James City, North Carolina

James City is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Craven County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 5,899 at the 2010 census. It is part of the New Bern, North Carolina Micropolitan Statistical Area.HistoryJames City was developed during the American Civil War when Union forces, occupying nearby New Bern, constructed a resettlement camp for freed slaves on land belonging to Confederate Army Colonel Peter G. Evans. Originally referred to as the Trent River Settlement, by 1865 it had been renamed James City, after its founder, Union Army chaplain Horace James, superintendent of Negro affairs and agent for the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands.GeographyJames City is located in central Craven County at, along the west bank of the tidal Neuse River. It is bordered to the north by the city of New Bern, the county seat, across the Trent River, a tributary of the Neuse. To the west are the unincorporated community of Brices Creek, and a more recently annexed portion of New Bern. Coastal Carolina Regional Airport is in the northwestern part of the CDP.