100 Fun Facts About South Carolina

What is the capital of South Carolina?

It was laid out in 1786 as one of America's first planned capitals, taking over from Charleston, which remains the most populous city.

South Carolina is named in honour of which English king?

Carolina comes from Carolus, Latin for Charles. Charleston, confusingly, was named for his son Charles II.

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

Seventy-two years later it became the first state to vote to leave the Union.

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

The secession vote came in December 1860. It was readmitted to the Union on July 9, 1868.

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

Nobody died in the 34-hour bombardment. One Union soldier was killed afterwards when a cannon misfired during the surrender salute.

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

P. G. T. Beauregard, once his artillery student at West Point, commanded the Confederate guns. The fort is named after Revolutionary officer Thomas Sumter.

What is South Carolina's official nickname?

The sabal palmetto is the state tree, and it earned its place by absorbing British cannon fire at Sullivan's Island in 1776.

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?

Colonel William Moultrie took it from the cap insignia of his militia in 1775. Vexillologists ranked the flag sixth-best among US states in 2001.

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

Battles like Kings Mountain and Cowpens turned the war in the South, and an estimated 25,000 enslaved people fled, migrated or died during the conflict.

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

One writer compared it to a miniature Cannae. The Americans lost 25 killed; the British lost 110 killed and 629 captured or missing, and Cornwallis's road to Yorktown began.

What is the highest point in South Carolina?

It rises about 3,560 feet on the North Carolina line. Two-thirds of the state is Atlantic coastal plain.

How many counties does South Carolina have?

The state ranks 40th in area at about 32,000 square miles and had 5.12 million people at the 2020 census.

Which small brown songbird is the state's official bird?

The state flower is the yellow jessamine and the state fruit, to Georgia's annoyance, is the peach.

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?

They are sold from roadside pots across the state, often spiced with Cajun seasoning.

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

It moved to its present peninsula in 1680 and by the 1690s was the fifth-largest city in North America. Nearly half of all enslaved Africans brought to the US landed there.

What is Charleston's best-known nickname?

It refers to the church steeples that dominate the low skyline; locals also call it Chucktown, and its tech scene has been dubbed Silicon Harbor.

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?

Estimated at magnitude 7.0, it remains one of the strongest quakes ever recorded on the US East Coast.

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

Sherman's army captured the city on February 17, 1865, and much of it burned that night, though historians say he never ordered it.

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

Roughly half of all Army recruits pass through it. Parris Island, down the coast, is the Marines' famous boot camp.

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

It was meant to knit together the state's feuding Lowcountry and Upstate elites. Its arch-rival Clemson opened in 1889.

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

Its trees are among the tallest in the eastern US. It was upgraded from Congaree Swamp National Monument to a national park in 2003, and the word 'swamp' was dropped.

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

The park covers about 26,700 acres 18 miles from Columbia and is one of the least visited national parks in the country.

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?

Add the 200-foot SkyWheel, opened on the boardwalk in 2011, and a boardwalk National Geographic rated the nation's third best.

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

The Gullah preserved more African language and craft than any other African American community thanks to their isolation on the Sea Islands. In Georgia they are also called Geechees.

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

It is English-based but keeps African vocabulary and grammar. Justice Clarence Thomas is among the notable people of Gullah descent.

Which carmaker's plant near Spartanburg is the largest automotive exporter by value in the United States?

Opened in 1994, it builds the X3, X5, X6, X7 and XM and employs about 11,000 people. In 2025 it exported 225,000 cars worth $10.1 billion.

In what year did the BMW plant near Spartanburg open?

It has since become BMW's most productive factory anywhere in the world, turning out nearly 400,000 vehicles in 2025.

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

His family moved to Augusta, Georgia when he was four or five, which is why Georgia usually claims him.

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

His father and two brothers died in the 1974 crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 in Charlotte when he was ten.

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

The state had a Black majority from 1708 until 1930, and a majority-Black government during Reconstruction until about 1876.

How many soldiers from South Carolina are estimated to have died in the Civil War?

More than 60,000 South Carolinians served. The state was readmitted to the Union in July 1868.

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

The rest rises through the Sandhills and Piedmont to a sliver of Blue Ridge in the far northwest corner.

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

Rice, indigo and the slave trade made it the wealthiest city in the southern colonies.

In which year was the state capital moved away from Charleston to a newly planned inland city?

Legislators wanted a site midway between the coastal planters and the Upstate farmers.

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?

Franklin Burroughs' widow chose the name for the shrubs that grow along the coast, replacing the community's earlier, blander name.

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?

Franklin Burroughs wanted to turn the settlement into a resort to rival Florida's beaches, and his sons opened the Seaside Inn there in 1901.

How tall is the Myrtle Beach SkyWheel, the observation wheel that opened on the boardwalk in 2011?

Its climate-controlled gondolas give riders a view up and down the Grand Strand, and the wheel is lit with an LED show after dark.

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

The 1.2-mile boardwalk was built partly to revive the stretch left empty when the old Pavilion amusement park was demolished.

Myrtle Beach was incorporated as a town in which year?

It did not become a city until 1957, and its year-round population is still only around 35,000 despite the millions of summer visitors.

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

Hazel made landfall near the Carolinas border in October 1954 and flattened much of the oceanfront; Hugo in 1989 was the last storm to do serious damage.

