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“P” is for Piedmont

“P” is for Piedmont. One of six landform regions in South Carolina the Piedmont is defined by high hills to the north that give way to rolling hills at the center of the state. Spanning the state in a broad northwest to southwest band, the Piedmont is the second largest of South Carolina’s landform regions, encompassing 10,500 square miles, nearly one-third of the state’s total area. It runs from the Blue Ridge in the north to the Sandhills in the south and includes all or portions of twenty-two counties. Three major river systems, the Santee, the Savannah, and the Pee Dee, filled with sediment from the eroding mountains, created the rich floodplains so attractive to the area’s early settlers. The geography and the geology of the Piedmont determined its settlement and use by humans.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.