Wilmington Map
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, 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.
According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 70,851, a decrease of 2.4% from 2000. The metropolitan area which includes the cities of Philadelphia, and Camden, New Jersey had a 2006 population of 5,826,742, and a combined statistical area of 6,398,896.
The area now known as Wilmington was first colonized by settlers from Sweden who in March 1638 arrived on the Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel. They established Fort Christina at the mouth of the Christina River at the area known as "The Rocks", located near the foot of present-day Seventh Street. Fort Christina served as the headquarters for the colony of New Sweden which consisted of, for the most part, the lower Delaware River region (parts of present day Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey), but few colonists settled there. Dr. Timothy Stidham (Swedish:Timen Lulofsson Stiddem) was a prominent citizen and doctor in Wilmington. He was born in 1610, probably in Hammel, Denmark and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden. He arrived in New Sweden in 1654 and is recorded as the first physician in Delaware.
Nearby cities include Bear, Kennett Square, Chester Heights, Newark, Brookhaven.