Charleston Historic District Guide

Charleston, founded in 1670, is routinely voted the best city in America, and one walk through the historic peninsula tells you why: pastel single houses turned sideways to catch the breeze, double piazzas dripping with ferns, cobblestone alleys, church steeples in every direction (the “Holy City,” named for its early religious tolerance), and Rainbow Row glowing along the water. The Battery looks out over the harbor to Fort Sumter; the food scene is one of the country’s best; and the whole thing is walkable, romantic to the point of unfair. It’s also a city that has begun to tell its full history honestly — Charleston was the largest slave-trading port in North America, and roughly 40% of enslaved Africans brought to the United States entered through here, a truth the city now faces rather than hides.