Southport is a city in Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

Southport is the location of the North Carolina Fourth of July Festival, which attracts 40,000 to 50,000 visitors annually.

During the 18th century, British settlements along the Carolina coast lacked fortifications to protect against pirates and privateers, and numerous Spanish attackers exploited this weakness.

In response to these attacks, Governor Gabriel Johnston in 1744 appointed a committee to select the best location to construct a fort for the defense of the Cape Fear River region.

[6] Joshua Potts had requested the formation of a town adjacent to Fort Johnston, and the North Carolina General Assembly formed a commission of five men to administer its founding.

The town was named after Benjamin Smith, a colonel in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and later governor of North Carolina.

Interest in making Southport a major commercial port then prompted efforts to connect it via rail to Wilmington and the Atlantic Coast Line/Seaboard Air Line Railroad systems.

Running northwest out of Southport to Bolivia, the line then turned northeast towards Navassa where it joined the existing rail network.

Poorly constructed, beset with continued revenue shortfalls and facing intense and growing competition from trucks/automobiles, the 30 mile long railroad ceased operation in 1945.

Southport is located in southeastern Brunswick County on the northwest bank of the tidal Cape Fear River, approximately 2 miles (3 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown, temporary flood prevention updates, called "cliff edge barriers" to make doors at the facility water tight, were installed at Brunswick to prevent flooding from Hurricane Florence from causing a disaster similar to Fukushima Daiichi.