Portal:South Carolina

South Carolina is a state located in the Southern United States. According to the 2020 United States census, South Carolina is the 23rd-most populous state with 5,118,425 inhabitants, but the 11th-smallest by land area spanning 30,060.70 sq mi (77,856.9 km²) of land. South Carolina is divided into 46 counties and contains 271 municipalities consisting of 71 cities and 200 towns. South Carolina's municipalities cover only 6.2% of the state's land mass but are home to 36.8% of its population.

At incorporation, municipalities may choose to be named either "City of" or "Town of", however there is no legal difference between the two. All municipalities are responsible for providing local service including law enforcement, fire protection, waste and water management, planning and zoning, recreational facilities, and street lighting. Municipalities may incorporate with one of three forms of government: 141 chose mayor–council, 95 chose council, and 33 chose council–manager. Under the mayor–council form of government, an elected municipal council is composed of a mayor and four or more council members. The mayor's responsibilities include: staffing of all municipal employees; directing and supervising the administration of all departments, offices, and agencies; voting in, and presiding over, council meetings; and preparing the annual budget (with council), capital program (with council), and public financial reports. Under the council form of government, the council can be composed of five, seven or nine members including the mayor, all elected, and each with one vote on council. The council has the power to levy taxes and raise funds from other sources that match the operating and capital budgets. Under the council–manager form of government, the council is composed of a mayor and four, six, or eight councilmen each with one vote. The municipality must employ a manager, establish administrative departments upon recommendation of the manager, adopt an annual budget, provide an independent annual audit of the books and business affairs of the municipality, provide for the general health and welfare of the municipality, and enact ordinances of any nature and kind. The manager is the head of the administrative branch of the municipal government and is responsible for staffing (including the hiring, firing and compensation of all municipal employees), preparing the annual budget and financial report for council adoption. (Full article...)

Savannah River at Augusta, with the Augusta Canal running alongside

The Savannah River is a major river in the Southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of Georgia and South Carolina. The river flows from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, for a total distance of about 301 miles (484 km). The Savannah was formed by the confluence of the Tugaloo River and the Seneca River. Today this confluence is part of Lake Hartwell, a man-made reservoir constructed between 1955 and 1964.

Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form Georgia's northernmost border with South Carolina. A tributary of the Tugaloo, the Tallulah River, forms the northwest branch of the Savannah and features the two-mile-long (3 km) and almost 1,000-foot-deep (300 m) Tallulah Gorge. The Savannah River's drainage basin extends into the southeastern Appalachian Mountains and the state of North Carolina, and is bounded by the Eastern Continental Divide. (Full article...)

• ... that in 1974, Oliver C. Dawson was the first black person to be inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame?
• ... that a South Carolina TV station went on the air 12 years after its owner said the odds of it existing were "fairly long"?
• ... that the 2019 South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball recruiting class is known as the Freshies after the name of the group chat they created before their freshman year?
• ... that Tommy Suggs recommended using Also sprach Zarathustra as his college football team's entrance music, because he saw Elvis Presley do it first?
• ... that when Felicia Schroeder signed to play soccer for the University of South Carolina, the school did not have a sign-language interpreter available for her?
• ... that South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Will Muschamp told Jalin Hyatt: "Man, you're fast, but you need to eat more peanut butter"?