[43] The city of Charlotte was developed first by a wave of migration of Scots-Irish Presbyterians, or Ulster-Scot settlers from Ulster, who dominated the culture of the Southern Piedmont Region and made up the principal founding population in the backcountry.

May 20, the traditional date of the signing of the declaration, is celebrated annually in Charlotte as "MecDec", with musket and cannon fire by reenactors in Independence Square.

[58] North Carolina was the chief producer of gold in the United States, until the Sierra Nevada found in 1848,[59] although the volume mined in the Charlotte area was dwarfed by subsequent rushes.

The camp supported 40,000 soldiers, with many troops and suppliers staying after the war, launching urbanization that eventually overtook older cities along the Piedmont Crescent.

[69] In December 2002, Charlotte and much of central North Carolina were hit by an ice storm that resulted in more than 1.3 million people losing power.

In August 2015 and September 2016, the city experienced several days of protests related to the police shootings of Jonathan Ferrell and Keith Scott.

[79] Though the Catawba River and its lakes lie several miles west, there are no significant bodies of water or other geological features near the city center.

[82][83] Biddleville, the primary historic center of Charlotte's African American community, is west of Uptown, starting at the Johnson C. Smith University campus and extending to the airport.

[84][85][86] East of The Plaza and north of Central Avenue, Plaza-Midwood is known for its international population, including Eastern Europeans, Greeks, Middle-Easterners, and Hispanics.

[110][111][112][113] Since the 1980s in particular, Uptown Charlotte has undergone massive construction of buildings, housing Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Hearst Corporation, and Duke Energy, several hotels, and multiple condominium developments.

Creation of Little Sugar Creek Greenway cost $43 million and was controversial because it required the forced acquisition of several established local businesses.

[129][130] Like much of the Piedmont region of the southeastern United States, Charlotte has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), with four distinct seasons.

[132] Charlotte is directly in the path of subtropical moisture from the Gulf of Mexico as it heads up the eastern seaboard, thus the city receives ample precipitation throughout the year but also many clear, sunny days.

[132] There is an average of 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) of snow, mainly in January and February and rarely December or March, with more frequent ice storms and sleet mixed in with rain.

[132] Snow and ice storms can have a major impact on the area, as they often pull tree limbs down onto power lines and make driving hazardous.

[137] As the nearest NWS-owned NEXRAD is located in Greer, South Carolina, more than 80 mi (130 km) to the west-southwest of Charlotte, this deficit is particularly problematic during severe thunderstorm or tornado episodes.

[153][154][155] The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Wycliffe Bible Translators' JAARS Center, SIM Missions Organization, and The Christian Research Institute make their homes in the Charlotte general area.

As of 2013[update], 51.91% of people in Charlotte practice religion on a regular basis, making it the second most religious city in North Carolina after Winston-Salem.

[207][208] As of 2019, Charlotte has seven Fortune 500 companies in its metropolitan area, including, in order of their rank: Bank of America, Honeywell, Nucor, Lowe's, Duke Energy, Sonic Automotive, and Brighthouse Financial.

[231] The large presence of the racing technology industry and the newly built NHRA dragstrip, zMAX Dragway at Concord, are influencing other top professional drag racers to move their shops to Charlotte as well.

Located in the western part of Mecklenburg County is the U.S. National Whitewater Center, which consists of human-made rapids of varying degrees, and is open to the public year-round.

It features 11 stages of outdoor variety entertainment, a 22-acre village marketplace, an interactive circus, an arts and crafts fair, a jousting tournament, and a feast, all rolled into one non-stop, day-long family adventure.

[313][314] Moo and Brew Fest is an annual craft beer and burger festival that is the largest in North Carolina, held each April and includes various national musical acts.

[328] The Charlotte Zoo initiative is a proposal to allocate 250 acres (101 ha) of natural North Carolina land to be dedicated to the zoological foundation, which was incorporated in 2008.

[397] Charlotte is represented by ten members of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Mary Gardner Belk (D-88th), Terry M. Brown Jr. (D-92nd), Nasif Majeed (D-99th), John Autry (D-100th), Carolyn Logan (D-101st), Becky Carney (D-102nd), Brandon Lofton (D-104th), Wesley Harris (D-105th), Carla Cunningham (D-106th), and Kelly Alexander (D-107th), and six members of the North Carolina Senate, Mujtaba A. Mohammed (D-38th), DeAndrea Salvador (D-39th), Joyce Waddell (D-40th), Rachel Hunt (D-42nd), Vickie Sawyer (R-37th), and Natasha Marcus (D-41st).

[442] The North Carolina Research Campus, a 350-acre biotechnology hub located northeast of Charlotte in the city of Kannapolis, is a public-private venture including eight universities, one community college, the David H. Murdock Research Institute (DHMRI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and corporate entities that collaborate to advance the fields of human health, nutrition and agriculture.

[443] The research campus is part of a larger effort by leaders in the Charlotte area to attract energy, health, and other knowledge-based industries that contribute to North Carolina's strength in biotechnology.

Forty-three fire stations are strategically scattered throughout Charlotte to provide a reasonable response time to emergencies in the city limits.

[498] The bulk of CATS ridership is derived from its extensive bus network, which has its main hub at the Charlotte Transportation Center in Uptown, which also connects to the Blue and Gold lines.

CATS operates express buses to outlying parts of the city and some commuter bus to the northern suburbs in the Lake Norman area under the MetroRAPID umbrella.