Research Triangle Park
Back in the 1950s, experts predicting that Durham, NC would be the future site of the hottest spot for scientific research in the United States would have been hard to find. Today, Durham-based Research Triangle Park is the most recognizable park of its kind in the world and still growing. The 7,000-acre namesake for the entire Triangle region is now two miles wide, eight miles long and spilling into Wake County towards Cary and Morrisville.
Encompassed by the City of Durham, more than a thousand hotel rooms and scores of restaurants, RTP is now surrounded by a variety of other Durham business parks in the fields of pharmaceuticals, microelectronics, semiconductors, biotechnology, textiles, instrumentation, telecommunications, medical devices and many others.
Research Triangle Park exists as a special Durham postal substation called Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 and is serviced by Durham utilities. The Park gets its name from its affiliation with three major universities, Duke University in Durham and nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and further to the southeast, North Carolina State University in the state capital, Raleigh.
The Park was developed by Research Triangle Foundation and jointly marketed with organizations like the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce. The more than 140 major research and development companies now employ over 44,000 people. In addition to Durham, employees in the Park live throughout the Triangle region, which now covers 3,000-square miles, an area twice the size of the state of Rhode Island, encompassing six counties and 26 towns and cities.
The Park has more than achieved the two major goals proposed by its creators: to attract research to the area which would in turn lead to growth of industrial and production facilities and put an end to the "brain drain" from North Carolina. The Park has spawned many adjacent business parks and businesses. Durham has been transformed from a tobacco and textile town to the "City of Medicine, USA" and the region now boasts one of the highest concentrations of PhDs in the nation. Back in the 1950s, few would have believed any of this was possible.
Self-driving tour maps available from Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Last updated 2004
