CHARLESTON, the largest city of South Carolina, U.S.A., and an important South Atlantic seaport, on a narrow peninsula between the Cooper and the Ashley rivers, at the head of the bay formed by their confluence, 7m. from the ocean ; the county seat of Charleston county, headquarters of the customs district of South Carolina, and the official port of the State. It is on Federal highways 17 and 78; and is served by the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line and the Southern railways, and by coastwise, inter-coastal and foreign steamship lines. The popu lation in 1920 was (47.6% negroes), and was 62,265 in 1930 by the Federal census of that year. The city covers 5.12sq.m., nowhere rising more than 8 or loft. above the rivers, has 9m. of water-front within the city limits and 8m. outside. On islands in the harbour are Forts Sumter, Moultrie (where the U.S. army maintains a unit), Johnson (now the quarantine sta tion), Ripley and Castle Pinckney. North of the city, on the west bank of Cooper river, is a first-class navy yard, which has an aviation field and a dry dock 575ft. long. Still farther north (1o•4m. above the custom-house) are the port terminals, con structed by the United States during the World War as an army supply base, and now leased by the Port Utilities commission of Charleston from the U.S. shipping board.
The spacious harbour, almost landlocked, and protected by two converging stone jetties (15,443 and 19,104ft. long), accommo dates vessels with a draught of 3o feet. Its commerce in 1926 amounted to 3,246,174 tons of cargo, valued at $209,907,448, and floated logs and lumber valued at $767,837. Inbound traffic con sists largely of oil, gasolene (petrol) and materials for fertilizer; out-bound, of petroleum products, cross-ties, coal from Virginia and West Virginia, cotton and cotton goods and tobacco from the Carolinas and Georgia. Trade with foreign countries in 1926 rep resented a value of $36,304,294 in exports and $11,663,403 in imports. Charleston is an important centre for the distribution and refining of oil, and it has large fertilizer plants. Other leading manufactures are woven asbestos, cotton-bagging, iron work and various articles of wood. The city is a bunkering and repair sta tion for both commercial and naval vessels; headquarters of the 6th naval district, of the south-eastern division of the Engineer ing Corps of the army, and of the 6th lighthouse district ; and a market for the agricultural products (notably vegetables, tobacco and cotton) and the pine and hardwood of the State, and for the oysters, crabs, shrimps and fish caught off the adjacent islands.
Charleston has a unique charm and beauty, compounded of natural advantages of situation, historic associations, sub-tropical trees and flowers, marvellous old gardens glimpsed through wrought-iron gates, and numerous survivals of colonial architec ture, with balustraded steps, pillared porticos and spacious ve randas. A city plan and zoning regulations are in process of formu lation which, while providing conveniently for industrial and resi dential expansion, will preserve the picturesque and historic old sections and develop the entire Ashley river water-front as a parkway and a site for public and semi-public buildings, with the beautiful memorial bridge of concrete and steel and the new plant of the Citadel adjoining Hampton park as features of the develop ment. At the lower end of the peninsula is the Battery, or White Point gardens, planted with live-oaks and palmettos. Beach resorts are developed on outlying islands which formerly (until 1718) were the haunts of pirates. The Magnolia gardens, up the Ashley, are a monument to the exquisite taste and poetic im agination of the Rev. John Grimke Drayton, who created them when in the 1840's his physician ordered him to lead an outdoor life. At Middleton place, farther up the river, one wing of the great Tudor mansion still stands, and there are gardens which had renown in England in the 18th century. Among the many educa tional institutions of the city are the College of Charleston, chartered in 1785 and taken over by the city in 1837 (the first municipal college in the country) ; the South Carolina medical college, a State institution founded in 1824; and the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, created by the legislature in 1842. The Charleston library was founded in 1748; the museum in The first English settlement in South Carolina, named of ter the reigning king, was made at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley in 1670, but in 1672 a new town was begun on the present site, and the seat of government was moved to it in 1680. It soon became the largest and wealthiest settlement south of Philadelphia; the brilliant social and cultural centre of the prov ince and later of the State ; the home of the Pinckneys, the Rut ledges, the Gadsdens, the Laurenses and many other notable fam ilies. Magnificent estates were developed in the surrounding country. The port shipped one specialty after another—rice, in digo, tobacco, lumber, cotton—before entering on its present phase as a more general cargo port. Charleston was the capital of the State until 179o. Until 1783 it was governed by ordinances passed by the legislature and enforced partly by provincial offi cials and partly by the churchwardens. The city charter of 5783, with many amendments, is still in force. In 185o the population was 42,985, ranking Charleston 15th among the cities of the United States.
Charleston was attacked by a combined fleet of Spanish and French in 1706; withstood attacks from the British in 1776 and in 1779, but in 1780 was captured from the land side by Sir Henry Clinton and became the base of operations in the Carolinas, re maining under military rule until Dec. 14, 1782. It was the centre of the nullification movement of 1832-33. The bombardment and capture of Ft. Sumter (April 12-13, 1861) by the South Caro linians marked the beginning of the Civil War. From 1862 to 1865 Charleston was almost continually under siege by the Federal naval and military forces, and on Feb. 17, 1865, the Confederates evacuated the city, after burning large stores of cotton and other supplies to keep them from coming into possession of the en emy. Charleston was devastated by hurricanes in 1699, in 1752 and in 1854; by epidemic in 1699 and in 1854; by fire in 1740; and by an earthquake on Aug. 31, 1886, which damaged 9o% of the buildings. Since the World War the foreign commerce of the port has increased greatly, advancing it from 34th to 15th place among the ports of the country.
See (for the best history of Charleston) William A. Courtenay, Charleston, S.C.: The Centennial of Incorporation (Charleston, 1884). Sketches of many of the historic buildings are included in Charleston, South Carolina, edited by Albert Simons and Samuel Lapham, Jr. (Press of the American Institute of Architects, 1927).