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South Carolina Counties
South Carolina CountiesSouth Carolina is made up of 46 counties. They range in size from 392 square miles (1,016 square kilometers) in the case of Calhoun County to 1,358 square miles (3,517 square kilometers) in the case of Charleston County. The least populous county is McCormick County, with only 9,958 residents, while the most populous county is Greenville County, with a population of 395,357, despite the state's most populous city, Columbia, being located in Richland County. |
Dorchester County, South CarolinaDorchester County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education
Etymology - Origin of County NameDorchester is named for Dorchester, Massachusetts. Demographics:County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts County HistoryDorchester County was named for Dorchester, Massachusetts. In 1696, Congregationalists from that town moved south and established a new settlement called Dorchester. Although the town of Dorchester had been abandoned by 1788, the parish in which it was located continued to be referred to as St. George Dorchester. This name was subsequently adopted for the county when it was formed from parts of Colleton and Berkeley counties in 1897. The town of Summerville was settled in the late eighteenth century as a summer resort for planters who wished to escape the malaria prevalent on their rice plantations; the town later became a winter resort also. Middleton Place Gardens, the remains of an old rice plantation, are the oldest landscaped gardens in the country, having been laid out in 1741. Middleton Place was the home of Henry Middleton (1717-1784), president of the Continental Congress, his son Arthur Middleton (1742-1787), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his grandson Henry Middleton (1770-1846), South Carolina Governor, United States Congressman, and Ambassador to Russia. GeographyAccording to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 577 square miles (1,494 kmē), of which, 575
square miles (1,489 kmē) of it is land and 2 square miles (5 kmē) of it (0.34%) is water. Neighboring Counties:
Cities and Towns:
County Resources:Enter County Resources and Information Here |
County Resources
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The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define
the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local.
And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions,
reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"
But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history. Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally." |