Name: Why The US Southeast Coast is Absurdly Empty
Uploaded: 2026-01-13T17:20:44.000Z
Duration: 34 min 14 s
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This is a population density map of the United States showing where most Americans currently live today.

And if you pay attention to the southeastern corner of the country, an interesting pattern appears that's unlike anywhere else in the country here.

Across the states of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, the coastal areas are very sparsely populated, to the point of almost appearing empty.

Instead, most of the major populated urban areas in these states are located hundreds of kilometers away from the coast, deep within their interiors, across cities like Atlanta, Augusta, Columbia, Greenville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh and Durham.

By contrast, the only large settlements located on the coasts of these states are Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington.

And yet Charleston doesn't even crack past a Metro population of 900,000, while Wilmington and Savannah both have fewer than 500,000 people.

Despite their seemingly strategic locations on the coasts, none of these coastal urban areas are the largest in their respective states.

Savannah is only the third largest metro in Georgia, behind the interior cities of Atlanta and Augusta.

Charleston is the second largest metro in South Carolina, behind the interior city of Columbia, while Wilmington is only the sixth largest metro in North Carolina, behind the interior cities of Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Winston, Salem and Durham.

This population pattern is unusual, especially when you look further in either direction to the north or the south of these states, where the pattern is completely reversed.

From Virginia all the way up through Maine, the most major population centers all hud nearby to the coastline, including the Northeast corridor running between Washington D.C.

and Boston, the most densely populated part of the whole country with more than 50 million people, and

almost immediately south of Georgia, start the major coastal population centers of Florida, running from Jacksonville to Miami on the east coast to Tampa and St.

Petersburg on the Gulf coast, all of which have significantly more people than any of the coastal cities in Georgia or the Carolinas do.

So this then begs the why is there a void in population density along the east coast of the United States, across the Carolinas and Georgia, in between the super dense coastal areas in the Northeast and Florida?

And why do all three of these southeastern states, biggest clusters of people, avoid the coast and keep hundreds of kilometers away from it, deep within their interiors?

The answers I found out are very interesting and probably a lot more complicated than you might have thought at first.

The North American continent, like every other one of Earth's continents, can be divided up into different physiographic provinces, which are areas with specific geology, soils and morphology that are distinct enough to separate them from neighboring areas.

In the eastern United States, the most dominant geographic feature that can be found are the Appalachian Mountains, which stretch across the interior of the eastern seaboard from Central Alabama through northern Georgia, the Tennessee, North Carolina border, the Virginia West Virginia border, then up through western Maryland, central Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey, and

then further up through New York and across into western Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine up into Canada.

One of the most ancient mountain ranges on the planet, the Appalachians were once around 300 million years ago, probably about the same height as the towering Himalayas are today.

But hundreds of millions of years of erosion and tectonic forces have dramatically diminished their size down to their current smaller form.

A process that also led to the creation of two present day physiographic provinces between them and the ocean.

The Piedmont region, which are basically the foothills of the Appalachians, where the landscape is largely made up of gentle but easy to traverse rolling hills atop of hard bedroc and the Atlantic Coastal Plain, a largely flat, sandy and often swampy landscape that has been slowly built up over the eons by the vast amounts of sediment deposited from the rivers flowing down from the eroded Appalachians.

When you look carefully at the map of these regions, you should notice that the Atlantic Coastal Plain is very wide in the south through the states of Georgia and the Carolinas, separating the higher Piedmont and Appalachian regions from the coast by hundreds of kilometers.

But then beginning in Virginia, the further north you travel, the more the plain starts to dramatically narrow all the way up to modern day New York City and Long island, where it effectively ceases to exist.

In New York City, the coastal plain is so narrow that the foothills of the Catskill Mountain range penetrate into the city itself in the Bronx, while way further south in Georgia, the coastal plain is hundreds of kilometers wide.

You can notice this geographic divergence in New York City almost immediately when you travel either north or south from it to the north of the city, beginning immediately in Connecticut and extending all the way up through Maine.

With the exception of some of southern Massachusetts, the Ben Rock extends directly to the coastline itself, so it's rocky, hilly, jagged and absent of sandy barrier islands.

While to the south of New York City, including Long island all the way down to Florida, along the whole Atlantic coastal plain, the coastlines are smooth, sandy, often covered by marshes and swamps, and

are protected by long thin barrier islands, meaning that building coastal cities is easier from New York City to the north than it is to the south.

Now, across almost the entire eastern seaboard, from New York City south through Alabama, a line divides the lower elevated Atlantic Coastal Plain in the east from the higher elevated Piedmont region in the west.

Across this line, the landscape and more importantly, the elevation changes gradually rather than suddenly.

