96 Fun Facts About South Carolina

What is the capital of South Carolina?

Columbia has been the capital since the legislature first met there in 1790; it was laid out as a planned city near the state's geographic centre to balance Lowcountry and Upstate interests.

South Carolina is named in honour of which English king?

Carolina comes from Carolus, Latin for Charles: the 1663 royal charter named the province in honour of Charles I, the king executed in 1649, father of the monarch who granted it.

South Carolina was which number state to ratify the US Constitution, on May 23, 1788?

South Carolina was the eighth state to ratify, on May 23, 1788, a month before New Hampshire's ninth ratification put the Constitution into effect.

What distinction does South Carolina hold in the run-up to the Civil War?

South Carolina was the first state to vote to secede, on December 20, 1860, by a convention vote of 169 to 0; it was readmitted on July 9, 1868.

Which Charleston Harbor stronghold was shelled by Confederate batteries on April 12, 1861, opening the Civil War?

Fort Sumter, on an artificial island at the harbour mouth, endured a 34-hour bombardment with no combat deaths; Private Daniel Hough became the war's first fatality when a cannon misfired during the surrender salute.

Which Union officer commanded the garrison that surrendered Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861?

Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort after a 34-hour bombardment; P. G. T. Beauregard, once his artillery student at West Point, commanded the Confederate guns.

What is South Carolina's official nickname?

The Palmetto State takes its nickname from the sabal palmetto, the state tree, which has stood on the state seal since 1776 and on the state flag since 1861.

Why did palmetto logs prove such a good building material for the fort on Sullivan's Island in June 1776?

British cannon fire simply sank into the walls, and the patriots held the harbour. The tree went on the state flag in 1861 in tribute.

Besides the palmetto tree, what other white symbol appears on South Carolina's blue flag?

The white crescent came from the cap insignia of Colonel William Moultrie's 2nd South Carolina Regiment, whose blue 1775 flag carried only the crescent; the palmetto was added in 1861.

Roughly what share of all combat in the Revolutionary War took place in South Carolina?

About a third of the war's combat actions, more than 200 engagements, were fought in South Carolina, including Kings Mountain in 1780 and Cowpens in 1781.

Which American general beat Tarleton at Cowpens in 1781 with a textbook double envelopment?

Daniel Morgan had his militia fire two volleys and fall back, then closed Continentals and cavalry around Tarleton's pursuing men on January 17, 1781, capturing most of the British force.

What is the highest point in South Carolina?

Sassafras Mountain, on the North Carolina line in Pickens County, rises about 3,560 feet and is the highest point in South Carolina.

How many counties does South Carolina have?

South Carolina has 46 counties, a number unchanged since 1919, when Allendale became the last county created.

What is South Carolina's official state bird?

The Carolina wren, a small rusty-brown bird with a loud 'teakettle, teakettle' song, was named the official state bird in 1948.

What is South Carolina's official state dance?

The Carolina shag grew up along the Grand Strand to the sound of beach music in the 1940s and 50s.

What is South Carolina's official state snack?

Boiled peanuts, green peanuts simmered in salted water, were named the official state snack by the legislature and are sold from roadside pots across the state.

In what year did English settlers found the city now called Charleston?

Charles Town was founded in 1670 at Albemarle Point on the Ashley River, named for the reigning king Charles II, and moved to its present peninsula site in 1680.

What is Charleston's best-known nickname?

The Holy City refers to the church steeples that dominate the low skyline, a legacy of the colony's early religious tolerance, which drew Huguenots, Jews and dissenters.

What was the H. L. Hunley the first vessel of its kind to do, on February 17, 1864?

It sank the USS Housatonic off Charleston and then vanished with its crew. Twenty-one men died in its three sinkings, including its inventor. It was raised in 2000 and is displayed in North Charleston.

How was the H. L. Hunley submarine propelled?

Seven men turned the crank while an eighth steered, managing about four knots flat out.

What natural disaster struck Charleston on August 31, 1886?

The 1886 earthquake, estimated at magnitude 7.0, killed about 60 people and damaged most buildings in the city; tremors were felt as far away as Boston and Chicago.

Which two rivers meet at the state capital to form the Congaree?

The Broad and the Saluda join at the capital to form the Congaree, which flows on to meet the Wateree and become the Santee.

