Garner is a city of 31 000 people and is a suburb of Raleigh. It is a part of the so-called Research Triangle. The Research Triangle is the common nickname for the metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. It is anchored by Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. The nickname originated back in the 1950s with the creation of Research Triangle Park, located between the three anchor cities, which is the largest research park in the United States and home to numerous high tech companies. There are also three major research universities in the triangle - North Carolina State University, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The official name of the Research Triangle is the Raleigh-Durham-Cary, North Carolina Combinded Statistical Area. There is a population of 2.1 million people in this area.