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In a Crowded State, Hampton Is the Loneliest Place: South Carolina's Most Remote Town

By Marko Visic·Published 13 May 2026·Rank #43 of 50 states·↑ All 50 states

Hampton, SC — population 4,447, Hampton County — is the most isolated inhabited place in South Carolina. The nearest city of 10,000+ residents is Walterboro, SC, sitting 25 straight-line miles away. South Carolina has 237 towns under 10,000 residents; Hampton is the most isolated among them.

Map: Hampton, SC (South Carolina's loneliest inhabited place) and its 5 nearest cities of 10,000+ residents. The brick-red ring shows the empty zone in which no qualifying city exists; the nearest, Walterboro, sits on its edge 25 miles away.The brick-red dot marks Hampton, the most isolated inhabited place in South Carolina. Up to 5 green dots mark the nearest qualifying cities (population 10,000+), each labelled with name and straight-line distance. The brick-red dashed circle traces the empty zone — radius equal to the distance to the very nearest qualifying city. Barnwell, SC28 MIRidgeland, SC28 MISylvania, GA30 MIBeaufort, SC39 MIWalterboro, SCHamptonSOUTH CAROLINA 25 MIsimplemaplab.com / studies / most-remote-places
Hampton (red dot) and the nearest 10,000+ city, Walterboro, SC (green dot), separated by 25 straight-line miles.
25 mi
straight-line distance from Hampton to Walterboro, SC
4,447
year-round residents of Hampton (Census 2020)
12 mi
average distance to nearest anchor across South Carolina's 237 small towns
#43
of 50 states ranked by their loneliest town's isolation
Open a radius around Hampton → /tools/map-radius-tool · Hampton, SC · 50 mi
The link opens the SimpleMapLab Map Radius Tool with a 50-mile circle drawn around Hampton. Try expanding the radius to see how far you have to look before encountering any 10,000+ city — the answer is roughly 25 miles in the direction of Walterboro.

Why this happened

Hampton, SC is South Carolina's most remote inhabited place — but "remote" is relative here: just 25 miles from Walterboro. South Carolina is among the more densely populated US states; the average small-town resident lives 12 miles from a qualifying anchor. Hampton's isolation is real to its 4,447 residents, even if the numbers are modest compared to Montana or Nevada.

South Carolina's 5 most isolated towns

The top 5 most-isolated inhabited places in South Carolina, sorted by distance to the nearest 10,000+ city.

#TownPop.Distance to nearest 10K+Nearest city
1Hampton4,44725 miWalterboro, SC
2Brunson1,51624 miBarnwell, SC
3Gifford26822 miSylvania, GA
4Varnville4,41622 miRidgeland, SC
5Ehrhardt1,10221 miBarnwell, SC

How South Carolina compares

The states ranked closest to South Carolina on this metric. Click any for the dedicated breakdown.

#42 Indiana
Dugger · 27 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#44 Ohio
Lewisville · 25 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#41 Kentucky
Baxter · 29 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#45 Maryland
Tylerton · 24 mi to the nearest 10K+ city
#46 Massachusetts
Provincetown · 23 mi to the nearest 10K+ city

Draw your own radius

Open a 50-mile circle around Hampton →

Try the 100-mile radius to see whether a major city falls inside — for Hampton, it doesn't, because the nearest qualifying city (Walterboro, SC) sits 25 miles away.

More about South Carolina

See the full breakdown of South Carolina's counties at /states/south-carolina/counties — population, area, median income, and county seat for every county, plus a labeled printable map. The companion study 100-mile radius around South Carolina's capital measures the share of South Carolina's population that lives within day-trip distance of the capitol — an inverse framing of the isolation question this page poses.

Methodology (brief)

We aggregate the US Census ZCTA dataset by postal city, treating any (postal city, state) pair with ≥ 50 residents as a town. Anchor cities are places with ≥ 10,000 residents. For every South Carolina town below the anchor threshold, we compute the straight-line distance to every anchor city in the US (cross-state distances count). The town with the largest minimum distance is South Carolina's loneliest. Full methodology on the hub page.

Suggested citation: SimpleMapLab (2026). The Loneliest Towns in America: South Carolina. Part of the Most Remote Inhabited Places study. Retrieved from https://www.simplemaplab.com/studies/most-remote-places/south-carolina. CC-BY 4.0.