Which Army post near the state capital is the US Army's largest basic combat training installation?

Fort Jackson, on the east side of the capital, is the Army's largest basic combat training post; roughly half of all Army recruits complete basic training there.

In what year was the University of South Carolina founded, as South Carolina College?

South Carolina College was chartered in 1801 and opened to students in 1805, intended to knit together the state's feuding Lowcountry and Upstate elites.

Congaree National Park protects the largest remaining tract of what kind of forest in the United States?

Congaree protects about 11,000 acres of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest, with champion-size loblolly pines and bald cypresses; it became a national park in 2003, dropping 'Swamp' from its name.

How long is the Boardwalk Loop, the most popular trail through Congaree National Park?

The Boardwalk Loop runs 2.4 miles on elevated and low boardwalk from the visitor center through the floodplain forest to Weston Lake and back.

Myrtle Beach sits at the centre of a continuous stretch of beach called the Grand Strand. How long is it?

The city is named for the local wax-myrtle shrub, was incorporated in 1938 and now draws more than 20 million visitors a year.

Roughly how many golf courses does the Myrtle Beach area have?

Myrtle Beach calls itself the Golf Capital of the World: about 86 courses line the Grand Strand, down from a peak of more than 120 around the year 2000.

Gullah sweetgrass baskets are nearly identical to coiled baskets made by which West African people?

Gullah sweetgrass baskets are nearly identical to the coiled baskets of the Wolof of Senegal, a craft carried from the Senegambia rice coast and kept alive by the Sea Islands' isolation.

What is Gullah, apart from the name of a people?

Gullah is an English-based creole language with African vocabulary and grammar, spoken on the Sea Islands; a Gullah New Testament, De Nyew Testament, was published in 2005.

In what year did the BMW plant near Spartanburg open?

The Spartanburg plant opened in 1994, building the 318i sedan first; it grew into BMW's largest factory, producing close to 400,000 vehicles in 2024.

The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, was born in 1933 in a wooden shack in which South Carolina town?

James Brown was born in Barnwell, a small town near the Savannah River, on May 3, 1933; the family moved to Augusta when he was about five.

Which late-night host grew up on James Island outside Charleston, the youngest of eleven children?

Stephen Colbert's father and two brothers died in the 1974 crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 near Charlotte when he was ten.

According to the 1900 census, roughly what share of South Carolina's population was African American?

The 1900 census counted about 782,000 African Americans among 1.34 million South Carolinians, more than 58%; the state had a Black majority from the early 1700s until the 1920s.

What fraction of South Carolina is made up of the Atlantic Coastal Plain?

The Atlantic Coastal Plain covers about two-thirds of South Carolina, from the Sandhills fall line to the coast; the rest rises through the Piedmont to a sliver of Blue Ridge in the northwest.

By the 1690s, Charleston had grown into what rank among the cities of North America?

By 1690 Charles Town ranked fifth-largest among North American cities, behind Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Newport; rice and the slave trade soon made it the wealthiest in the southern colonies.

In which year did South Carolina's legislature vote to create a new planned inland capital?

In 1786 the General Assembly voted to build a new capital on the Congaree River, midway between the coastal planters and the Upstate farmers; the legislature first met there in 1790.

Which of these states borders South Carolina?

North Carolina wraps around the north and northeast, Georgia lies to the west and south, and the Atlantic takes the rest.

South Carolina's biggest resort city, at the centre of the Grand Strand, is named after what?

Addie Burroughs, widow of developer Franklin Burroughs, chose the name in 1900 for the wax-myrtle shrubs that grow thickly along the coast.

Myrtle Beach is the largest city in which South Carolina county?

Horry County sits in the state's northeastern corner on the North Carolina line and is pronounced 'OR-ee', the H being silent.

Around 1900, before it got its present name, the beach community that became Myrtle Beach was known as what?

The settlement was called New Town, as opposed to the old town of Conway inland, until Addie Burroughs renamed it in 1900; its first hotel, the Seaside Inn, opened in 1901.

Roughly how tall is the SkyWheel, the observation wheel on the Myrtle Beach boardwalk?

The SkyWheel rises roughly 200 feet, 187 by official measure, carrying 42 climate-controlled gondolas above the boardwalk and lit with an LED show after dark.

In what year did the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk open along the oceanfront?

