Chinquapin is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located adjacent to the Northeast Cape Fear River in Duplin County, North Carolina, United States.

An Algonquian word, chinquapin, or "chinkapin," is Castanea pumila, a diminutive cousin of the American chestnut that is abundant along creeks and rivers of the Southeastern United States.

When Job and his wife Annie began running the plantation in 1754, they dropped the latter part of the name, simply calling their home Chinquapin.

During this period significant numbers of Scotch-Irish immigrants began arriving to the Cape Fear region, settling on land purchased from a London merchant named Henry McCulloch, who had obtained 71,160 acres along the river from the British Crown.

Cape Fear, Chinquapin was oftentimes the port of departure for produce in eastern Duplin County, especially at times of low water levels when sites further upriver were not accessible.

Robbins, who operated a steamer in the nearby community of Hallsville (just above Chinquapin), the duo represent a rich, often overlooked, history of African American river boating in Duplin County.

Despite the initial economic boom resulting from the presence of the railroad, which was dismantled during the Great Depression, and the widespread clear-cut logging that it allowed for, Chinquapin has grown very little since the early 20th century.

In the early 1900s, Booker T. Washington and a philanthropist named Julius Rosenwald helped set up schools for children in rural black communities.