South Carolina State Map

Regions of South Carolina

South Carolinians divide their state into the Upstate, the Midlands, the Pee Dee and the Lowcountry. The Fall Line, where rivers drop from hard Piedmont rock onto the sandy Coastal Plain, runs through Columbia and splits the state roughly in half.

Upstate

The northwest corner holds the Blue Ridge escarpment and the Piedmont. Sassafras Mountain, the highest point, sits on the North Carolina line in Pickens County. Table Rock and Caesars Head state parks lie along the same escarpment, and Lake Jocassee and Lake Keowee fill valleys below it. Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson form the I-85 manufacturing corridor, and Clemson University lies near Lake Hartwell. Rock Hill, in the north-central Piedmont, belongs to the Charlotte metro area.

Midlands

Columbia sits where the Broad and Saluda rivers join to form the Congaree. Lake Murray lies just west of the city, and Congaree National Park, southeast of Columbia, protects old-growth bottomland hardwood forest; it became a national park in 2003. The Sandhills, ancient dunes along the Fall Line, run through Aiken, Camden and Cheraw.

Pee Dee

The northeast is named for the Great Pee Dee River. Florence is the main city, at the junction of I-95 and I-20. Flat farmland surrounds it, long known for tobacco.

Grand Strand

The coast of Horry and Georgetown counties is a chain of beach towns centered on Myrtle Beach, from Little River near the North Carolina line south to Pawleys Island.

Lowcountry

The southern coast is tidal marsh, rivers and Sea Islands. Charleston, North Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Summerville form the largest metro area in the state. Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, is where the Civil War began on April 12, 1861. Farther south are Beaufort, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island and the resort island of Hilton Head.

Rivers and lakes

The Savannah River forms the entire border with Georgia. The Santee River system, fed by the Congaree and Wateree, drains the center of the state; its dams created Lake Marion, the largest lake in the state, and Lake Moultrie.

History on the map

South Carolina ratified the US Constitution on May 23, 1788, becoming the 8th state. On December 20, 1860, it became the first state to secede from the Union. Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, Charleston’s historic district and the rice plantations along the Ashley and Cooper rivers trace that history on the ground.

Major highways

• I-95: from Georgia near Hardeeville through Walterboro, Santee, Florence and Dillon into North Carolina.
• I-26: from Charleston northwest through Columbia and Spartanburg to North Carolina, toward Asheville.
• I-20: from Augusta, Georgia, past Aiken to Columbia and east to Florence.
• I-85: from Georgia at Lake Hartwell through Anderson, Greenville and Spartanburg to Charlotte, North Carolina.
• I-77: from Columbia north through Rock Hill to Charlotte.
• I-385 and I-526: Greenville to I-26 near Clinton; and a beltway around Charleston connecting West Ashley, North Charleston and Mount Pleasant.
• Airports: the main commercial airports are Charleston International, Columbia Metropolitan, Greenville-Spartanburg International and Myrtle Beach International.
• US 17: the coastal route from Beaufort County through Charleston, Georgetown and Myrtle Beach into North Carolina.