It was named for the House of Hanover, a German royal family then ruling Great Britain.

The county was developed as plantations, largely for the cultivation of tobacco and other commodity crops by enslaved African Americans.

[7][8] Racial terrorism on a larger scale took place in the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, when a group of white Democrats rejected a duly elected, biracial city government.

A total of 60 to 300 blacks are believed to have been killed in the rioting, leaders were driven out of the city, and the presses of a black-owned newspaper were destroyed, along with many houses and businesses.

A plaque was installed there explaining the donation and his life; it does not refer to his role in the 1898 coup d'état.

[12] Soon after, the state passed a new constitution raising barriers to voter registration: this effectively disenfranchised most blacks and imposed Jim Crow laws, forcing blacks out of the political system and into legal second-class status.

14.3% were of English, 13.0% United States or American, 10.6% German and 10.2% Irish ancestry according to Census 2000.

The commission comprises five members elected at-large in four-year staggered terms.

[29] From 2013 to 2017, a portion of northwestern and central New Hanover County was redistricted to North Carolina's 3rd congressional district, which was represented by Republican Walter B. Jones Jr. before his death.

[30] New Hanover County is a member of the regional Cape Fear Council of Governments.

NHCSO is responsible for patrolling the county (primarily outside the Wilmington city limits), staffing the juvenile and adult correctional facilities, and proving court security for the W. Allen Cobb Judicial Annex in Wilmington.

The county has also favored Democratic U.S. Senate candidates in recent elections, though Republicans still tend to perform better in local contests.

[35] In February 2021 Novant Health, a nonprofit private organization, acquired the hospital.