City of Wilmington

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn for his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was prime minister in the reign of George II of Great Britain. Beginning with the du Pont family enterprises, the city has been a leading industrial and shipping hub since the nineteenth century. Wilmington has an estimated population of 72,826 people.


The City of Wilmington, like most eastern cities, has been evolving for over 350 years. The City of Wilmington, like most eastern cities, has been evolving for over 350 years. After periods of Swedish (1638), then Dutch (1655), then British (1664) colonization, the area stabilized under British rule (with Quaker influence) and was granted a borough charter in 1739 by the King of England which changed the name from Willington (after Thomas Willing, the first 'developer" of the land who organized the area in a grid pattern like Philadelphia) to Wilmington, presumably after Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, a favorite of the King.


The Wilmington State Parks are a group of four parks in Wilmington. The four parks are Brandywine Park, including the Brandywine Zoo and Baynard Stadium, Alapocas Woods Natural Area, H. Fletcher Brown Park and Rockford Park. Admission to the parks is free, but a fee is charged for admittance to the zoo. The parks, within minutes of each other, are open year round from sunrise to sunset. Other points of interest include Delaware Art Museum, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, DuPont Playhouse, Grand Opera House, Old Swedes Church, Riverfront Market, Rockford Tower, The Wilmington Library, The Shipyard Shops.