Myrtle Beach, SC

Myrtle Beach occupies the center of the Grand Strand, a nearly continuous 60-mile beach corridor in northeastern South Carolina. Its year-round population was 35,682 at the 2020 census. Waccamaw people traveled by river and fished along the shore around Little River before colonial settlement. The community was later known as New Town or Withers; Franklin Burroughs’s sons completed a railroad to the beach and opened the Seaside Inn as development shifted toward tourism. Hotels, restaurants, attractions, and retail remain central to the visitor economy. Myrtle Beach State Park, established in 1935, preserves just under a mile of Grand Strand beach. The Intracoastal Waterway has separated the coastal city from land immediately inland since 1936. Local National Register properties include the Atlantic Coast Line railroad station and Myrtle Heights–Oak Park Historic District.