South Carolina
Discover South Carolina
Introduction
South Carolina is a small state with an unusually intact past. Charleston, founded in 1670, has one of the best-preserved historic centres in America, and the Civil War began in its harbour in April 1861.
The coast — the Lowcountry — is the state's defining landscape: salt marsh, barrier islands, cypress swamp and live oaks hung with Spanish moss. It is also the heartland of Gullah Geechee culture, the most distinct African-American tradition in the country.
Behind it the land rises through pine forest and farmland to the Blue Ridge escarpment in the northwest, where the waterfalls are and the summers are bearable.
Two practical facts shape any visit: summer here is genuinely severe, and the state's barbecue comes with a mustard sauce you will not find elsewhere.