Conway, South Carolina, United States

🇺🇸 Conway is a city in Horry County, South Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Horry County and is part of the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area. It is the home of Coastal Carolina University.

Numerous buildings and structures located in Conway are on the National Register of Historic Places. Among these is the City Hall building, designed by Robert Mills, architect of the Washington Monument. Since the completion of the Main Street USA project in the 1980s, Conway's downtown has been revitalized with shops and bistros. Highlighting the renovation of the downtown area is the Riverwalk, an area of restaurants which follows a stretch of the Waccamaw River that winds through Conway.

History Conway is one of the oldest towns in South Carolina. Early English colonists named the village "Kings Town" but soon changed it to "Kingston". The town was founded in 1732 as part of Royal Governor Robert Johnson's Township Scheme. It was laid out on a bluff overlooking the Waccamaw River in what is now known as Horry County.

For three decades, from the 1730s to the 1750s, King George II was very popular in the area. The King's birthday was one of the most widely celebrated holidays during that time. However, his successor King George III quickly grew unpopular with the townspeople. By the 1770s, the region of South Carolina in which Kingston was located in was overwhelmingly English, though there were also small numbers of Huguenots and Scots-Irish people. English-Americans in Kingston were very sympathetic to rebels in Charleston over the issue of taxation without representation. When the Royal Governor Lord William Campbell fled Charleston, the people of Kingston celebrated.

Many area residents fought in the American Revolution, and small engagements were fought near Kingston at Bear Bluff and at Black Lake. Francis Marion, who was known as the "Swamp Fox", had an encampment near Kingston just across the Waccamaw River. The areas of Kingston and Charles Town were communities with a higher population of Tories than many other Colonial American towns during the Revolutionary War era.

Horry County was created in 1801, and its courthouse was established in Kingston. The name "Kingston" was later changed to "Conwayborough", to honor local hero General Robert Conway. In 1883, the South Carolina General Assembly changed the name of the town to "Conway".

Geography Conway is situated on the South Carolina Coastal Plain on the western banks of the Waccamaw River, and is approximately 14 miles (23 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. U.S. Route 701, U.S. Route 501, and U.S. Route 378 pass through Conway.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 22.8 square miles (59.0 km²), of which 21.9 square miles (56.8 km²) are land and 0.85 square miles (2.2 km²), or 3.69%, are water. The downtown is sited on the west bank of the Waccamaw River where it is joined by a creek called Kingston Lake. The Waccamaw flows south to the Pee Dee River and ultimately Winyah Bay at Georgetown.

Economy Employers located in the Conway area include: • New South Companies, Inc. (a subsidiary of Canfor) • Vulcan Materials Company • AVX Corporation

Grainger Generating Station was a coal-fired power plant operated by Santee Cooper. It generated electricity from 1966 until its retirement in 2012.

Arts and culture Conway is the home of Kimbel Library and the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery at Coastal Carolina University. The gallery houses differing exhibits throughout the year.

Sport HTC Center is a 3,370-seat multi-purpose arena located on the campus of Coastal Carolina University in Conway. It is home to the university's men's and women's basketball teams, and the women's volleyball teams. It replaced Kimbel Arena for this purpose.

Government The city is run by an elected mayor–council government system.

Education Conway is home to two major institutes of higher learning, Coastal Carolina University and Horry-Georgetown Technical College. It is also home to a branch of Webster University, an MBA graduate school, and North American Institute of Aviation (NAIA), a flight school.

Conway has a public library, a branch of the Horry County Memorial Library.

Media • The Chanticleer News (the student newspaper of Coastal Carolina University) • Rivertown Radio • Horry Independent.