We’ve covered Greensboro, Winston-Salem and the Triangle so far in our “Recruiting North Carolina” series. Today we’ll focus on the granddaddy of them all: Charlotte and the surrounding area. Charlotte is easily the biggest recruiting area in the state of North Carolina, and it’s not even close. Like the Triangle, Charlotte has had tremendous population growth in recent years.

Earlier this week we noted that the population of the Triangle has nearly doubled since 2000. According to this article, the city of Charlotte is the third-fastest growing major city in America, behind only Seattle and Austin, TX.

The Charlotte Metropolitan Area has a population of 2,380,314 as of 2014, making it the 22nd largest metropolitan area in America. As a comparison, Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News ranks #37 in the country, Raleigh ranks #43, and Richmond is #45.

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