South Carolina - From Fort Sumter to Boeing and BMW
South Carolina is a state of about 5.4 million residents spread across 46 counties and 32,020 square miles. The geography runs from the Blue Ridge in the northwest corner down through the Piedmont and across the coastal plain to the Atlantic. Columbia, the capital, sits near the geographic centre of the state and hosts the University of South Carolina, whose flagship campus downtown has been a fixture of the city since 1801. The State House on Gervais Street still bears bronze stars marking damage from Union artillery during Sherman's march in February 1865.
Charleston is the historic port at the southern tip of the state, with about 155,000 residents inside the city limits and a metro area of roughly 850,000. The attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 opened the Civil War, and the historic district preserves one of the most intact eighteenth and nineteenth century urban landscapes in the country. The modern Charleston economy has been reshaped by the Boeing 787 final assembly plant at Charleston International Airport, which delivered its first aircraft in 2011 and remains one of two global sites producing the Dreamliner. The Port of Charleston handles the largest container volumes on the South Atlantic coast.
Greenville, in the Upstate region near the North Carolina border, has grown from a textile town of about 75,000 residents into the commercial centre of a metro area of roughly 950,000. The BMW plant in nearby Spartanburg, opened in 1994, is the largest BMW production site in the world by volume and anchors an automotive supplier cluster that extends across the Upstate. Michelin North America is headquartered in Greenville, and the city has invested heavily in converting the Reedy River corridor downtown into a pedestrian and cycling core. Clemson University, 30 miles west in Pickens County, drives research in automotive engineering and materials.
The coast supports a distinct tourism economy. Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand hold roughly 60 miles of Atlantic frontage north of Georgetown and draw the largest share of the state's visitor volume, with golf and family resorts as the main drivers. Hilton Head Island south of Beaufort developed as a planned resort community beginning in the 1950s and sits at the higher end of the coastal market. Textiles and tobacco, which dominated the twentieth-century economy through mills in the Upstate and flue-cured tobacco in the Pee Dee region, have both faded considerably, though their imprint on towns and land use remains visible.
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South Carolina is a state of about 5.4 million residents spread across 46 counties and 32,020 square miles. The geography runs from the Blue Ridge in the northwest corner down through the Piedmont and across the coastal plain to the Atlantic. Columbia, the capital, sits near the geographic centre of the state and hosts the University of South Carolina, whose flagship campus downtown has been a fixture of the city since 1801. The State House on Gervais Street still bears bronze stars marking damage from Union artillery during Sherman's march in February 1865.
Charleston is the historic port at the southern tip of the state, with about 155,000 residents inside the city limits and a metro area of roughly 850,000. The attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 opened the Civil War, and the historic district preserves one of the most intact eighteenth and nineteenth century urban landscapes in the country. The modern Charleston economy has been reshaped by the Boeing 787 final assembly plant at Charleston International Airport, which delivered its first aircraft in 2011 and remains one of two global sites producing the Dreamliner. The Port of Charleston handles the largest container volumes on the South Atlantic coast.
Greenville, in the Upstate region near the North Carolina border, has grown from a textile town of about 75,000 residents into the commercial centre of a metro area of roughly 950,000. The BMW plant in nearby Spartanburg, opened in 1994, is the largest BMW production site in the world by volume and anchors an automotive supplier cluster that extends across the Upstate. Michelin North America is headquartered in Greenville, and the city has invested heavily in converting the Reedy River corridor downtown into a pedestrian and cycling core. Clemson University, 30 miles west in Pickens County, drives research in automotive engineering and materials.
The coast supports a distinct tourism economy. Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand hold roughly 60 miles of Atlantic frontage north of Georgetown and draw the largest share of the state's visitor volume, with golf and family resorts as the main drivers. Hilton Head Island south of Beaufort developed as a planned resort community beginning in the 1950s and sits at the higher end of the coastal market. Textiles and tobacco, which dominated the twentieth-century economy through mills in the Upstate and flue-cured tobacco in the Pee Dee region, have both faded considerably, though their imprint on towns and land use remains visible.
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