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( "BO-furt") is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,771 at the 2000 census and it is the county seat of Carteret County. It is sometimes confused with a city of the same name in South Carolina; the two are distinguished by different pronunciations. Beaufort is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. The town is home to the North Carolina Maritime Museum. It is also home to the Duke University Marine Laboratory (Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences), where scientists study the marine environment and develop solutions to conservation problems in coastal and oceanic ecosystems.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 3.5 square miles (9.2 km²), of which, 2.7 square miles (7.1 km²) of it is land and 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²) of it (22.82%) is water.