unincorporated community, Baltimore county, northern Maryland, U.S. It was named for Ezekiel Towson, who settled the area about 1750, and was made county seat in 1854. It evolved into a northern residential-industrial suburb of Baltimore. It is the seat of Goucher College (1885) and Towson University (1866; originally Maryland State Normal School), which moved from Baltimore in 1915 and is now part of the University of Maryland (Maryland, University of) system. The Hampton National Historic Site, which preserves a Georgian mansion (1783–90), is just to the north. Pop. (1990) 49,445; (2000) 51,793.