Chatham County, Georgia

Chatham County ( ) is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of Georgia, on the state's Atlantic coast. The county seat and largest city is Savannah. One of the original counties of Georgia, Chatham County was created February 5, 1777, and is named after William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham.

The U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 estimated population for Chatham County was 307,336 residents. The official 2020 U.S. census population was 295,291 residents, an increase of 11.4% from the official 2010 population of 265,128. Chatham County is the fifth-most-populous county in Georgia, and the state's most populous outside the Atlanta metropolitan area. The county is the core of the Savannah metropolitan area.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which (32.6%) is covered by water.

Chatham County is the northernmost of Georgia's coastal counties on the Atlantic Ocean. It is bounded on the northeast by the Savannah River, and in the southwest bounded by the Ogeechee River.

The bulk of Chatham County, an area with a northern border in a line from Bloomingdale to Tybee Island, is located in the Ogeechee River Coastal subbasin of the Ogeechee River basin. The portion of the county north of that line is located in the lower Savannah River subbasin of the Savannah River basin, while the very southern fringes of the Chatham County are located in the lower Ogeechee River subbasin of the Ogeechee River basin.

Major highways

* (Interstate 16)
* (Interstate 95)
* (Interstate 516)
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* (Decommissioned)
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* (unsigned designation for I-16)
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* (unsigned designation for I-95)
* (unsigned designation for I-516)
* (Savannah River Parkway)

Adjacent counties

* Jasper County, South Carolina – northeast
* Bryan County – west/southwest
* Liberty County - southeast
* Effingham County – northwest

National protected areas

* Fort Pulaski National Monument
* Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (part)
* Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge

Communities

Municipalities

Cities

* Bloomingdale
* Garden City
* Pooler
* Port Wentworth
* Savannah (county seat)
* Tybee Island

Towns

* Thunderbolt
* Vernonburg

Census-designated places

* Dutch Island
* Georgetown
* Henderson
* Isle of Hope
* Montgomery
* Skidaway Island
* Talahi Island
* Whitemarsh Island
* Wilmington Island

Other unincorporated communities

* Pin Point
*Sandfly

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 295,291 people, 107,987 households, and 65,889 families residing in the county.

Education

Public schools are operated by Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools. The entire county is in the district.

Libraries

The Live Oak Public Libraries constitute a regional library system that provides services to three Georgia counties: Chatham, Effingham, and Liberty. The former name of the system, "Chatham Effingham Liberty Regional Library," described this collaboration. In 2002, the name was changed to Live Oak, which reflects the personality of the region, as well as the life and growth of its branches.
At the beginning of the 20th century, city leaders in Savannah began to discuss the need for a public library. The history of libraries in Chatham County dates to 1903. According to Geraldine LeMay, former director of the Savannah Public Chatham-Effingham and Liberty Regional Library, the Georgia Historical Society and the city of Savannah worked out a plan that year to establish the Savannah Public Library. The idea was the brainchild of the Georgia Historical Society, which set up a planning committee to determine how the facilities of the society might best be useful to the city of Savannah. In a joint meeting of committee members from the society and the city of Savannah, a free public library was established that would prove to be of great value to the community. This library, however, did not serve citizens of color.

Government and infrastructure

The Coastal State Prison, a Georgia Department of Corrections state prison, is located in Savannah, near Garden City.

Unincorporated Chatham County is primarily served by the Chatham County Police Department. (CCPD) and the Georgia State Patrol. The Chatham County Sheriff's Office is the enforcement arm of the county court system and operates the county jail. Except for the Town of Vernonburg, every incorporated town and city in Chatham County has its own police department.

Politics

Chatham County was one of the earliest counties in Georgia to turn Republican and shake off its Solid South roots. From 1952 to 2000, the county voted for the Republican candidate for president all but four times. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey carried Chatham County by 95 votes over second-place Richard Nixon, and Chatham was one of only eight Georgia counties in which George Wallace came in as low as third place. Jimmy Carter won a majority in both of his runs for president, and in 1996, Bill Clinton became the first non-Georgian Democrat since Franklin D.
Roosevelt to win a majority.

The county has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 2004, when John Kerry carried it by fewer than 150 votes and won a plurality. It would swing dramatically to support Barack Obama in 2008, making Obama only the second non-Georgian Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to win a majority of the county's votes. Since then, Chatham has tended to vote substantially more for Democrats at the presidential level than the state as a whole. In the last four presidential elections, Democrats have recorded the biggest margins for non-Georgian Democrats since Roosevelt's landslides. This culminated in Joe Biden's winning 58.6% of the vote in the 2020 election, outdoing Jimmy Carter's 57% in 1976 for the best performance of a Democrat in the county since Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. Since 2008, Chatham has been one of the most reliably Democratic urban counties in the state outside the Atlanta area, and one of the few Democratic pockets in heavily Republican South Georgia.

See also

* Georgia Senate, District 2
* National Register of Historic Places listings in Chatham County, Georgia
* List of counties in Georgia

References

External links

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Documents from Chatham County
at th
Digital Library of Georgia

{{Coord, 31.97, -81.09, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-GA_source:UScensus1990

1777 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Populated places established in 1777
Georgia (U.S. state) counties
Savannah metropolitan area
Majority-minority counties in Georgia
World War II Heritage Cities
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham