South Carolina

H

Transportation

Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Spartanburg are the chief transportation centers in South Carolina. The state is served by a network of federal and state highways totaling 106,616 km (66,248 mi), including 1,357 km (843 mi) of the national interstate highway system.

Water transportation, which was the chief means of transportation in colonial South Carolina, is now relatively unimportant. The Savannah River is the only navigable river now extensively used for river traffic, and many of the early-19th-century canals have long been abandoned. However, barges, pleasure craft, and other coastal vessels are numerous on the Atlantic portion of the Intracoastal Waterway, which extends along the coast.

Railroad construction dates from 1830, but most of the state’s early railroad lines were heavily damaged during the Civil War. In 2004 there were 3,701 km (2,300 mi) of railroad track. Some 14 percent of the tonnage of goods hauled on the rail system is lumber and another 14 percent is pulp and paper. Nonmetallic minerals accounted for 8 percent of freight originating in the state, and chemicals represented another 16 percent. Container traffic through the Port of Charleston has become increasingly important, and railroads haul about one-quarter of the containers shipped through the port.

In 2009 the state had 8 airfields, most of which were private. The principal airports were at Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville-Spartanburg, although they ranked near the bottom of the nation’s busiest airfields, overshadowed by major airline hubs in Atlanta, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

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I

Trade

The principal centers of wholesale and retail trade are Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Spartanburg. Charleston is South Carolina’s chief seaport, handling both foreign and domestic freight traffic. The state ports authority also has terminals at Port Royal and Georgetown for maritime trade.

IV

The People of South Carolina

A

Population Patterns

According to the 2000 national census, South Carolina ranked 26th among the states, with a total population of 4,012,012. This figure represented an increase of 15.1 percent over the 1990 population.

South Carolina was primarily rural longer than most other states, but by 2000 some 60 percent of the population lived in urban centers. Urbanization was very rapid in the later portion of the 20th century. As a result, by 1990, five southern states and six northern states were more rural than South Carolina, as against only six states nationally in 1970. Much of the urban increase occurred in the suburbs of Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and other large cities. The average population density for the state as a whole was 55 persons per sq km (144 per sq mi) in 2006.

In 2000 whites constituted 67.2 percent of the population and blacks 29.5 percent. Asians were 0.9 percent of inhabitants; Native Americans, many of whom were members of the Catawba people, were 0.3 percent, and those of mixed heritage or not reporting race were 2 percent. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders numbered 1,628. Hispanics, who may be of any race, were 2.4 percent of the population.

Between 1820 and 1920 blacks outnumbered whites in South Carolina. After 1920 the state’s white population grew more rapidly than the black population because many blacks migrated to the North. Blacks are still a majority in parts of rural South Carolina, although many blacks have moved to urban areas.

B

Principal Cities

The largest city in South Carolina is Columbia, with a population (2006) of 119,961. It serves as the state capital and is a leading commercial, industrial, and transportation center. Columbia is the central city of the Columbia metropolitan area, which is coextensive with Lexington and Richland counties and had a total population of 703,800 in 2006. Charleston, with a 2006 population of 107,845, is the state’s second largest city, its principal port, and one of its major industrial centers. The Charleston-North Charleston metropolitan area comprises Charleston, Berkeley, and Dorchester counties. In 2006 it had a population of 603,200. Greenville, with a population of 57,428 in 2006, is one of the state’s large industrial centers. Spartanburg, a textile-manufacturing and railroad center, had a population of 38,561. Greenville and Spartanburg are the centers of the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson metropolitan area. The area, which comprises Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Pickens, and Spartanburg counties, had the largest metropolitan population in the state in 2006 with 602,000 inhabitants.

Other major cities with their 2006 populations include Sumter (39,159), a furniture and woodworking center; Rock Hill (61,620), a center of the textile industry; Florence (31,284), which is primarily a trade center and railroad transfer point; Anderson (26,242), which produces textiles, fiberglass yarn, and sewing machines; and Greenwood (22,407), a textile-manufacturing center.

C

Religion

By far the largest number of church members in South Carolina belongs to Baptist denominations, representing nearly one-half of all church members. Other Protestant denominations represented in the state are the Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Pentecostals. There are also a number of Roman Catholic, Unitarian, and Jewish congregations, as well as many small evangelical and fundamentalist groups. The national headquarters of the Reformed Methodist Union Episcopal Church is in Charleston.

V

Education and Cultural Institutions

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