Charleston

Founded by the English in 1670 as Charles Town, named for Charles II, first at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley and moved to its present site in 1680, after which it grew fast enough to be the fifth-largest city in North America by the 1690s. It sits just south of the midpoint of the South Carolina coast on a harbour formed where the Ashley, Cooper and Wando rivers meet. It remains the most populous city in the state, at the centre of a metropolitan area of about 870,000.