Both the Raleigh-Durham Metro Areas is approaching 1,700,000.

African American population is over 325,000.

There are more than 5,700 African American-owned companies, including North Carolina Mutual in Durham -- still the largest African American Insurance Company.

The 7,000-acre, Durham-based Research Triangle Park, one of the largest research parks in the world, contains over 140 organizations and 45,000 employees. More than 100 are research and development-related, including the North Carolina Supercomputing Center, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The combined metro areas have been the location or subject for 20 major movies and scores of other television and advertising productions.

Visitors to the combined metro areas number more than 18 million annually.

Notable residents born or made their mark here:

John Hope Franklin
Historian and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner

Julian Abele
Architect of Duke Chapel

Ella Baker
Civil Rights activist who was instrumental in organizing the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

Maynard Jackson
Former mayor of Atlanta

Rev. Douglas Moore
A pioneer who supported the earliest sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement

Mary Lou Williams
Famed jazz composer and teacher

Floyd McKissick, Sr.
Early civil rights leader and father of a US Congressman

John Merrick, Charles C. Spaulding & Dr. Aaron Moore
Co-founders of North Carolina Mutual Insurance

Dr. James E. Shepard
Founder of North Carolina Central University

Dr. Charles Johnson
President of the National Medical Association

Shirley Caesar
Gospel vocalist

Clyde McPhatter
R&B vocalist for the Drifters

Nneena Freelon
Jazz vocalist

Coach John McClendon
Pioneering basketball coach whose strategies are still emulated today

Sam Jones
1st African American drafted by the NBA in the first round

Dr. Leroy Walker
President of the US Olympic Committee

Ernie Barnes
NFL football player and artist

Chuck Davis
Choreographer

Blind Boy Fuller
Piedmont Blues vocalist