Fuquay-Varina, Garner,Holly Springs, Knightdale, Morrisville, Rolesville,Wake Forest, Wendell and Zebulon are all towns in Wake County. You may have heard of Cary (not so little any more with 160,000 residents).

Raleigh downtown

 Orange County

The University of North Carolina is in Chapel Hill. Take a drive down Franklin Street in Chapel Hill with me.
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Durham

Durham is a large county with a  population of around 250,000. The school system is Durham County Public Schools.

Durham was a tobacco town

When I moved to the Triangle back in the early 80’s Durham was pretty much a tobacco town. Not too far out in Durham County farmers raised tobacco and dried it in tobacco barns. In the city of Durham, old factories processed the tobacco. It seemed everyone smoked in Durham back then.

Hip part of the Triangle now

Durham Bulls

The old tobacco warehouses have been converted into shops, offices and commercial space. New restaurants have opened and the music scene is lively. Lots of Triangle residents come to Durham now and many live and work there.

Chatham County

Chatham County was the forgotten county when I first moved to Chapel Hill. It wasn’t even mentioned in the local news or weather forecasts. Things have really changed over the years and now the area is called the next Cary. Development is moving into the area in a very big way.

Chatham County Developers Paradise. This was years ago and a joke but I thought the County Commissioners had put it up when I drove by and spotted it. My husband looked at the photo and noticed developers paradise was stick on letters. The big neighborhood Briar Chapel had just been approved,

The Chatham County Schools are good, especially in the area between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro. You can get a new home with a great price in Chatham. Pittsboro is the county seat.

Jordan Lake is a 14,000 acre lake with camping, fishing, boat ramps and kayak and canoe tours. You will see all kinds of wildlife around the lake. There are no homes built on the lake. It’s a reservoir for the area including Cary.

One of 7 Jordan Lake Boat Ramps

 Johnston County

Johnston County is south of Raleigh. Clayton is a town usually considered part of the Triangle. It’s around 45 minutes the airport and RTP with no traffic. When the extension of 540, the outer loop road around Raleigh is completed in around 10 years it will be much easier to get to.

Living in the Triangle

I enjoy asking my clients what’s it like for them living in the Triangle and how it’s different from what they imagined and how they feel about the differences. Over and over I hear similar things.

The Triangle is green!

• The roads are so well-kept and wide and there’s not much traffic
• There are so many trees, you can’t tell there are neighborhoods behind them
• It’s much more rural than I expected
• The schools are so new
• It’s hard to tell what isn’t a good area (there aren’t many)
• The houses are more expensive than I expected
• The lots are so small in the new neighborhoods
• I expected it to be more urban

Those are a few common impressions and are characteristics of the Triangle.It does depend where you are coming from too.The area has grown so fast it is new. Cary just had about 6,000 residents when I move to the Triangle. Now there are over 140,000 people living in Cary. Chatham County, right outside Chapel Hill, has really grown  recently but for years it was never mentioned on the local TV stations and weather forecasts. We are lucky that growth has been planned with developers required to leave lots of green space and cluster homes. (that’s why the lots are so small and there is so much woods left). Roads must be widened and turn lanes and sidewalks added with each new development. Larger developments will have to donate land for schools and parks so the schools are new with park like settings.

New homes are very close together

Is the Triangle, NC liberal or conservative?

(Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Durham, Cary, Holly Springs)

It’s common for my clients to ask  if Chapel Hill ( or Carrboro, Raleigh,Cary, Apex, Holly Springs,  etc) is conservative or liberal . I usually answer that the area has people moving from all over the country and world and there will be people similar to you in any area of the Triangle. There are lots of unaffiliated voters and micro areas where one party may outnumber another but it’s mostly pretty evenly distributed. If you are  concerned about having neighbors with differing views this is an excellent tool. Just put in the street you are considering for your new home and you can see the neighbors and their party affiliation. You don’t need an exact address, just the street. You can get the adjacent streets on Google Maps and check those streets too.

Voter Registration by Address . 

The weather in the Triangle area

We have seasons and both very hot and very cold weather, at least for a day or two. Most of the year it’s wonderful. The summers are hot and humid from June to September. Sometimes people are surprised that we usually have  a few days of snow every year especially when I say the secondary roads aren’t plowed. It doesn’t matter, everything closes and it melts in a day or so.

Snow in Triangle NC

It’s big and varied

The Triangle is a huge area . It helps to have an idea what kind of commute you want to the office, school or the airport. If schools are a priority you will want to do some research. I can help with that and have more information on my Chapel Hill web site and Cary web site.

Come for a visit and find out what the Triangle has to offer. The Triangle area real estate market has a lot of options if you are thinking about moving.

What are the best places to live in the Triangle?

Marianne Howell Wright, Realtor. Broker Owner Triangle Area Real Estate,

919-274-4365

[email protected]