How it works
Draw a random city in South Carolina from all 271 cities and towns in the Census Bureau's 2025 estimates. Cope, the smallest, is as likely to come up as Charleston.
Read the full guide
Towns larger than most cities
Mount Pleasant, a town, has 95,469 people, more than every city but three, and Summerville, also a town, is seventh. Chesnee, a city in Spartanburg County, has 958. Ten of the 43 places with 10,000 people or more are towns.
A random South Carolina city from any of 46 counties
Every county has at least two places. Thirty-one places carry the name of the county they are in, from Charleston down to Chesterfield. Kershaw is the one exception: it is in Lancaster County, and the largest place wholly in Kershaw County is Camden.
- Hardeeville, in Jasper County, more than doubled between 2020 and 2025, to 16,459 people.
- North Charleston's card says mostly in Charleston County: a quarter of its people live in Dorchester County.
Questions and answers
How many cities are in South Carolina?
South Carolina has 271 municipalities, and every one has a card. The Census Bureau's file names 69 of them cities and 202 towns. Nine have 50,000 people or more.
What is the difference between a city and a town in South Carolina?
None in law. A municipality chooses to be called a city or a town when it incorporates, and both have the same duties, from police and fire protection to zoning.
What is the smallest town in South Carolina?
Cope, in Orangeburg County, with 36 people in the 2025 estimates. Jenkinsville in Fairfield County has 40, and 13 South Carolina towns have under 100 people.
What are the largest cities in South Carolina?
Charleston, with 159,423 people, then Columbia, the capital, with 147,035, and North Charleston with 129,245. Mount Pleasant is fourth and Rock Hill fifth, with 75,911.