North Laurel is a census-designated place (CDP) in Howard County, Maryland, United States.

The southern boundary of the CDP is defined by the Patuxent River, which is also the Howard County/Prince George's County line.

[7] The corrected counts for North Laurel CDP for 2010 are 20,259 population, 7,593 housing units, and land area of 6.3 square miles.

[11] By the time of European contact, the lands in the region were occupied by various tribes of Algonquin speaking Native Americans.

The Patuxent River was first named ("Pawtuxunt") on the detailed map resulting from the 1608 voyage upriver by Jamestown settler John Smith.

[12] The early English settlers progressively explored further northward from the mouth of the river, eventually reaching the area that is now North Laurel.

In the 1620s the Susquehannocks pushed the Piscataway tribes out to the southeast to reduce competition occupying the area as far south as the Potomac River.

By 1632 Lord Baltimore had claimed title to issue land grants in Maryland through Charles I of England.

In 1652, the Susquehannocks made a treaty with Marylanders to keep trade flowing and receive arms to use against the Iroquois to the north.

Smaller grants in the area include (from north to south) The Addition, Ridgley's Neck, Bare Hills, Poplar Range, Grover's Lot, Poplar Bottom, Holland's Chance, Snowden's Intent, Clark's Walks, Snowden's New Birmingham, Brother's Partnership, Warfields Neglect, Sappington's Sweep, Nellsons Rainbow, Lasswells Hopewell, and Davis's Hills.

[20][21] In the summer of 1834, Irish (Corkians) and German (Fardown) workers clashed at the B&O construction site at North Laurel.

In 1890, a syndicate purchased portions of the Burr, Brightwood, Kennedy, and Wheeler farms next to the B&O track to form a town named "North Laurel" adjacent, which did not materialize.

[25] In 1901, Ernest Lyon founded the Maryland Industrial and Agricultural Institute for Colored Youths near the Patuxent River[where?]

[26][notes 1] In 1910, the Southern Real Estate Company of Pittsburgh bought one of Gustuavas Ober's North Laurel farms totaling 550 acres (220 ha) for $70,000.

Several remaining lots were purchased with eminent domain and exchanged with Cornerstone Homes to consolidate enough land to build the North Laurel Civic Center and park.

[28] In 2013, Howard County sold the remaining wooded lots on the parkland to build Park Overlook.

The next year, Senator Arthur Pue Gorman's daughter, Grace "Daisy", built her home, Overlook, on 140 acres (57 ha) of land along Murray Hill Road inherited from her father.

[29][30] In 1948, police raided Rocway Towers, putting an end to a short-lived effort to bring Washington-funded gambling casinos to Laurel.

An additional 27 acres (11 ha) of land was given to the county in school exchange for approving such a dense development.

[33] To the north, school board member Rob Moxley was secretly buying and swapping 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of farmland for Howard Research and Development to build Columbia.

The loan officer Ralph Lublow was tried for taking secret bonuses for the project, and in 1978 was released due to insanity after ordering hitmen to murder fellow businessmen Morton Hollander and Alvin Blum.

[37] On 8 September 1992, a man and a teenager attempted a series of failed carjackings starting at the southbound rest stop at I-95 through the Bolling Brook subdivisions.