Dare County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. In 2020, there were 36,915 people living there. Its county seat is Manteo, North Carolina. It is named after Virginia Dare. Virginia Dare was the first English child born in the Americas. She was born in the Roanoke Colony, in what is now Dare County. Buffalo City, in Dare County, was once the biggest community in the country. (Today, Buffalo City is abandoned.) Dare County is the largest county in North Carolina.