On a Saturday morning at Beaver Creek Crossings, the car park off U.S. 64 fills with families pushing trolleys toward Grand India Mart, where the smell of cumin and fresh coriander meets the squeak of new sneakers from the shop next door. This is the everyday rhythm of the Indians in Apex, North Carolina, a town that two decades ago was best known for tobacco warehouses and a railway junction, and is now one of the fastest-growing Indian American suburbs in the South.
The Place
Apex sits in western Wake County, tucked just south of Cary and a short drive from Research Triangle Park. It takes its name from being the highest point on a thirty-mile stretch of the old Chatham Railroad, chartered in 1854.
For most of its life it was a small farming and trading town. Today it is an affluent commuter suburb of roughly 83,000 people, with a median household income above 150,000 dollars and seven in ten adults holding a bachelor’s degree or higher.
That transformation, and the people who drove much of it, is a story that begins in the laboratories and software campuses a few miles to the north.
How It Became Indian
Apex did not set out to become an Indian American town. It became one because of where it sits, and because of what was built next door.
The railway town that nearly faded
Apex was incorporated in 1873 around its rail depot, and grew slowly as a cotton and tobacco trading centre. In 1900 the population was just 349. The tobacco market collapsed in the 1920s, and by 1930 the town had shrunk to 863 residents.
For decades Apex stayed small. It was the creation of Research Triangle Park in 1959, on land between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, that quietly set the town’s future in motion.
The Triangle pulls in the world
Research Triangle Park grew into one of the largest research campuses in the world, anchored by IBM, then by pharmaceutical and biotech firms, and later by a dense cluster of software and networking companies. It needed engineers, statisticians, chemists and programmers, and it needed them faster than the region could produce them.
From the 1980s onward, that demand pulled in skilled migrants on H-1B and student visas, a large share of them from India. Many arrived first as graduate students at North Carolina State, Duke and the University of North Carolina, then stayed for jobs at SAS, Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, GlaxoSmithKline and the growing roster of life sciences firms.
From Cary outward
The first wave of Indian families in the Triangle settled heavily in Cary, the larger town directly to the north, and in Morrisville, which sits at the very gates of Research Triangle Park. Morrisville became so densely Indian that today more than a third of its residents trace their roots to India, the highest such share of any town in North Carolina.
As Cary and Morrisville filled and house prices climbed, families looked for the next stop with good schools, newer construction and a little more space. Apex, immediately to the south, was the obvious answer. You can read the parallel story of the established core in our piece on the Indians in Cary, North Carolina and the dense gateway community in Indians in Morrisville, North Carolina.
The boom years
The 1990s and 2000s were a period of explosive growth for Apex. The town passed 20,000 residents by the end of the 1990s and kept climbing through the 2010s as subdivisions spread west across former farmland.
Indian families bought into these new neighbourhoods in large numbers, drawn by the same things that drew everyone else, and by the comfort of an Indian grocery and a Hindu temple already within easy reach. A young engineer at a biotech firm could buy a four-bedroom house with a good elementary school within walking distance, find a temple twenty minutes away, and have a grocer who stocked his mother’s spice brands. For families weighing a move from older, denser metros, that combination was hard to beat.
In 2015 Money magazine named Apex the number one best place to live in America, and the town’s reputation as a destination for striving professional families was set. Word travelled quickly through the Triangle’s tightly connected Indian networks, where a recommendation from a colleague carried more weight than any estate agent’s brochure.
By the most recent estimates, around 8,273 residents of Apex identify as Asian Indian, roughly 12 percent of the town. Together, Apex, Cary and Morrisville account for more than three quarters of Wake County’s Indian population of about 54,000.
The Landmarks
Grand India Mart, Apex. The town’s anchor grocery for South Asian families, stocking everything from fresh curry leaves and a wall of lentils to imported sweets and frozen parathas. On weekends it functions as a social hub, where neighbours swap school news and festival plans between the rice aisles.
Patel Brothers, near Apex. Part of the national chain that has become shorthand for Indian grocery in America, serving the western Wake corridor with the deep inventory of spices, atta and snack brands that smaller shops cannot match. For many families a fortnightly Patel Brothers run is a fixed appointment.
The Hindu Society of North Carolina, 309 Aviation Parkway, Morrisville. Founded in 1976 by about twenty Hindu families in the Raleigh area, the temple is the spiritual centre of gravity for the whole Triangle, including Apex. Its social hall hosts classes, weddings and the festival calendar that structures the year for thousands of families.
