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Section V. Draft County Profile (Data) Element Orange Countv Comprehensive Plan <br />,B1.' Geographic Context <br />Orange County Location <br />Orange County is centrally located in the <br />Piedmont region of North Carolina. The <br />County offers scenic farms and small town <br />living as well as first -rate educational <br />opportunities and vibrant urban areas. <br />The County is located within the fast growing <br />Triangle area, with a regional population of <br />over 1.2 million. The Triangle includes the <br />state capital, Raleigh, and twenty -three other <br />municipalities. At the heart of this area is the <br />Research Triangle Park, bordered by three <br />major universities: UNC Chapel Hill, Duke <br />University and NC State University, and home <br />to research and development related industries <br />that attract people from around the globe. <br />Links to surrounding Triangle communities can <br />be observed by the significant number of <br />commuters heading across county lines to their <br />jobs on Interstates 85 and 40. These interstates <br />link the County to other major North Carolina <br />cities. I -85 serves to link Orange County to the <br />Triad cities of Greensboro, High Point, and <br />Winston -Salem as well as to Charlotte to the <br />south and Durham to the southeast. I -40 is the <br />only east -west interstate highway in North <br />Carolina, and runs from Wilmington in the east <br />to the Great Smoky Mountains in the west. <br />Orange County is also linked to the <br />surrounding regions by natural resources, such <br />as watersheds, which overlap county and <br />municipal boundaries. <br />Orange County Size Description <br />As an integral part of the Triangle, Orange <br />County has experienced dramatic increases in <br />population during the past few decades, <br />increasing nearly 58% fifty percent since 1980, <br />to its estimated population of 121,991 in 2005. <br />The unincorporated areas of OFange Count <br />represent approximately fi3Ay pereent (46,964 <br />per-sons) of the County's popu4ation and o <br />per -eeRt of the land area. a total land area <br />of 254,720 acres or 399 square miles, Orange <br />County has an overall population density of <br />305 persons per square mile in 2005, although <br />population is not evenly distributed throughout <br />the county. Density is focused in the southern <br />section of the County with fifty-seven percent <br />of the population residing within the towns of <br />Chapel Hill and Carrboro. <br />9/6/2007 B1 A <br />The County is divided into seven townships of <br />BinL-ham. Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, <br />Eno, Hillsborough, Little River. Five of the <br />seven were once used as voting districts in the <br />nineteenth century: however, none have legal <br />standing today. Orange County that contains <br />the following incorporated towns: Chapel Hill, <br />