But as the rivers flowing down to the Atlantic coast From the Appalachian Mountains Cross over this line.

The they cross over from the highly elevated hard rock of the Piedmont, and, relatively speaking, they plunge in elevation, Forming rapids and waterfalls in the process.

Before entering into the lower, flatter and sandy sediments of the coastal plain, where they progress more easily the rest of the way out to the sea.

The many rapids and waterfalls Found across this diverging geographic boundary Is what gave this line its pretty straightforward the fall line, Arguably the most important geographic feature to know about in the entire United States.

That few people outside of this region have ever heard about.

When European settlers and colonists Began coming to North America in large numbers during the 17th century, the continent's rivers were the primary means available to them to travel from the ocean into the interior.

And all across the eastern seaboard, From New York City south to Georgia.

The rapids and waterfalls marked by the fall line Marked the first furthest into the interior that their ships were physically capable of reaching.

Once they hit the fall line coming from the ocean, they'd have to unload their ships.

And relocate all of their cargo and people Onto smaller ships or wagons to access any deeper into the interior, While smaller ships carrying goods from any deeper in the interior downstream Couldn't pass through the falls or rapids on their way out to the ocean either.

transfer all of their goods coming in this direction as well.

All of this meant that setting up settlements along the fall line to take advantage of warehousing and storage needs, banking and trade, made perfect economic sense.

Settlements established at the point of rapids and falls along the fall line Were destined to become major inland trading hubs because they were the most capable of processing and facilitating trade.

Between the mineral and agricultural riches of the Piedmont region and the maritime ports established further downstream at harbors on the coastline.

Even further, the inland cities on the fall line Were also able to exploit and harness all of the energy that the rivers generated by thundering down through the falls and rapids, which enabled them to become early manufacturing centers with mills, easy access to the raw materials of the Piedmont further upstream, and

easy access to the harbors further downstream for their finished goods to be exported out to global markets.

The Savannah river was naturally navigable for about 320 km into the interior before it hit the fall line, which is precisely where the city of Augusta was founded.

The Congaree river was naturally navigable for about 170km deep into the interior before it hit the fall line, which is where the city of Columbia was founded.

The Potomac river was naturally navigable for about 195km inland from the Chesapeake until it hit the Fall Line.

And just before it did is where Washington D.C. was founded.

For these reasons, between central Alabama and New York City.

All along the Fall Line today you will find the modern cities of Montgomery, Alabama Columbus, Macon and Augusta in Georgia Columbia, South Carolina, Fayetteville Valley and Durham in North Carolina Richmond and Fredericksburg in Virginia Washington, D.C.

baltimore, Wilmington, Delaware Philadelphia, New Brunswick and Trenton in New Jersey and of course, New York City at the tail end of it.

The presence of the Fall Line and its effect on human geography in the United States is so profound that it can even be viewed from space like in this image.

Note how the farms located to the west of the line in the Piedmont region are significantly greener than the farms located to the east of the line on the Atlantic Coastal Plain.

This is because many millions of years ago, before the Appalachians dramatically eroded away, the Fall Line basically marked the extent of the ancient coastline, and

what is now the Atlantic Coastal Plain were mostly stretches of low coastal waters that had been slowly filled in with deposited sediment and sandy soils.

As a result, the soils found across the Atlantic Coastal Plain are often sandy, acidic, low in nutrients, and

while still useful, they're generally not as fertile or useful as the soils found further up in the Piedmont region are.

The Atlantic Coastal Plain is also dotted with the highest concentration of swamps and wetlands that can be found anywhere in the North American continent, which not only results in poorer drainage for agriculture compared to the Piedmont region further upstream, but

it also makes developing settlements and infrastructure significantly more challenging than in the Piedmont region as well.

And as you can see from this map, the extent of swamps and wetland type environments stretch significantly further inland in Georgia and the Carolinas than they do further north beginning in Virginia, lining up almost exactly with the width of the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the extent of the Fall Line.

In effect, this meant that founding cities on or near the coast was much easier and made much more sense the further north you went from Virginia, as the difficult to build in swamps and wetlands decreased in width and as the Fall Line approached the coast in New York City.

But the Northeast and even further south in Florida also just have much better natural harbors to work with than the coastal areas of the Carolinas and Georgia do.

The jagged and rocky coastlines of New England beyond the end of the Fall Line produced excellent natural harbors in Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts, and

the Narragansett Bay in Rhode island, while further south geography blessed the east coast with one of the greatest natural harbors anywhere on the planet at the mouths of the Hudson and East Rivers in New York harbor, directly connecting deep into the interior through the Hudson river that was historically navigable all the way up to Albany and since the completion of the erie Canal in 1825, all the way into the Great Lakes in the Midwest.

