page_title: Elizabeth City, North Carolina
section_title: U.S. Coast Guard
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth City, North Carolina / U.S. Coast Guard
caption_attribution_description: Aerial view of the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina (USA), in 1999.
context_page_description: Elizabeth City is a city in Pasquotank County, North Carolina, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 18,683. Elizabeth City is the county seat and largest city of Pasquotank County. It is the cultural, economic and educational hub of the sixteen-county Historic Albemarle region of northeastern North Carolina.
  Elizabeth City is the center of the Elizabeth City Micropolitan Statistical Area, with a population of 64,094 as of 2010, and is part of the larger Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC Combined Statistical Area. The city is the economic center of the region, as well as home to many historic sites and cultural traditions.
  Marketed as the "Harbor of Hospitality", Elizabeth City has had a long history of shipping due to its location at a narrowed bend of the Pasquotank River. Founded in 1794, Elizabeth City prospered early on from the Dismal Swamp Canal as a mercantile city, before later shifting into a varied industrial and commercial focus. While Elizabeth City still retains its extensive waterfront property, it is linked to neighboring counties and cities by highways and bridges and serves as the site of the largest US Coast Guard base in the nation.
context_section_description: Established in 1940 and located southeast of Elizabeth City's corporate limits, Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City is the largest United States Coast Guard Air Station in the nation at over 800 acres, and is home to six commands - Air Station Elizabeth City, Aviation Logistics Center, Aviation Technical Training Center, Base Elizabeth City, C-27J Asset Project Office (APO), and Small Boat Station Elizabeth City - as well as the off-base National Strike Force Coordination Center located in northern Elizabeth City. As a component of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the base, along with a host of defense contractors anchored by DRS Technologies, provide a host of local jobs and maintains an influx of Coast Guard and industry employees from all around the country.
  The USCG Air Station and the Aviation Technical Training Center (ATTC) in Elizabeth City were featured in numerous scenes of the 2006 Disney movie The Guardian, standing in for Kodiak, Alaska.
  Elizabeth City is also home to one of the United States' few airship factories. Many of the nation's commercial blimps are made and serviced here. The current airship facilities evolved from what had previously been Naval Air Station Weeksville, operational from 1941 to 1957. NAS Weeksville's LTA craft played a vital role in German U-boat spotting during World War II, helping to minimize losses to East Coast shipping. NAS Weeksville was home to two hangars, one still existing as corrugated steel, and a slightly larger one constructed out of Southern Yellow Pine, to conserve metal for the WWII war effort. This latter hangar was the largest wooden structure in the world until its demise by fire in 1995.
  A joint public-private airpark adjacent to the Coast Guard base is in the planning stages. Intended to make Elizabeth City a premier hub of the aviation industry, the airpark hopes to attract major tenants as well as the Aviation Science programs of Elizabeth City State University and related programs by the College of the Albemarle.
caption: Elizabeth City Coast Guard Air Station
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