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Chapel Hill
Town in the United States

Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill is an incorporated municipality in the counties of Orange and Durham, North Carolina, United States.

Plan a trip to Chapel Hill→From Greensboro

Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 United States census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-most populous municipality in the state. Chapel Hill and Durham make up the Durham–Chapel Hill, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 608,879 in 2023. When it is combined with Raleigh, the state capital, they make up the corners of the Research Triangle, which had an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023.

Get in

Getting to Chapel Hill

Interstate 40 passes along the north and east side of Chapel Hill, with three exits: NC 86 (Exit 266), US 15/501 (Exit 270), and NC 54 (Exit 273). From the west, NC 86 (which becomes Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd in Chapel Hill) is the best exit. Be warned that Martin Luther King Jr.

See

Worth seeing

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Often considered one of the best public schools in the United States, UNC is also one of three schools that claim to be the oldest public university in the US. While it was the second public university to receive a state charter (in 1789), after the University of Georgia, it was the first public university to start classes (in 1795) and graduate students (1798).

  1. 01
    Old Well
  2. 02
    Old East
  3. 03
    The Pit

    The center of activity on campus is a small plaza between the bookstore, the student union, a dining hall, and a library.

  4. 04
    Morehead–Patterson Bell Tower

    An impressive brick clock tower which chimes on the quarter-hour.

  5. 05
    Coker Arboretum
  6. 06
    Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Do

Things to do

  1. 01
    Varsity Theater

    Historic movie theater that opened in 1927 on Franklin Street and has been renovated.

  2. 02
    Tar Heels Basketball

    Dean Smith Center (on the south end of UNC Chapel Hill's campus, off Manning Drive),.

  3. 03
    Tar Heels Football

    Kenan Memorial Stadium (in South campus, on Stadium Drive off of South Road).

  4. 04
    Tar Heels Baseball

    Boshamer Stadium (in South campus, along Ridge Road).

  5. 05
    Finley Golf Course

    Old Mason Farm Road (southeast of the Fordham Blvd/Raleigh Rd intersection),.

  6. 06
    Memorial Hall

    One of the main performance spaces at the University of North Carolina.

Eat

Where to eat

Many restaurants in Chapel Hill are on Franklin Street and the roads nearby Franklin Street, but some restaurants are away from Franklin and others can be found in residential neighborhoods such as Meadowmont and Southern Village within the Chapel Hill city limits.

  1. 01
    Buns

    Mon-Thu 11AM-10PM, Fri Sat 11AM-3AM, Sun 11AM-9PM.

  2. 02
    Cosmic Cantina

    128 East Franklin Street (at the back of a small shopping center, tucked down a narrow walkway),.

  3. 03
    The Pig

    A small, unassuming local place in a strip mall at the northern edge of town, The Pig has developed a local following given its great North Carolinian barbecue, which is some of the best in town.

  4. 04
    Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen

    Southern fast food at its best; a small, bare-bones drive-thru on the way into town that serves excellent biscuits (perhaps the best in Chapel Hill).

  5. 05
    Sutton's

    A classic lunch counter at the back of a pharmacy that has been on Franklin Street for ages, as evidenced by the photos on the walls.

How locals move

Getting around Chapel Hill the local way

  • Go nextHillsborough, the county seat, is a cute historic town a half-hour drive north of Chapel Hill, good for a day trip or to spend a night or two.

From Wikivoyage: Chapel Hill, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.