Current Time in Greensboro, United States

Greensboro lies in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the southeastern United States, on rolling wooded country between the Appalachian foothills to the west and the coastal plain to the east. Together with Winston Salem and High Point it forms the urban region known as the Piedmont Triad. The humid subtropical climate brings hot summers, mild winters, brilliant autumn colour in the surrounding hardwood forests and a long spring when dogwoods and azaleas flower throughout the city.

About three hundred thousand people live in Greensboro, making it the third largest city in the state, within a metropolitan area of some three quarters of a million. The city takes its name from Nathanael Greene, the American general whose army fought the British at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781, an engagement that cost the British so heavily that it contributed to their eventual surrender at Yorktown. The battlefield is preserved as a national military park on the northern edge of the city.

Greensboro holds an important place in the history of the American civil rights movement. On the first of February 1960 four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at a segregated lunch counter in the Woolworth store downtown and refused to leave. The sit in spread within weeks to dozens of cities across the South and became one of the decisive tactics of the movement. The original building now houses the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, where the counter itself is preserved.

The city grew wealthy on textiles and tobacco. Cone Mills was for many years the largest producer of denim in the world, and the city's factories clothed much of the country. As that industry declined Greensboro shifted towards logistics, taking advantage of its position at the junction of two interstate highways, and towards aviation and advanced manufacturing. A major air cargo hub operates at Piedmont Triad International Airport, an aircraft manufacturer builds business jets nearby, and large battery and aerospace investments have arrived in the surrounding counties.

Education is a defining feature. North Carolina A and T is the largest historically Black university in the United States, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Guilford College, Bennett College, Greensboro College and a law school give the city tens of thousands of students and a strong tradition in music, dance and the visual arts.

Attractions include the Greensboro Science Center with its aquarium, zoo and planetarium, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Bog Garden and Arboretum, the Greensboro Coliseum, which regularly hosts major basketball tournaments, minor league baseball at a downtown ballpark and a large water park. The writer O Henry was born here, and a series of sculptures downtown celebrates his stories.

Public transport is provided by a municipal bus network, and the city has a station on the passenger rail line linking Charlotte and Raleigh.

Greensboro is important for its role in civil rights history, its universities and its position at the crossroads of the Carolinas.