This port and tourist center of 137,000 inhabitants often epitomizes the South in popular media (e.g. John Berendt’s 1994 bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil).

Founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe with a unique urban plan based around a succession of squares, its antebellum center survived the Civil War to be restored since the 1950s as a gentrified historical district. The city’s majority African American population also has created educational (Savannah State College) and religious legacies (First African/First Bryan Baptist Church are among the earliest independent congregations in the US). The city hosted Olympic yachting events (1996).