Sumter County, South Carolina
Sumter County, South Carolina
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Sumter County, South Carolina

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Sumter County, South Carolina

Sumter County is a county located in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 105,556. Its county seat is Sumter. Sumter County comprises the Sumter, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Columbia-Sumter-Orangeburg, SC Combined Statistical Area. The county is also part of "The Midlands" area.

It is the home of Shaw AFB, headquarters to the 9th Air Force, AFCENT, United States Army Central, with a number of other tenant units. It is one of largest bases in the USAF's Air Combat Command.

On September 17, 2024, the National Park Service announced that the City of Sumter and Sumter County were jointly named a World War II Heritage City.

In Sumter County, there is somewhat of a large population of people with Turkish ancestry that descend from Joseph Benenhaley (1753-1823) and other Turks who fled the Ottoman Empire and settled in Sumter County to serve in the American Revolution.

Sumter County was created from Clarendon, Claremont and Salem Counties as Sumter District in 1798, named after General Thomas Sumter, and became effective in 1800. When the home of Sumter District's clerk of records burnt in 1801, the formative records of the three predecessor counties were also destroyed in the conflagration. As a result, documentary evidence that the three counties were within St. Mark's Parish (formed in 1757 from Prince Frederick's Parish, Craven County) in Camden District (formed 1769) derives from family genealogies and legislative records.

On December 19, 1855, a legislative act was passed partitioning Sumter District by forming Clarendon District, with the same boundaries as defined for Clarendon County in 1785. When effectuated in 1857, a northeastern part of Sumter District (formerly in Salem County) was also separated in the partition (the area east of a line drawn from the northernmost point of old Clarendon County continued north-northeasterly to a point on the boundary line with Darlington District (Sumter County's northeastern cornerpoint abutting Florence County since 1888).

The Sumter District gained a form of self-rule and was renamed Sumter County under the 1868 Constitution.

In 1898, a northwestern part of Sumter County was detached to form part of the first Lee County, but its formation was declared unconstitutional in 1899. In 1902, an even larger northern part of Sumter County (more or less the remaining part of former Salem County) was properly legally detached to form the major sections of the current Lee County, of which some acreage reverted in 1914.

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