Carteret County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 67,686. Its county seat is Beaufort. The county was created in 1722 as Carteret Precinct and gained county status in 1739. It was named for Sir George Carteret, one of the 17th century English Lords Proprietor, or for his descendant and heir John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville.
Atlantic Beach is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. It is one of the five communities located on Bogue Banks. The population was 1,364 at the 2020 census.
Harkers Island is a census-designated place (CDP) in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. The population of Harkers Island was 1,207 at the 2010 census. Harkers Island is unincorporated and receives most public services, including law enforcement and public education, from Carteret County. A membership cooperative provides the island with electric and water services. Major industries on the island include fishing, boat building, tourism, and waterfowl decoy carving.
Morehead City is a port town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 8,661 at the 2010 census. Morehead City celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding on May 5, 2007. It forms part of the Crystal Coast.
Pine Knoll Shores is a coastal town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,388 at the 2020 census. One of North Carolina's state aquariums is located here.
Cape Lookout National Seashore preserves a 56-mile (90-km) long section of the Southern Outer Banks, or Crystal Coast, of North Carolina, United States, running from Ocracoke Inlet on the northeast to Beaufort Inlet on the southwest. Three undeveloped barrier islands make up the seashore - North and South Core Banks and Shackleford Banks. The seashore includes two historic villages on Core Banks, Shackleford's wild horses, and the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, which has a black-and-white diamond pattern. A visitor center for the seashore is located on Harkers Island.
Salter Path is an unincorporated community in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. A Crystal Coast community, it lies on Bogue Banks as an enclave within Indian Beach.
Cape Lookout is the southern point of the Core Banks, one of the natural barrier islands on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina. It delimits Onslow Bay to the west from Raleigh Bay to the east. Core Banks and Shackleford Banks have been designated as parts of the Cape Lookout National Seashore.
Graveyard of the Atlantic is a nickname for the treacherous waters and area of numerous shipwrecks off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States, which are due to the coast's shifting sands and inlets. To a lesser degree, this nickname has also been applied to Sable Island off of Nova Scotia, Canada, as well as the waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, United States.
The Outer Banks are a 200 mi (320 km) string of barrier islands and spits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, on the east coast of the United States. They line most of the North Carolina coastline, separating Currituck Sound, Albemarle Sound, and Pamlico Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. A major tourist destination, the Outer Banks are known for their wide expanse of open beachfront and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The seashore and surrounding ecosystem are important biodiversity zones, including beach grasses and shrubland that help maintain the form of the land.
Shackleford Banks is a barrier island system on the coast of Carteret County, North Carolina. It contains a herd of feral horses, scallop, crabs and various sea animals, including summer nesting by loggerhead turtles. It is a tourist and beach camping site.
The Cape Lookout Lighthouse is a 163-foot-high lighthouse located on the southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. It flashes every 15 seconds and is visible at least 12 miles out to sea and up to 19 miles. It is one of the very few lighthouses that operate during the day. It became fully automated in 1950. The Cape Lookout Lighthouse is the only such structure in the United States to bear the checkered daymark, intended not only for differentiation between similar light towers, but also to show direction. The center of the black diamonds points in a north-south direction, while the center of the white diamonds points east-west.
Bogue Banks form a 21-mile (34 km) barrier island off the mainland of North Carolina in Carteret County. The island, separated from the mainland by Bogue Sound, runs east to west, with the ocean beaches facing due south. Bogue Banks is the only island on the Carteret County shore that has been developed with housing: numerous communities are located on the island and can be accessed by one of two bridges across Bogue Sound, either from Morehead City to Atlantic Beach, which is the more heavily traveled bridge, or from Cape Carteret to Emerald Isle. The communities of Bogue Banks are the most prominent of the Crystal Coast. NC 58 traverses a majority of the island's length. There are several hotels that dot the island, but most of the land contains private houses, some of which are rented out during the summer, or maritime forest. Stores and other commercial properties are limited to the five main communities.
The Inner Banks is a neologism made up by developers and tourism promoters to describe the inland coastal region of eastern North Carolina. Without historical precedent, the term "Inner Banks" is an early 21st-century construct that is part of an attempt to rebrand the mostly agrarian coastal plain east of I-95 as a more attractive region for visitors and retirees.
Bogue Sound is a lagoon in the state of North Carolina separating the Bogue Banks, a 21-mile-long (34 km) barrier island, from the mainland. The sound is part of North Carolina's "Crystal Coast", a tourism marketing term that is also used interchangeably with the term "Southern Outer Banks." It is the southwestern-most sound among the interconnected series of sounds along the Outer Banks that starts in the northeast at Currituck Sound.
Barden Inlet is the southernmost of the Outer Banks water inlets. Located just northwest of Cape Lookout in the U.S. state of North Carolina, the inlet connects Onslow Bay of the Atlantic Ocean with Core Sound. It separates the Shackleford Banks from the Core Banks.
Eastern North Carolina is the region encompassing the eastern tier of North Carolina, United States. It is known geographically as the state's Coastal Plain region. Primary subregions of Eastern North Carolina include the Sandhills, the Lower Cape Fear, the Crystal Coast, the Inner Banks and the Outer Banks. It is composed of the 41 most eastern counties in the state. Cities include Greenville, Jacksonville, Wilmington, Rocky Mount and North Carolina's first capital New Bern.
Diamond City was a settlement on the eastern end of Shackleford Banks, in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States.
The Back Sound is a lagoon in eastern North Carolina. Running on an east–west axis, the sound separates Shackleford Banks to the south from the mainland and Harkers Island to the north. At the sound's eastern end lies Cape Lookout and Core Sound, while on the west end lies the Crystal Coast community of Beaufort and Bogue Sound. Barden Inlet at the eastern end, and Beaufort Inlet on the western end connect the sound to Onslow Bay. Much of the islands in the sound are protected as part of the Rachel Carson Estuarine Reserve, set aside for the protection of Banker horses.
The Core Banks are barrier islands in North Carolina, part of the Outer Banks and Cape Lookout National Seashore. Named after the Coree tribe, they extend from Ocracoke Inlet to Cape Lookout, and consist of two low-relief narrow islands, North Core Banks and South Core Banks, and, since September 2011, two smaller islands. New Drum Inlet, Old Drum Inlet and Ophelia Inlet now separate the islands. The Core Banks are now uninhabited. However, Portsmouth, at the north end of the North Core Banks, was once a substantial port, and Cape Lookout Village, about one and half miles south of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, contains the historic Lookout Life-Saving Station, a U.S. Coast Guard Station, and several island homes.
