Roanoke Sound is the body of water on North Carolina’s Outer Banks between Roanoke Island and Bodie Island, lying between Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound and crossed by a bridge carrying U.S. Route 64. Historically, the name once referred not to this smaller sound but to the larger body of water now called Albemarle Sound. Early European explorers called that expanse Roanoke Sound, or the Sea of Rawnocke, and later maps labeled it the Carolina River before it was renamed for George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle. The broader Roanoke area was central to North Carolina’s earliest European settlements.