Further south, Delaware Bay and the Delaware river offer another fantastic harbor that was largely exploited by Philadelphia.

And then even further south is the massive Chesapeake, one of the largest protected bodies of water that can be found anywhere on the planet that is also home to the Hampton Roads Virginia beach harbor on its southern end, which like New York, is also one of the greatest natural harbors that can be found anywhere in the world.

It is the deepest natural harbor that can be found all along the whole east coast and its strategic location roughly in the dead center of the east coast.

And that the entrance to the Chesapeake meant that it always had enormous potential for naval power projection.

And it's why it ultimately became the largest base for the US Navy worldwide and the largest shipbuilding and repair industrial base in the world as well, where all of America's nuclear powered aircraft carriers are currently constructed at but the Hampton Road's Virginia beach harbor is also strategically well located because the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia further to the south of it are much, much less suitable to building a giant portat Beginning almost immediately to the south of Hampden roads are the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a long string of shifting, sandy barrier islands that create what is arguably the most dangerous coastline for ships on the planet.

Since record keeping began here about 500 years ago, back in 1526, more than 5,000 ships have sunk in these treacherous waters around the Outer Banks, a number so large that it's earned the region an infamous the graveyard of the Atlantic.

At the location of Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks, the coastline of the east takes a sudden and sharp turn north, breaking the generally northeastern direction that the coast previously takes all the way from Georgia, just off of the coast of Cape Hatteras.

Where this geographic turn happens at is where the warm waters from the Gulf Stream flowing up from Florida collide with the cold waters from the Labrador Current coming down from Canada, which generates high levels of turbulence that kick up a lot of sediment.

Meanwhile, the continental shelf of the Outer Banks is sloped very gently, which causes sand from the deep waters to become almost constantly pushed up onto the shallower shelf and for sand from the shallower shelf to become almost constantly pulled back into the deep waters, creating an unpredictable and dangerous environment of almost Constantly shifting sandbars and shoals to make navigation through here an extreme challenge.

Even in modern times, ships still sink all the time out here, like a 100 foot commercial fishing trawler that sank in 2024 while attempting to pass through the Oregon Inlet itself, A narrow passage that was violently torn through the barrier island here during a powerful hurricane in 1846.

Whole brand new islands can appear out of nowhere in the Outer Banks and then be destroyed just as quickly as they came.

Like Shelly island recently was in 2017 when it appeared in April near Cape Hatteras and reached around 1mil long and 500ft wide before collapsing back beneath the waves again less than a year later.

By early 2018, these conditions require ports to conduct almost constant dredging operations just to maintain stability and have plagued the coast of North Carolina for centuries now, while they also prevent deep water inlets in North Carolina from forming naturally.

Which is why all throughout the Outer Banks, there have never been any significant ports established and no significantly sized coastal cities ever settled.

Pretty much the only decent natural harbor on the whole North Carolina coast beyond the treacherous Outer Banks is at Wilmington in the far south of the state along the mouth of the Cape Fear river.

Which is of course why Wilmington is the first major coastal settlement going any further south from Virginia Beach.

But even the inlet at Wilmington isn't particularly deep, while the Cape Fear river itself is shallow and also doesn't really go anywhere.

Even today, after modern locks and dams, the Cape Fear river is only navigable up to Fayetteville, and

mostly just by small motorboats and canoes rather than cargo laden, ocean worthy vessels.

Which is why Wilmington never really became a huge coastal city on the same kind of scale of the Northeast.

Beyond Wilmington, there are two other useful natural harbors along this whole stretch of the empty east coast before hitting Charleston in South Carolina and Savannah in Georgia, both of which are actually world class natural harbors that are vastly superior to Wilmington.

Both are very highly sheltered and have very deep waters that have made them extremely important and valuable trading ports for centuries.

Even today, Savannah is the second busiest container port on the whole east coast behind only New York, while Charleston is the fourth busiest behind just Virginia Beach.

And Charleston is also the second deepest harbor on the east coast behind Virginia beach as well.

For most of their early histories, Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington actually were the biggest cities in each of their respective states because of their relative advantages of being strategically useful ports at the mouths of rivers that extended up to the fall line deeper within the interior, farmers, miners and manufacturers could send their Goods from the Piedmont to the cities along the fall line and then safely down the rivers the rest of the way to these ports for export to the global market.

But despite them being good natural harbors and busy ports, none of them were really ideal locations for huge cities like on the coast in the Northeast in Florida.

This is a map of hurricane risk exposure across the continental United States.

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Why The US Southeast Coast is Absurdly Empty

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