About Cary, North Carolina

Cary is a town in Wake County and Chatham County, North Carolina. Cary is part of the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 Census, the population of Cary was 174,721, making it Wake County's second-largest municipality, the seventh-largest in North Carolina, and the 150th largest in the United States.Cary began as a railroad town, and became known as an educational center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Cary High School was the first state-funded public high school in North Carolina. The creation of the nearby Research Triangle Park in 1959, resulted in Cary's population doubling every decade from 1950 to 2000. Cary is now the location of technology and manufacturing companies, including the largest privately held software company in the world.In Cary, 68.4% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, which is higher than the state average.