Thirteen counties, one region.

Formed from Anson County in 1762, Mecklenburg is North Carolina's second-most populous county and the center of the Charlotte region; in 2013 it became the first county in the Carolinas estimated to exceed one million residents. The disputed ‘Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence’ date, May 20, 1775, appears on the state flag, and a branch of the U.S. Mint operated in Charlotte from 1837 to 1913.

Created in 1785, York County was home to the Catawba Nation, the region's dominant Native American group in the colonial period, which still holds lands along the Catawba River near Rock Hill. Patriot forces won two 1780 engagements in what was then York District — Huck's Defeat and the Battle of Kings Mountain — and Rock Hill and Fort Mill both began as railroad depots in 1852; Rock Hill is now the county's largest city.

Formed from Mecklenburg County in 1792, Cabarrus was the scene of the first documented gold find in the United States, when Conrad Reed discovered gold in Little Meadow Creek in 1799; the Reed Gold Mine is now a National Historic Landmark and state historic site. For much of the late 19th and 20th centuries the county was a leading textile producer — Kannapolis was built around Cannon Mills — and today it is home to Charlotte Motor Speedway and Concord Mills.

Formed from Rowan County in 1788, Iredell has had Statesville as its seat since 1789, while Mooresville is its largest community. Fort Dobbs, a French and Indian War frontier fort, is preserved as a state historic site, and the arrival of the Western North Carolina Railroad in 1858 began a long period of growth.

Formed from Lincoln County in 1846, Gaston County built a textile economy after three cotton mills opened between 1845 and 1848, and the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia became a key event in the American labor movement. Dallas served as the county seat until Gastonia took over in 1911; the county has fifteen incorporated cities and towns and includes Crowders Mountain State Park.

Formed in 1842 from parts of Anson and Mecklenburg counties, Union took its name as a compromise between Democrats, who wanted to honor Andrew Jackson, and Whigs, who favored Henry Clay. The county lies along the South Carolina border and includes part of the Waxhaws region, where Jackson was born in 1767; Monroe is the county seat, while Indian Trail is now its most populous municipality.

Established in 1753 from the upper part of Anson County, Rowan began as a vast territory with no fixed western boundary before other counties were carved from it. Its seat, Salisbury, is the oldest continuously populated European-American town in western North Carolina, and the county is home to Catawba College, Livingstone College and the North Carolina Transportation Museum at the former Southern Railway Spencer Shops.

Formed in 1841 from parts of Rutherford and Lincoln counties, Cleveland County lies in the foothills of the Blue Ridge and the western Piedmont along the South Carolina border and makes up the Shelby–Kings Mountain micropolitan area. Shelby lent its name to the ‘Shelby Dynasty’ of 20th-century politicians that included Governors O. Max Gardner and Clyde Hoey, and Gardner–Webb University in Boiling Springs dates to 1905.

Formed in 1779 from the eastern part of Tryon County, Lincoln County led North Carolina in iron production in the early 19th century with ten forges and four furnaces, then gave up territory in the 1840s to form Cleveland, Catawba and Gaston counties. The Revolutionary War Battle of Ramsour's Mill was fought in present-day Lincolnton in 1780, and the county borders Lake Norman.

Created in 1785 between the Catawba and Lynches rivers, Lancaster County includes the Waxhaws, settled in the 1750s largely by Scots-Irish families who came south on the Great Wagon Road; Andrew Jackson was born in the area in 1767. Textile manufacturing took hold after Leroy Springs opened the Lancaster Cotton Mill in 1896, and the county's northern Panhandle, including Indian Land, lies within the Charlotte metropolitan area.

Formed in 1841 from the part of Montgomery County west of the Pee Dee River, Stanly County lies along the Yadkin–Pee Dee River in the Uwharrie Mountains region, with Morrow Mountain, Badin Lake and Lake Tillery among its landmarks. It forms the Albemarle micropolitan area and is home to Pfeiffer University, founded in 1885.

One of seven counties created in 1785 from the old Camden Judicial District, Chester sits in the rolling hills of South Carolina's eastern Piedmont between the Catawba River on the east and the Broad River on the west. Its rectangular boundaries have never been altered — a shape unique among South Carolina counties — and part of Sumter National Forest lies within it.

Located on the eastern edge of North Carolina's Piedmont along the South Carolina line, Anson was formed from Bladen County in 1750 and once had borders that theoretically reached the Mississippi River; Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Richmond and Union counties were later carved from it. The 8,443-acre Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge lies in the county's northeast, and Leonidas L. Polk, the state's first commissioner of agriculture, was born here and founded the town of Polkton in 1875.