# Chatham County, Georgia

Chatham County (/ˈtʃætəm/ CHAT-əm) 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 official 2020 population for Chatham County was 295,291 residents. This was an increase of 11.4% from the official 2010 population of 265,128 residents. Chatham County is the sixth-most-populous county in Georgia, and the most populous county in Georgia outside of 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 632 sq mi (1,640 km$^2$), of which 206 sq mi (530 km$^2$) (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

* I-16 (Interstate 16)
* I-95 (Interstate 95)
* I-516 (Interstate 516)
* US 17
* US 80
* SR 17
* SR 21
* SR 21 Spur
* SR 25
* SR 26
* SR 26 Conn.
* SR 30
* SR 204
* SR 204 Spur (Decommissioned)
* SR 307
* SR 404 (unsigned designation for I-16)
* SR 404 Spur
* SR 405 (unsigned designation for I-95)
* SR 421 (unsigned designation for I-516)
* SR 565 (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

Chatham County, Georgia – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race. :
| Race / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic) | Pop 2000 | Pop 2010 | Pop 2020 | % 2000 | % 2010 | % 2020 |
| White alone (NH) | 125,802 | 133,492 | 139,433 | 54.21% | 50.35% | 47.22% |
| Black or African American alone (NH) | 93,463 | 105,274 | 108,011 | 40.28% | 39.71% | 36.58% |
| Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH) | 517 | 587 | 619 | 0.22% | 0.22% | 0.21% |
| Asian alone (NH) | 3,992 | 6,229 | 10,620 | 1.72% | 2.35% | 3.60% |
| Pacific Islander alone (NH) | 128 | 224 | 408 | 0.06% | 0.08% | 0.14% |
| Other race alone (NH) | 311 | 476 | 1,447 | 0.13% | 0.18% | 0.49% |
| Mixed race or Multiracial (NH) | 2,432 | 4,476 | 10,963 | 1.05% | 1.69% | 3.71% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 5,403 | 14,370 | 23,790 | 2.33% | 5.42% | 8.06% |
| Total | 232,048 | 265,128 | 295,291 | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% |
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.
United States presidential election results for Chatham County, Georgia :
| Year | Republican | Republican | Democratic | Democratic | Third party(ies) | Third party(ies) |
| Year | No. | % | No. | % | No. | % |
| 2024 | 57,336 | 40.37% | 82,758 | 58.26% | 1,949 | 1.37% |
| 2020 | 53,232 | 39.88% | 78,247 | 58.62% | 2,005 | 1.50% |
| 2016 | 45,688 | 40.41% | 62,290 | 55.10% | 5,073 | 4.49% |
| 2012 | 47,204 | 43.38% | 60,246 | 55.36% | 1,371 | 1.26% |
| 2008 | 46,829 | 42.40% | 62,755 | 56.82% | 858 | 0.78% |
| 2004 | 45,484 | 49.62% | 45,630 | 49.78% | 557 | 0.61% |
| 2000 | 37,847 | 49.49% | 37,590 | 49.15% | 1,038 | 1.36% |
| 1996 | 31,987 | 44.88% | 35,781 | 50.20% | 3,509 | 4.92% |
| 1992 | 31,925 | 44.30% | 31,533 | 43.75% | 8,611 | 11.95% |
| 1988 | 35,623 | 58.12% | 25,063 | 40.89% | 603 | 0.98% |
| 1984 | 38,482 | 57.65% | 28,271 | 42.35% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1980 | 26,499 | 46.67% | 28,413 | 50.04% | 1,869 | 3.29% |
| 1976 | 24,160 | 42.96% | 32,075 | 57.04% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1972 | 38,079 | 70.98% | 15,566 | 29.02% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1968 | 18,106 | 33.81% | 18,201 | 33.99% | 17,238 | 32.19% |
| 1964 | 33,141 | 58.85% | 23,176 | 41.15% | 1 | 0.00% |
| 1960 | 17,935 | 52.48% | 16,240 | 47.52% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1956 | 14,520 | 62.54% | 8,698 | 37.46% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1952 | 15,532 | 51.94% | 14,370 | 48.06% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1948 | 5,966 | 24.97% | 10,864 | 45.46% | 7,067 | 29.57% |
| 1944 | 2,058 | 19.09% | 8,725 | 80.91% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1940 | 1,985 | 16.47% | 10,048 | 83.37% | 19 | 0.16% |
| 1936 | 1,227 | 10.89% | 10,019 | 88.90% | 24 | 0.21% |
| 1932 | 1,669 | 17.13% | 8,020 | 82.31% | 55 | 0.56% |
| 1928 | 5,288 | 48.86% | 5,534 | 51.14% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1924 | 1,800 | 20.42% | 6,158 | 69.86% | 857 | 9.72% |
| 1920 | 995 | 19.00% | 4,243 | 81.00% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1916 | 368 | 7.70% | 3,797 | 79.42% | 616 | 12.88% |
| 1912 | 238 | 5.37% | 3,864 | 87.14% | 332 | 7.49% |
| 1908 | 1,209 | 26.54% | 3,305 | 72.54% | 42 | 0.92% |
| 1904 | 363 | 12.01% | 2,645 | 87.52% | 14 | 0.46% |
| 1900 | 916 | 21.43% | 3,352 | 78.41% | 7 | 0.16% |
| 1896 | 1,697 | 35.64% | 2,506 | 52.64% | 558 | 11.72% |
| 1892 | 1,359 | 20.35% | 5,264 | 78.83% | 55 | 0.82% |
| 1888 | 1,355 | 25.41% | 3,920 | 73.52% | 57 | 1.07% |
| 1884 | 1,747 | 35.72% | 3,144 | 64.28% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 1880 | 2,160 | 38.82% | 3,404 | 61.18% | 0 | 0.00% |