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?

Its historic carousel and Baden band organ were moved to Broadway at the Beach, while rides like the Hurricane coaster were demolished.

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?

A second rally, Black Bike Week, was founded in 1980 around Memorial Day and is the largest African American motorcycle rally in the country.

Which nation founded San Miguel de Gualdape near Georgetown in 1526, the first European settlement in the future US?

Spanish explorers had surveyed Winyah Bay five years earlier.

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

The site, now the Charlesfort-Santa Elena archaeological site, later hosted a Spanish town.

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

It rewarded their help in restoring him to the throne in 1660.

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

Rice plantations worked by enslaved Africans followed, and by 1720 the enslaved formed the majority of the population.

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

Rice remained the great Lowcountry staple; the Upstate was settled by small farmers and traders.

All of South Carolina's major lakes are man-made. Which is the largest, at about 110,000 acres?

Lake Strom Thurmond, also called Clarks Hill Lake, is second at 71,100 acres.

Completed in 1800, the Santee Canal connected the new capital Columbia with which port city?

It was one of the first canals in the United States.

Geologists interpret the Carolina Sandhills as ancient what?

The 10-to-35-mile-wide belt formed when the Southeast was colder and windier.

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

The name supposedly came from a frustrated Banastre Tarleton, who chased him 26 miles through a swamp and gave up. Disney made an eight-episode series about him in 1959.

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

She was also only the second US governor of Indian descent, after Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, and 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 site sits on the grounds of Charleston International Airport, and the stretched 787-10 has only ever been assembled there.

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

The band honed its act in campus bars and fraternity houses from 1986, and its 2019 reunion tour ended back home in Columbia.

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

It grew out of an arsenal built after Denmark Vesey's thwarted 1822 uprising, and is the third oldest of the six senior military colleges.

Which threatened sea creature is South Carolina's state reptile?

Loggerheads nest on the state's beaches each summer; the state's marine mammal is the bottlenose dolphin.

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

The yellow 'Carolina Gold' style traces to German immigrants who settled the state's midlands in the 1700s.

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

The 2017 title made her only the second Black woman to coach a Division I women's champion, with A'ja Wilson named Most Outstanding Player.

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

It was badly damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 but has recovered, and now has its own city park.

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

A 104-foot statue of him went up in the 1960s, and the roadside complex once employed 700 people, making it Dillon County's biggest employer.

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

Other Southern senators had agreed not to filibuster the bill and were annoyed that his stand made them look weak to voters back home.

What does the state motto 'Dum spiro spero' mean?

The state has two mottos; the other, 'Animis opibusque parati', appears with it on a seal depicting the 1776 defeat of the British fleet.

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

He grew up in Philadelphia and was finally selected for 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?

It holds a million gallons and was built in 1981 to boast that the county alone grew more peaches than the entire Peach State next door.

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

The Vietnam firefight was shot on Hunting Island and Fripp Island, and the Gump family home was built beside the Combahee River near Yemassee.

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

He served there from November 1827 to December 1828. The island's public library is now named after him.

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

He signed with Bill Veeck's Cleveland Indians just three months after Jackie Robinson's debut and reached the Hall of Fame in 1998.

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

The restoration began in 1931 when Dorothy Legge bought numbers 99 to 101 and painted them pink; neighbours followed with their own colours.

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

It later staged the 2012 and 2021 PGA Championships, the second of which made Phil Mickelson the oldest major winner at 50.

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

Its 1,546-foot main span was among the longest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, and removing the old bridges opened the port to the largest container ships.

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?

As a boy in 1959 he refused to leave the town's segregated library without his books. He was also an accomplished saxophonist.

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

He steered it past the harbour forts to the Union blockade seven miles out, and in 1868 became the first Black member of the state House of Representatives.

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

It opened with The Recruiting Officer and staged America's first opera, Flora. The present building began life as a hotel in 1809.

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

He wanted an American twin for his Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and chose Charleston because you could walk between its theatres.

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

He coined the acronym himself in 1951, and the same principle led to the laser. He later helped weigh the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

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

Built in the 1950s, the complex shut down its last reactor in 1988, but its tritium facilities still supply the US nuclear arsenal.

In 1862, Penn School on St. Helena Island became the South's first school for whom?

Quaker teacher Laura Towne founded it after plantation owners fled the Sea Islands; its first schoolhouse was shipped prefabricated from Pennsylvania.

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

The protest at South Carolina State College was over a segregated bowling alley. It came two years before Kent State and is far less remembered.

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

He was killed in the fight, which took place in what is now Cherokee County. The victory ended a run of Patriot defeats and rattled Cornwallis.

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

About 20 Kongolese men led by Jemmy marched south towards Spanish Florida. The colony responded with the harsh Negro Act of 1740.

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

He was the youngest of nine children. The town now has a statue of him, bent trumpet and all.

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

Gershwin spent the summer of 1934 on Folly Beach soaking up the music. Catfish Row was based on the real Cabbage Row on Church Street.

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

She started at the town's one-room mission school in 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?

Vesey, a free carpenter fluent in French and Spanish, had bought his freedom with lottery winnings. Authorities charged 131 men and hanged 41.

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

The show ran from October 1923 to June 1924 and the dance craze peaked in 1926-27, though its steps likely came from the older African-American Juba.