South Carolina Maps

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This entry was originally written by Johni Cerny and Gareth L. Mark for Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.

This article is part of
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the South Carolina Family History Research series.
History of South Carolina
South Carolina Vital Records
Census Records for South Carolina
Background Sources for South Carolina
South Carolina Maps
South Carolina Land Records
South Carolina Probate Records
South Carolina Court Records
South Carolina Tax Records
South Carolina Cemetery Records
South Carolina Church Records
South Carolina Military Records
South Carolina Periodicals, Newspapers, and Manuscript Collections
South Carolina Archives, Libraries, and Societies
South Carolina Immigration
African Americans of South Carolina
South Carolina County/District Resources
Map of South Carolina


The South Caroliniana Library of the University of South Carolina at Columbia has the best collection of early South Carolina maps (see also Manuscripts). The South Carolina Department of Archives and History publishes a pamphlet 'The Formation of Counties in South Carolina,' which can be purchased online.

See Suzanne Cameron Linder, Historical Atlas of the Rice Plantations along the ACE River Basin, 1860 (Columbia, S.C.: Department of Archives and History, 1995). The publication traces the lives, families, and property of plantation owners along Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto Rivers'the ACE Basin.

There is no gazetteer for South Carolina, but a useful substitute is Claude Henry Neuffer, ed., Names in South Carolina, 30 vols. (1954'83; reprint, 4 vols., Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Company, 1976'84). See also Joseph B. Martin III, 'Guide to Presbyterian Ecclesiastical Names and Places in South Carolina, 1685'1985,' South Carolina Historical Magazine, 90 (October 1989): 4'215; and Works Progress Administration, Palmetto Place Names (1945; reprint, Easley, S.C.: Reprint Company, 1975).

Robert Mills, Atlas of the State of South Carolina (1825; reprint, Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1980), is fully indexed and mentions many landowners. Thorndale and Dollarhide illustrate the changing boundaries of South Carolina's districts and counties at each decennial census and includes census districts in 1790 and 1800 that were not legal polities. The Map of the States of North & South Carolina published in 1831 by Hinton & Simpkin & Marshall has been reproduced by Jonathan Sheppard Books (Box 2020, Albany, NY 12220).