Darien, GA

Darien is a coastal county seat with a very old Georgia story: Scottish Highlanders settled here in 1736, first calling the place New Inverness, and General James Oglethorpe laid out the town on a bluff above the Altamaha. That river shaped everything that followed—military outposts, a major lumber port, sawmills, and later the shrimping fleet that worked the docks. Darien was chartered as a city and made McIntosh County’s seat in 1818. The old waterfront setting still gives the place its character, with the Darien River, Doboy Sound, marshes, and the Altamaha delta all close together. If you want the local shorthand, it’s Scottish settlement, river port, and coastal working town in one small map.