About College of Charleston

The College of Charleston (also known as CofC or Charleston) is a public advanced arts literary in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, it is the oldest teacher in South Carolina, the 13th oldest institution of progressive learning in the United States, and the oldest municipal researcher in the country. The founders of the learned include three complex signers of the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Heyward Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge), and three cutting edge signers of the United States Constitution (Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and John Rutledge).

Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county chair of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston–Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina’s coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers. Charleston had an estimated population of 137,566 as of latest U.S. Census estimate in 2019. The estimated population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, was 802,122 residents as of July 1, 2019, the third-largest in the acknowledge and the 74th-largest metropolitan statistical Place in the United States.

Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II, at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing) but relocated in 1680 to its gift site, which became the fifth-largest city in North America within ten years. It remained unincorporated throughout the colonial period; its government was handled directly by a colonial legislature and a officer sent by Parliament. Election districts were organized according to Anglican parishes, and some social services were managed by Anglican wardens and vestries. Charleston adopted its gift spelling following its raptness as a city in 1783. Population lump in the interior of South Carolina influenced the removal of the state handing out to Columbia in 1788, but Charleston remained along with the ten largest cities in the United States through the 1840 census.

Charleston’s significance in American history is tied to its role as a major slave trading port. Charleston slave traders in imitation of Joseph Wragg were the first to crack through the monopoly of the Royal African Company and pioneered the large-scale slave trade of the 18th century; almost one half of slaves imported to America arrived in Charleston. In 2018, the city formally apologized for its role in the American Slave trade after CNN noted that slavery “riddles the history” of Charleston.

Known for its strong tourism industry, in 2016 Travel + Leisure Magazine ranked Charleston as the best city in the world.