Dillsboro is a town in Jackson County, North Carolina, United States. The town is a popular tourist location, at which visitors tend to stop on their way into the Great Smoky Mountains. The town of Sylva is located just one mile east of Dillsboro and is the county seat. The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad begins in Dillsboro and follows the historic "Murphy Branch" constructed in the 1880s. The population was 232 at the 2010 census.