The 1.2-mile Myrtle Beach Boardwalk opened in May 2010, partly to revive the oceanfront stretch left empty after the old Pavilion amusement park was demolished.

Myrtle Beach was incorporated as a town in which year?

Myrtle Beach was incorporated as a town in 1938 and became a city in 1957; its year-round population of about 35,000 is dwarfed by the millions of summer visitors.

Which storm is considered the worst hurricane in Myrtle Beach's history?

Hazel came ashore near the North Carolina line on October 15, 1954, as a Category 4 storm, destroying most of the oceanfront buildings in Myrtle Beach.

In 2015 the Myrtle Beach Pelicans became the farm club of which MLB franchise?

The Pelicans play in the Carolina League and became a Cubs affiliate in 2015, after earlier stints with the Braves and Rangers.

Myrtle Beach's Canadian-American Days each March coincide with which province's spring break?

Canadians have long been a major share of the Grand Strand's off-season visitors, which is why the festival is timed to Ontario's school holiday.

In which year did the Myrtle Beach Pavilion amusement park, open since 1948, have its last operating day?

The Pavilion amusement park closed after its last operating day on September 30, 2006; its historic Herschell-Spillman carousel and German Baden band organ were saved and moved to Broadway at the Beach.

Myrtle Beach's Market Common district was built on the site of what former facility?

Myrtle Beach Air Force Base closed in 1993, and its old runways and hangars were gradually redeveloped into homes, shops and parks.

Myrtle Beach Bike Week, the week-long Harley-Davidson motorcycle rally, was first held in what year?

Myrtle Beach Bike Week began in 1940 and grew into one of the largest Harley-Davidson rallies on the East Coast; a second event, Black Bike Week, started in 1980 around Memorial Day.

Whose explorers founded a short-lived 1526 colony near Georgetown, the first European settlement in today's US?

Spain's Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon founded San Miguel de Gualdape in 1526 with about 600 settlers; disease, hunger and his own death ended it within months.

French Huguenots founded the short-lived Charlesfort settlement in 1562 at which Lowcountry site?

Jean Ribault's Charlesfort stood on Parris Island; the later town of Santa Elena rose on the same spot, now the Charlesfort-Santa Elena National Historic Landmark inside the Marine Corps recruit depot.

In 1663 Charles II granted the Province of Carolina to how many Lords Proprietors?

Charles II rewarded eight supporters of his 1660 restoration, among them Anthony Ashley Cooper and Sir John Colleton, with the 1663 charter as Lords Proprietors of Carolina.

English planters from which Caribbean island settled the Lowcountry in the 1670s, building rice plantations?

Planters from Barbados, short of land on their sugar island, brought enslaved Africans and the plantation system to the Lowcountry in the 1670s; by 1720 the enslaved formed most of the population.

Which colonial South Carolinian developed indigo, the blue-dye plant, as a cash crop?

Eliza Lucas, managing her father's plantations as a teenager, produced a successful indigo crop in 1744; the dye became the colony's second staple after rice.

Which man-made lake is South Carolina's largest, at about 110,000 acres?

Lake Marion, created by the Santee Dam in 1941, covers about 110,000 acres; Lake Strom Thurmond, also called Clarks Hill Lake, is second at about 71,000 acres.

Completed in 1800, the Santee Canal linked the Santee River system with which port city?

Charleston was the goal: the 22-mile Santee Canal joined the Santee to the Cooper River so inland produce could reach the port, one of the first canals in the United States.

Geologists interpret the Carolina Sandhills as ancient what?

Geologists read the Carolina Sandhills as wind-blown dunes, piled up during Pleistocene glacial periods when the Southeast was colder, drier and windier than today.

Which Revolutionary War commander earned the nickname 'the Swamp Fox'?

Francis Marion harried the British from the Pee Dee swamps; the name supposedly came from a frustrated Banastre Tarleton, who chased him some 26 miles through a swamp before giving up.

Who became South Carolina's first female governor after the 2010 election?

Nikki Haley, sworn in as governor in January 2011, was the second US governor of Indian descent after Louisiana's Bobby Jindal; she later served as ambassador to the United Nations.

Which Wheel of Fortune co-host was born near North Myrtle Beach in 1957?

She was born Vanna Marie Rosich and took the surname of her stepfather, a North Myrtle Beach real estate broker.

