page_title: New Bern, North Carolina
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: New Bern, North Carolina / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Neuse River bridge. {
context_page_description: New Bern is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 29,524, which had risen to an estimated 29,994 as of 2019. It is the county seat of Craven County and the principal city of the New Bern Metropolitan Statistical Area.
  It is located at the confluence of the Neuse and the Trent rivers, near the North Carolina coast. It lies 112 miles east of Raleigh, 80 miles northeast of Wilmington, and 162 miles south of Norfolk. New Bern is the birthplace of Pepsi.
  New Bern was settled in 1710 by Bernese and Palatine immigrants under the auspices of Christoph von Graffenried, 1st Baron of Bernberg. The new colonists named their settlement after Berne, Switzerland, home state of their patron. The English connection with Switzerland had been established by some Marian exiles who sought refuge in Protestant parts of Switzerland. There were also marriages between the Royal House of Stuart and notable people in the history of Calvinism. The colonists later discovered they had started their settlement on the site of a former Tuscarora village named Chattoka. This caused conflicts with the Tuscaroras who were in the area.
context_section_description: The United States Census Bureau considers New Bern to be centered at 35°6′33″N 77°4′9″W (35.109070, −77.069111). It is sited at the junction of the Trent and Neuse rivers, two tidal waterways.
  U.S. Route 70 and U.S. Route 17 pass through the city, merging briefly as a four-lane expressway passing south of the city center. US 70 leads west 33 miles (53 km) to Kinston and southeast 35 miles (56 km) to Morehead City near the Atlantic Ocean. Raleigh, the state capital, is 112 miles (180 km) west via US 70. US 17 leads southwest 37 miles (60 km) to Jacksonville, North Carolina, and crosses the Neuse River on a new bridge to lead north 36 miles (58 km) to Washington, North Carolina.
  New Bern is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 29.7 square miles (76.9 km²), of which 28.2 square miles (73.1 km²) is land and 1.4 square miles (3.7 km²), or 4.87%, is water.
caption: Aerial view of New Bern (center left) showing the confluence of the Trent (bottom center) and Neuse (left to right) rivers.  East is up.  The two larger bridges carry U.S. 70, U.S. 17, and NC 55, bypassing New Bern to the south through the unincorporated community of James City.  The smaller bridge crossing the mouth of the Trent River is Front Street, while the smaller bridge crossing the Neuse is a railroad bridge.
exif: {}