Chatham County 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 is the sixth most populous county in Georgia, and the most populous Georgia county outside the Atlanta metropolitan area. Chatham is the core county of the Savannah metropolitan area.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 632 sqmi, of which 206 sqmi (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

Adjacent counties

National protected areas

Communities

Municipalities

Cities

Towns

Census-designated places

Other unincorporated communities

Demographics

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.

<!-- should be own article The parties agreed to allow free use of the society's books, provide physical space for the library, and annually contribute $500 in financial support for the library. In turn, the city would contribute $3,000 in annual support. The library opened in June 1903, but did not fully serve the public until November. By 1909, the Georgia Historical Society was no longer able to meet its financial commitment, leaving the city to provide full financial support. The library remained at Hodgson Hall, the space provided by the Georgia Historical Society, until 1915. From its early beginnings, the library offered special services to the community, including a department for children (although no one under the age of 14 was permitted to borrow books). The physical space at Hodgson Hall became too small to accommodate a large reference department, so the library established only a small collection of reference materials.. In 1916, the Savannah Public Library opened to doors to a new facility on Bull Street within the [Savannah Victorian Historic District](https://bliptext.com/articles/savannah-victorian-historic-district). The new facility was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. As the library grew in popularity, it again found itself needing more space. The building was able to add additional space in 1936 thanks to a grant from the U.S. [Works Progress Administration](https://bliptext.com/articles/works-progress-administration) (WPA). With an ever-increasing population the library's board of directors decided to expand services beyond the Main Library. In 1916, two branch libraries were opened: the East Side Branch at Habersham and Congress Streets, and the Waters Avenue Branch. The services provided by these two branches were confined to children. To help further expand services, the Georgia Historical Society once again offered the library space at Hodgson Hall to be used as a branch library. This move was of mutual benefit to both the library and the Society. The library gained needed space for a downtown branch and the Society could organize and catalog materials. According to the history written by Lemay, some 5,027 volumes belonging to the Georgia Historical Society were cataloged by the library. This branch library continued operating until 1948, when it was sold to Armstrong Junior College (now [Georgia Southern University-Armstrong Campus](https://bliptext.com/articles/georgia-southern-university-armstrong-campus)) to establish an academic library. In 1924 a traveling book collection was instituted and placed in four public elementary schools; other schools were added when available materials and staff time allowed. In 1926, the [Savannah Morning News](https://bliptext.com/articles/savannah-morning-news) donated space for a Downtown branch to primarily serve the business community. The Downtown branch experienced several changes in venues over the years until it was given a permanent home in the Gamble Building. The Gamble Building sits on Factors' Walk, on Bay Street next to Savannah's City Hall. With this move, the branch was renamed in honor of Ola Wyeth, the former president of the Georgia Library Association (1925). In 1940 a bookmobile service was started to provide outreach to rural communities around Savannah. The Effingham County Library joined the Savannah Public Library in 1945 to form the Chatham–Effingham County Regional Library. In 1956, the library system was expanded to include Liberty County, resulting in the Chatham–Effingham–Liberty Regional Library (CEL). When the United States Supreme Court declared de jure segregation illegal and unconstitutional, the library system experienced one of its greatest changes. As a result of this ruling, the "[Library for the Colored Citizens of Savannah](https://bliptext.com/articles/carnegie-colored-library)" was brought under the auspices of the Chatham-Effingham-Liberty Regional Library System (1963). This move made the library system a truly "free public library" serving all the citizens of Chatham, Effingham, and Liberty counties. -->

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.