Which breed is South Carolina's official state dog?

It was bred around Camden to hunt turkeys and ducks in the Wateree River swamp, and the state marks Boykin Spaniel Day every September 1.

Boeing's North Charleston plant is the final assembly site for which airliner?

The 787 Dreamliner has been assembled at the South Carolina plant since 2011; in 2021 Boeing consolidated all 787 final assembly there, and the stretched 787-10 has only ever been built there.

Darius Rucker and Mark Bryan formed Hootie & the Blowfish as freshmen at which school?

Darius Rucker and Mark Bryan met in a dormitory at the University of South Carolina in 1986 and formed the band on campus; Dean Felber and later Jim Sonefeld completed the lineup.

Which Charleston military college was established by the legislature in 1842?

The Citadel grew out of an arsenal garrisoned after Denmark Vesey's thwarted 1822 uprising; founded in 1842, it is the third oldest of the six senior military colleges, after Norwich and VMI.

South Carolina barbecue is best known for a sauce based on which ingredient?

Mustard-based 'Carolina Gold' sauce traces to German immigrants who settled the state's Midlands in the 1700s; the Bessinger family later made it famous.

Who coached the Gamecocks women's basketball team to national titles in 2017, 2022 and 2024?

Dawn Staley's 2017 title made her the second Black woman to coach a Division I women's champion, after Purdue's Carolyn Peck in 1999; A'ja Wilson was Most Outstanding Player.

The Angel Oak on Johns Island, thought to be 400-500 years old, is what kind of tree?

The Angel Oak is a Southern live oak whose canopy shades about 17,000 square feet; badly damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, it recovered and stands in its own city park.

What is the name of the sombrero-wearing mascot of South of the Border on I-95?

Pedro is the mascot's name; a giant Pedro sign nearly 100 feet tall straddles the entrance road of the complex near the North Carolina line, which opened as a beer stand in 1949.

How long did Strom Thurmond's solo filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 last?

Strom Thurmond held the floor for 24 hours 18 minutes on August 28-29, 1957; fellow Southern senators, who had agreed not to filibuster, resented being shown up.

Which of these is an official motto of South Carolina?

'While I breathe, I hope' is the English of 'Dum spiro spero', one of two mottoes on the 1776 state seal alongside 'Animis opibusque parati', 'Prepared in mind and resources'.

Which singer behind 'The Twist' was born Ernest Evans in Spring Gully, SC, in 1941?

Chubby Checker grew up in Philadelphia, took his stage name as a play on Fats Domino, and was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2025.

Which banned 1919 White Sox star was born in Pickens County and raised in a mill village?

He got his nickname playing a mill game in blistering new shoes. Babe Ruth said he modelled his own swing on Jackson's.

The Peachoid, a 135-foot peach-shaped water tower beside I-85, stands in which town?

Gaffney's Peachoid, built in 1981 for the town's Board of Public Works, holds a million gallons and advertises Cherokee County's peaches, once said to outgrow the entire Peach State next door.

Most of Forrest Gump, though set in Alabama, was filmed around which South Carolina town?

Beaufort and its Lowcountry stood in for Alabama: the Vietnam scenes were shot on Hunting and Fripp islands, and the Gump house was built beside the Combahee River near Yemassee.

Which writer, once a soldier at Fort Moultrie, set 'The Gold-Bug' on Sullivan's Island?

Edgar Allan Poe served at Fort Moultrie as an enlisted artilleryman from November 1827 to December 1828; Sullivan's Island's branch library is named after him.

Camden-born Larry Doby broke the colour barrier in which MLB circuit in July 1947?

Larry Doby became the American League's first Black player with Bill Veeck's Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson's National League debut; he entered the Hall of Fame in 1998.

How many pastel houses make up Charleston's Rainbow Row on East Bay Street?

Rainbow Row's 13 houses at 79 to 107 East Bay Street date from the 1700s; restoration began in 1931 when Dorothy Legge bought numbers 99 to 101 and painted them pink, and neighbours followed.

Which Kiawah Island layout hosted the 1991 Ryder Cup, dubbed the 'War by the Shore'?

The Ocean Course, a Pete Dye design finished just before the 1991 matches, later staged the 2012 and 2021 PGA Championships, the second making Phil Mickelson the oldest major winner at 50.

