[2] Pender County is part of the Wilmington, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

It was named for William Dorsey Pender of Edgecombe County, a Confederate general mortally wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg.

[1] The county commissioners were ordered to hold their first meeting at Rocky Point.

The act provided for the establishment of the town of Cowan as the county seat.

In 1877, an act was passed repealing that section of the law relative to the town, and another law was enacted, whereby the qualified voters were to vote on the question of moving the county seat to South Washington or any other place which the majority of the voters designated.

A slave cemetery that was used by the community of Cardinal Acres up until c. 1950 was disturbed by a developer grading a site in 2021.

Pender County is a member of the regional Cape Fear Council of Governments.

In the 1992 presidential election, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton won the county.

Trump continued to increase his margin of victory in Pender in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections.