Wilmington is a port city in New Hanover County, in southeastern North Carolina, United States; it is also the county seat. With a population of 115,451 (as of the 2020 census), it is also the eighth-most populous city in the state and the principal city of the Wilmington, NC, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender counties. As of 2023, its metropolitan statistical area had an estimated population of 467,337. Wilmington's residential area lies between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean. The city’s downtown includes a 1.75-mile (2.82 km) riverwalk, developed as a tourist attraction in the late 20th century. The riverfront was ranked as the "Best American Riverfront" by readers of USA Today in 2014, and in 2008, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Wilmington one of its “Dozen Distinctive Destinations.” There are also four beach communities within a half-hour’s drive of the downtown area: Fort Fisher, Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach. The city is home to the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), which offers a wide variety of programs for undergraduates, graduate students, and adult learners, in addition to cultural and sports events open to the community. Toward the end of the 19th century, when Wilmington was majority-black, racially integrated, prosperous - and the largest city in North Carolina - the city suffered what became known as the Wilmington massacre of 1898: white supremacists launched a coup that overthrew the legitimately elected local Fusionist government. They killed a number of people (estimates range from 60 to more than 300), ran both black and white opposition leaders out of the city, destroyed black citizens’ property and businesses that had been built up since the end of the Civil War, including the city’s only black-owned newspaper. This coincided with broader efforts at disenfranchisement on the state level: North Carolina had 125,000 registered black voters in 1896, and only 6,000 by 1902. By 1910, Charlotte overtook Wilmington as North Carolina's largest city. In 2003, the city was designated by the U.S. Congress as a "Coast Guard City", one of 29 cities that currently bear that designation, and was the home port for the USCGC Diligence, a United States Coast Guard medium-endurance cutter, until 2020. On September 2, 2020, then-President Donald Trump officially declared Wilmington as the first World War II Heritage City in the country. The World War II battleship USS North Carolina, now a war memorial, is moored across from the downtown port area, and is open to the public for tours. Other attractions include the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science and the Children's Museum of Wilmington. Wilmington is also the home of Cinespace Wilmington, the largest domestic television and movie production facility outside California. Dream Stage 10, the facility's newest sound stage, is the third-largest in the United States. It houses the largest special-effects water tank in North America. After the studio complex's opening in 1984, Wilmington became a major center of American film and television production. Numerous movies and television series—in a range of genres—have been filmed/produced in or near the city, including The Black Phone, Blue Velvet, The Conjuring, The Crow (1994), Dawson's Creek, Eastbound & Down, Halloween Kills, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Iron Man 3, One Tree Hill, Outer Banks, Scream (2022), The Summer I Turned Pretty, Super Mario Bros., and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.