The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, opened in Charleston in 2005, is what type of bridge?

The Ravenel Bridge is cable-stayed: two diamond-shaped towers carry its 1,546-foot main span over the Cooper River, one of the longest cable-stayed spans in the Western Hemisphere when it opened in 2005.

Clemson's founder Thomas Green Clemson was the son-in-law of which vice president?

The campus grew out of Calhoun's Fort Hill plantation, which Clemson inherited through his wife Anna and bequeathed for a school of agriculture and mechanics.

Briggs v. Elliott from Clarendon County was the first case folded into which 1954 ruling?

It began in 1947 with a farmer's request for a school bus. Black pupils there had been rowing boats to reach school while white pupils rode buses.

Which Challenger astronaut, killed in 1986, was born in Lake City, SC?

Ronald McNair, a physicist and saxophonist born in Lake City in 1950, refused as a nine-year-old in 1959 to leave the town's segregated library without his books.

Robert Smalls escaped slavery in 1862 by sailing which Confederate ship out of Charleston Harbor?

Robert Smalls piloted the CSS Planter, a Confederate transport, past the harbour forts to the Union blockade on May 13, 1862, with his family and crew aboard; he later served five terms in Congress.

Which 1736 Charleston venue was the first building in the colonies designed for plays?

The Dock Street Theatre opened on February 12, 1736, with The Recruiting Officer; the present building on the site began life as the Planter's Hotel in 1809 and was rebuilt as a theatre in 1937.

Which composer founded Charleston's Spoleto Festival USA in 1977?

Gian Carlo Menotti wanted an American twin for his Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and picked the city for its compact historic core, where audiences could walk between theatres.

SC-born physicist Charles Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize for inventing what?

Charles Townes, born in Greenville, conceived the maser in 1951 and demonstrated it in 1954; the same stimulated-emission principle led to the laser, and he shared the 1964 physics Nobel with Basov and Prokhorov.

The Savannah River Site near Aiken is the nation's sole source of which isotope?

Tritium, the hydrogen isotope that boosts warhead yields, has been handled at the Savannah River Site since the 1950s; after its reactors closed, the site began extracting tritium in 2007 from rods irradiated at TVA's Watts Bar plant.

How many students were shot dead by police in the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre?

Three students, Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton and Henry Smith, were killed when highway patrolmen fired on a South Carolina State College crowd protesting a segregated bowling alley on February 8, 1968.

Which British major led the Loyalist militia defeated at Kings Mountain in October 1780?

Patrick Ferguson, inventor of an early breech-loading rifle, was shot dead when Overmountain militia stormed his Loyalist position on October 7, 1780; the defeat rattled Cornwallis and halted his advance into North Carolina.

In what year did the Stono Rebellion, the largest slave revolt of the colonial South, begin?

The Stono Rebellion began on September 9, 1739, when about 20 enslaved men led by Jemmy, many of them Kongolese, marched south towards Florida, where runaways were promised freedom; the colony answered with the harsh Negro Act of 1740.

Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was born in 1917 in which small Pee Dee town?

Dizzy Gillespie was born in Cheraw, the youngest of nine children of a bricklayer and amateur bandleader; the town later put up a statue of him, bent trumpet and all.

Which Charleston author wrote the 1925 novel Porgy, later Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess?

DuBose Heyward based Catfish Row on the real Cabbage Row on Church Street; Gershwin spent the summer of 1934 on Folly Beach with him, soaking up Gullah music before finishing the opera.

Educator Mary McLeod Bethune was born in 1875 in a log cabin near which SC town?

Mary McLeod Bethune, born near Mayesville in Sumter County as the fifteenth of seventeen children, walked to the Mayesville mission school from 1886 and went on to found Bethune-Cookman University and advise Franklin Roosevelt.

Denmark Vesey's planned 1822 uprising in Charleston was timed for which symbolic date?

The rising was set for July 14, Bastille Day, 1822; Vesey, a carpenter who had bought his freedom with lottery winnings, was among 35 men hanged after 131 were charged.

James P. Johnson's 1923 hit 'The Charleston' came from which Broadway show?

Runnin' Wild, an all-Black revue by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, ran from October 1923 to June 1924 and launched the dance craze named for the song; the steps likely came from the older African-American Juba.