Charleston, a port of entry, capital of a county of its own name, and the largest city of South Carolina, is situated on a tongue of land between the rivers Ashley and Cooper, which unite immediately below the town and form a beautiful and spacious harbour, communicating with the ocean at Sullivan's Island, a popular sea-bathing resort, 7 miles below. It is 118 miles NE. of Savannah, 580 miles SW. of Baltimore, and 540 miles SSW. of Washington. The ground on which the city is built is elevated 8 or 9 feet above the level of the harbour at high tide, which rises about 6 feet, flowing by the city with a strong current, thus contributing to its salubrity. It has a water front of 9 miles. A shifting sandbar extends across the mouth of the harbour, affording, however, two entrances, of which the deepest, near Sullivan's Island, has 16 feet of water at low tide. Jetties, which are expected to give a depth of 25 feet of water on the bar, have since 1878 been under con- struction by the national government. The harbour is defended by Castle Pinckney and Fort Sumter, each on an island, the former 2 and the latter 6 miles below the city, and also by Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. Forts Ripley and Johnson, now abandoned, have only an historic interest. At the entrance of the harbour is a lighthouse, with a flashing light, 125 feet high.
Charleston is regularly built, and extends about 3 miles in length and nearly 1½ miles in breadth. It has a copious water-supply from a large artesian well (1970 feet in depth). The streets, many of which are broad and bordered with shade-trees, pass, for the most part, parallel to one another, from the Cooper to the Ashley River, and are intersected by others nearly at right angles. Many of the houses are of brick, some of them of superior elegance; others are of wood, neatly painted, and embowered during the summer season amid a profusion of foliage. Among the public buildings are the custom-house, the city hall, the court-house, the citadel, the academy of music, the theatre, the orphan asylum, and the police barracks. The custom-house is a handsome edifice, built of granite and white marble. At the southern extremity of the city is a small park called the Battery or White Point Garden, with a fine promenade on the sea-wall. The most important educational and literary institutions are the Charleston College (non-sectarian), which was founded in 1785 and reorganised in 1837; the Medical College of South Carolina (1833); the State Military Academy, also called the Citadel; the high school; the female seminary; a normal school for girls; and the Charleston Library (1748). The Charleston College has an excellent museum of natural history. There are good public, private, and parochial schools for white and coloured children. Charleston is the seat of an Episcopal and a Roman Catholic bishop, and contains forty churches. St Michael's Church (Episcopal) is a brick structure, with a steeple 180 feet high, and a chime of bells imported from England in 1764. Among the benevolent institutions are the city hospital, the Confederate Home for Widows, the almshouse, the asylum for the aged and infirm, and the orphan asylum, which is liberally endowed, and can accommodate three hundred children. There are also Catholic orphan asylums and a convent.
Charleston is the chief commercial city of South Carolina, and has an advantageous position for trade. Steamships ply regularly between this port and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Florida; and three railroads meet here, with a large wharf frontage, elevators, and every facility for through shipments and the quick despatch of freight. The coastwise trade far exceeds the foreign in extent and importance. The chief articles of export are cotton, rice, naval stores (rosin, oil of turpentine, tar, &c.), cotton goods, timber, market-garden produce, phosphate rock, and crude and manufactured fertilisers; the value of the principal exports reaches $30,000,000 in a year (the most important being phosphates). The imports are chiefly salt, iron, ale, brimstone, kainite, and fruits from the West Indies. There is a large wholesale distributing trade in dry-goods, clothing, drugs, &c.; and the city has large machine-shops, cotton-presses, grist-mills, cotton-mills, rice-mills, ship-yards, a dry-dock for large ships, and extensive manufactures of phosphate of lime, which abounds in the vicinity. Whereas only 6 tons of phosphate were mined in 1867, the amount now annually raised is about 300,000 tons.
The city was founded in 1680; a few years later a company of French Huguenots, exiled for their religion, settled at this place. On the 28th June 1776 a British squadron attacked the garrison on Sullivan's Island, consisting of 400 men under Colonel Moultrie, who defended the place with success. Charleston was afterwards besieged by Sir Henry Clinton from April 1, 1780, to May 12, when it was surrendered by General Lincoln. On the 12th of April 1861, the Confederates initiated the civil war by the bombardment of Fort Sumter, which they took the next day. In 1861 about half the city was destroyed by fire, and a considerable part was not rebuilt until after 1865. In April 1863 a Federal fleet of nine ironclad vessels, commanded by Admiral Dupont, attacked the fortifications of Charleston without success. After a long siege the place was evacuated by the Confederates, February 17, 1865. On 31st August 1886 the city was visited by a severe earthquake; nearly 7000 buildings were either destroyed or seriously injured, and several lives were lost. The earthquake was followed by a very general reconstruction of the business part of the city. Pop. (1800) 18,711; (1820) 24,780; (1840) 29,261; (1860) 40,522; (1870) 48,956, of whom 22,749 were white and 26,207 were coloured; (1880) 49,984; (1890) 54,955 (more than half coloured).