Area Overview

Overview of Greater Wilmington, Delaware

Located halfway between Washington, D.C., and New York City, Wilmington, Delaware, was founded, March 29, 1638 as the Colony of New Sweden by Peter Minuit, former Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam. Wilmington is the first permanent Old World settlement in the entire Delaware Valley and is where the first log cabins were built in America. Multi-national and multi-lingual from the beginning, the first group of 25 settlers included Swedes, Finns, Dutch and Germans, and a black freedman from the Caribbean known as "Anthoni, the Black Swede."

Situated between the deep-water, slow-moving Christina River and the shallow, rapidly flowing Brandywine Creek, the city's economy developed from fur trading and agriculture, to milling (grain, paper and then gunpowder), to ship and railroad car manufacturing, to modern chemical and banking industries. Today, the majority of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Wilmington and is the "capital of credit card banking in the U.S.," it also serves as the national/world headquarters of many chemical and pharmaceutical companies.

• Historic New Castle - Delaware River town founded 1651 by the Dutch, Delaware's capital from 1704 to 1777; lovely shops, restaurants, beautiful historic homes, gardens and churches, cobblestone streets, interesting museums
  
  
• Longwood Gardens - one of the world's great year-round horticultural venues, 1,050 acres (larger than Central Park), four acres of gardens under glass, spectacular fountains.
  
  
• The Brandywine River Museum - paintings by three generations of the Wyeth family in a great old mill converted into a terrific art showplace facing the famous stream. Tour N.C. Wyeth's house and studio and the Kuerner Farm.
  
  
• Winterthur Museum and Country Estate - the premiere collection of 85,000 American antiques (1640 to 1860), plus the Campbell Collection of Soup Tureens and beautiful gardens, including the Enchanted Woods Children's Garden.
  
  
• The Delaware Art Museum - 12,000 works of art including American artists from Edward Hopper to Howard Pyle and modern works; a gorgeous window of Chihuly glass, and the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings outside the U.K.
  
  
• The Hagley Museum - home of the E.I. du Pont Gunpowder Works (1802-1921), beautiful stone buildings along the Brandywine, the family's original mansion, gardens, 18th- and 19th-century technology exhibits and demonstrations.
  
  
• Nemours Mansion and Gardens - A.I. du Pont's opulent French chateau, with acres of fountains, sculpture, gardens; also home of the world-famous A.I. du Pont Institute Children's Hospital.
  
  
• Mt. Cuba Center - Mt. Cuba Center is one of the du Pont family's legacies in the region. Our mission is to foster an appreciation for plants of the Appalachian Piedmont and the conservation of their environment through garden display, education, and research. Guided tours of the grounds are offered seasonally and educational classes are offered year round. Reservations are required.
  
  
• The Tall Ship Kalmar Nyckel - full-size re-creation of the ornately carved ship that brought the first permanent Old World settlers to the Delaware Valley in 1638, founding the Colony of New Sweden and building the first log cabins in America.
  
  
• Old Swedes Church and the Hendrickson House - beautiful stone and brick church - one of the nation's oldest houses of worship in continuous use as originally built (1698) - next to a Swedish stone farmhouse from 1690.
  
  
• The Delaware Museum of Natural History - home of a nationally recognized collection of seashells as well as a permanent, impressive dinosaur display, with exhibits of the region's flora and fauna, and a superb model of the International Space Station.

Professional performances are enjoyed at:

• The Grand Opera House - 1100-seat hall built in 1871 - one of the great cast-iron facades remaining in America - beautifully restored in the 1970s - presenting over 100 performances annually, including the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, OperaDelaware, nationally-known comedians and music from jazz to contemporary singer/songwriters.
  
  
• The DuPont Theatre - Wilmington's "Little Broadway" in the four-star Hotel du Pont, opened in 1913 (formerly known as The Playhouse).
  
  
• The Delaware Theatre Company - 400-seat regional Equity acting company on the Christina Riverfront.

The University of Delaware (15,000 students) is located in the nearby City of Newark.

Millions of out-of-state shoppers visit Delaware (population 783,000) annually to take advantage of no sales tax, saving at least 6% over surrounding states. The Delaware lodging tax is 8% to 10% and the rental tax is 2% - among the lowest in the nation.

Greater Wilmington has hundreds of restaurants - from internationally recognized four-star gourmet to fast food - and approximately 6,000 hotel, motel and B&B rooms. Our meeting facilities can accommodate up to 2,100 people in a single room. Many unique meeting venues are available for those who desire very special settings.