Beaver Creek Crossings, 1581 Beaver Creek Commons Drive, Apex. The big-box and dining centre off U.S. 64 that doubles as the Indian community’s commercial heart in Apex. Around the national anchors sit Indian restaurants, and the centre is where families combine weekend errands with a meal out.
Lime & Lemon Indian Grill & Bar, Beaver Creek Crossings, Apex. A popular Triangle restaurant that opened an Apex location in this shopping centre, part of a wave of Indian dining that has followed the population south from Cary. Its arrival was a marker that Apex had reached the size that supports a full restaurant scene of its own.
Koka Booth Amphitheatre, 8003 Regency Parkway, Cary. Every autumn this lakeside venue, just north of Apex, hosts Hum Sub Diwali, one of the largest Diwali celebrations in the Southeast. Apex families pour in for the dance, the handicraft bazaar, the food stalls and the fireworks over Symphony Lake.
Apex Friendship High School. Opened in 2014 to serve the town’s western growth, it consistently ranks among the top high schools in North Carolina. For many Indian parents the strength of Wake County schools, and this one in particular, was the deciding factor in choosing Apex.
Where They Came From
The Indians of Apex are overwhelmingly a professional, post-1990 migration, and that shapes where in India they come from. The single largest threads run back to the southern states, especially Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, the great feeders of the American technology workforce, alongside Karnataka and Kerala.
There is a substantial Gujarati and North Indian presence too, visible in the grocery shelves and the temple’s festival list, which spans both southern and northern Hindu traditions. Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati and Kannada are all spoken at home across the town.
What unites them is the route in: graduate school or a skilled visa, a first job in or around Research Triangle Park, and a decision to put down roots in a place with good schools and other families who understood the journey.
Apex Today
Apex today is a town where the Indian presence is woven into ordinary suburban life rather than concentrated in a single enclave. Indian families live throughout the newer western subdivisions, their children fill the advanced classes at the local schools, and the parents drive the same few miles north to RTP that brought the first arrivals decades ago.
The commercial life is mature. Indian groceries, restaurants, sweet shops, tutoring centres and classical dance schools serve a community large enough to support them year-round, not just at festival time. Diwali lights appear on suburban porches in October, and weekend cricket draws players to fields across western Wake, where leagues organised by Triangle professionals fill the spring and summer calendar.
The second generation is now coming of age. Children who grew up here are graduating from Apex Friendship and Apex High, heading to North Carolina State and Duke much as their parents once did, and some are already buying homes of their own a few streets over. The community that arrived as newcomers is becoming, in the most ordinary sense, local.
It is, in the end, a quietly confident place. The Indians in Apex did not arrive to a ready-made Indian neighbourhood. They helped build the town they now call home, one school enrolment, one grocery run and one Diwali at a time. For a sense of how this pattern repeats across the country, compare it with the established suburbs of Indians in Ballantyne, Charlotte and the original American Indian heartland of Indians in Edison, New Jersey.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Indians live in Apex, North Carolina?
Recent estimates put the Asian Indian population of Apex at around 8,273, or roughly 12 percent of the town’s population of about 83,000. The Indians in Apex are part of a larger western Wake County cluster that also includes Cary and Morrisville.
Why did so many Indians settle in Apex?
The main draw was Research Triangle Park, the huge research and technology campus just to the north, which recruited skilled engineers, scientists and software professionals from the 1980s onward. As nearby Cary and Morrisville filled up, families moved south to Apex for its newer homes and top-ranked schools.
Is there a Hindu temple near Apex?
Yes. The Hindu Society of North Carolina, founded in 1976, operates a major temple at 309 Aviation Parkway in nearby Morrisville. It serves Hindu families across the Triangle, including Apex, and hosts religious, cultural and educational events throughout the year.
Where can you find Indian groceries and restaurants in Apex?
Apex has Indian grocers including Grand India Mart and Patel Brothers, and Indian restaurants clustered around the Beaver Creek Crossings shopping centre off U.S. 64, such as Lime & Lemon Indian Grill & Bar. The Indians in Apex also shop and dine in neighbouring Cary and Morrisville.
Where do Apex’s Indian families come from in India?
Most trace their roots to the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, the major sources of India’s technology workforce, with significant Gujarati and North Indian communities as well. Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati and Kannada are commonly spoken at home.
How is Diwali celebrated in the Apex area?
The flagship event is Hum Sub Diwali, held each autumn at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, just north of Apex, with music, dance, an Indian food bazaar and fireworks over Symphony Lake. Many Apex families also celebrate at home and at the Hindu Society of North Carolina temple.
If your family’s story passed through Apex, or any of the places Indians have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From a graduate campus in Hyderabad or Chennai to a new-build street in western Wake County, to wherever you are now.