photo by toby819

Although it is the Deep South’s smallest state, South Carolina has much to offer: sublime mountain scenery, beaches, forests, spectacular waterfalls, beautiful rivers and lakes, an abundance of animal and plant life, fine gardens, a remarkable array of Colonial and antebellum architecture, historic for ts and battlegrounds, and many fine museums.

South Carolina’s coastline forms an almost continuous beach in the north, known as the Grand Strand, breaking into a tortuous pattern of bays, rivers, islands, and saltwater marshes fur ther in the south. The terrain ascends from southeast to northwest, from flat coastal plain through the hilly piedmont in the center to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwest. About 55 percent of the state’s 4 million inhabitants live in urban areas, with Columbia doubling as the largest city and state capital. Thirty percent of the citizens are of African-American heritage, while German, Irish, British, and Native American backgrounds are also common.

South Carolina is an important manufacturing and farming state and principal producer of textiles and tobacco. Many residents are employed in service industries that feed off a profitable tourism sector. Prior to European settlement, more than 30 Native American tribes lived here. The French and Spanish attempted to establish permanent settlements in the sixteenth century, but colonization truly began with the British at Charleston in 1670.

During the Revolutionary War, South Carolina was the scene of some crucial battles. It became the eighth US state in 1788 and the first state to secede from the Union in 1860. In fact, the Civil War began when Confederate forces took the federal stockade at Fort Sumter. The post-war years were marked by the violent subordination of African-Americans and fierce resistance to their push for equality after World War II.