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Roots Earth in Charleston: audio stories about 40 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 40 places in Charleston, United States, in North America. The Charleston stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Charleston, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 40 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: charleston.md

The 40 places in Charleston with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Rainbow Row
  2. The Battery
  3. White Point Garden
  4. Fort Sumter
  5. St. Michael's Church
  6. St. Philip's Church
  7. Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist
  8. Charleston City Market
  9. Old Slave Mart
  10. Dock Street Theatre
  11. Charleston Museum
  12. Gibbes Museum of Art
  13. Nathaniel Russell House
  14. Heyward-Washington House
  15. Joseph Manigault House
  16. Aiken-Rhett House
  17. Calhoun Mansion
  18. Four Corners of Law
  19. Charleston City Hall
  20. Charleston County Courthouse
  21. French Huguenot Church
  22. Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim
  23. Mother Emanuel AME Church
  24. Magnolia Plantation and Gardens
  25. Middleton Place
  26. Drayton Hall
  27. Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge
  28. King Street
  29. Marion Square
  30. Waterfront Park
  31. Hampton Park
  32. Magnolia Cemetery
  33. College of Charleston
  34. Cabbage Row
  35. Shem Creek
  36. Avery Research Center
  37. Folly Beach
  38. Sullivan's Island
  39. Angel Oak
  40. McLeod Plantation

Is there an audio guide for Rainbow Row?

Yes. Rainbow Row has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 40 Charleston places in the app, at 32.77555556, -79.92722222. Every one of the other 39 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Charleston

Open Roots Earth and choose Charleston. The city has its own map of places with all 40 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 40 places in Charleston, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 40 places in Charleston, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Rainbow Row

Coordinates
32.77555556, -79.92722222
In one line
Rainbow Row is a line of thirteen pastel-painted Georgian houses on East Bay Street, built in the 1700s as waterfront merchant stores and homes, then revived and color-washed during a 1930s and 1940s restoration.

2. The Battery

Coordinates
32.7692, -79.9288
In one line
The Battery is a seawall and promenade along Charleston's southern shore, lined with grand antebellum mansions.

3. White Point Garden

Coordinates
32.7698, -79.9304
In one line
White Point Garden is a shaded public park at Charleston's southern tip, established in the 1800s. Spread across nearly six acres of live oaks, it holds Civil War cannons, military memorials, and a bandstand, with views toward Fort Sumter.

4. Fort Sumter

Coordinates
32.75222222, -79.87472222
In one line
Fort Sumter is a five-sided masonry sea fort on an artificial island in Charleston Harbor, begun in 1829. Here, on the twelfth of April, 1861, Confederate guns opened fire and the American Civil War began. It is now a national monument.

5. St. Michael's Church

Coordinates
32.77632194, -79.93076056
In one line
Saint Michael's Church is Charleston's oldest surviving religious building, built between 1751 and 1761 in the Georgian style. Its white steeple rises 186 feet above the corner of Broad and Meeting Streets, where George Washington once worshipped.

6. St. Philip's Church

Coordinates
32.77916667, -79.92916667
In one line
Saint Philip's Church on Church Street is home to Charleston's oldest congregation, founded in 1680. The present building, designed by Joseph Hyde and raised in the 1830s after fire, holds a graveyard where John C. Calhoun and other notable figures rest.

7. Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist

Coordinates
32.7765, -79.9345
In one line
The Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist is Charleston's Roman Catholic cathedral, built in Gothic Revival style from Connecticut brownstone. Designed by Patrick Charles Keely and dedicated in 1907, it rose after fire destroyed its predecessor, with its spire finished only in 2010.

8. Charleston City Market

Coordinates
32.78027778, -79.93138889
In one line
Charleston's bustling public market stretches more than a thousand feet through four open-air sheds, anchored by a Greek Revival hall from 1841. Today Gullah artisans weave sweetgrass baskets where vendors have traded for over two centuries.

9. Old Slave Mart

Coordinates
32.7778, -79.9284
In one line
Built in 1859, this narrow brick hall is believed to be the last surviving slave auction building in South Carolina. Once part of Ryan's Mart, it now houses a museum documenting Charleston's central role in the domestic slave trade.

10. Dock Street Theatre

Coordinates
32.77861111, -79.93
In one line
America's first building designed solely for theatre opened on this site in 1736. The current playhouse, fashioned inside the old Planter's Hotel during a 1930s public works project, still stages drama and hosts the Spoleto Festival.

11. Charleston Museum

Coordinates
32.7898, -79.9359
In one line
Founded in 1773, the Charleston Museum claims to be the oldest museum in the United States. Its galleries on Meeting Street hold natural history, Lowcountry decorative arts, and Revolutionary and Civil War collections, and it stewards two landmark historic houses nearby.

12. Gibbes Museum of Art

Coordinates
32.7786, -79.9317
In one line
Opened in 1905 with a bequest from James Shoolbred Gibbes, this Beaux-Arts museum on Meeting Street holds the foremost collection of Charleston and Southern art, including thousands of portraits, miniatures, and works beneath a luminous stained-glass dome.

13. Nathaniel Russell House

Coordinates
32.7739, -79.9314
In one line
Its rectangular, oval, and square rooms make it a landmark of American neoclassical design.

14. Heyward-Washington House

Coordinates
32.7757, -79.9295
In one line
Built in 1772 for the Heyward family, this Georgian double house was home to Declaration signer Thomas Heyward Junior and hosted George Washington in 1791. It became Charleston's first historic house museum in 1930.

15. Joseph Manigault House

Coordinates
32.78861111, -79.93547222
In one line
A 1803 Federal-style mansion designed by gentleman-architect Gabriel Manigault for his brother Joseph, a wealthy rice planter. This three-story brick house, saved from demolition in the 1920s, is now a National Historic Landmark museum.

16. Aiken-Rhett House

Coordinates
32.7914, -79.935
In one line
Built around 1820 and expanded by Governor William Aiken Junior, this preserved antebellum complex survives largely unrestored.

17. Calhoun Mansion

Coordinates
32.771532, -79.930034
In one line
Charleston's largest single-family home, this opulent Italianate mansion was built in the 1870s for banker George W. Williams.

18. Four Corners of Law

Coordinates
32.77646, -79.93077
In one line
At the crossing of Meeting and Broad Streets, four buildings represent federal, state, local, and religious law on each corner. Robert Ripley coined the famous nickname in the 1930s, capturing this rare convergence of all four authorities in one place.

19. Charleston City Hall

Coordinates
32.77675, -79.9308
In one line
Built between 1800 and 1804 as a branch of the First Bank of the United States, this elegant Adamesque building became Charleston's City Hall in 1818. It houses a celebrated portrait collection, including a George Washington likeness by John Trumbull.

20. Charleston County Courthouse

Coordinates
32.776615, -79.93132
In one line
Reconstructed after the 1788 fire and completed in 1792 under William Drayton's supervision, this Neoclassical landmark may have been designed with assistance from James Hoban, who later designed the White House. It still serves as a working courthouse.

21. French Huguenot Church

Coordinates
32.77861, -79.92889
In one line
The only independent Huguenot church in the United States, with a congregation dating to 1680. Its Gothic Revival building of 1844, designed by Edward Brickell White, is the oldest Gothic Revival church in South Carolina and holds a historic Henry Erben organ.

22. Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim

Coordinates
32.78222222, -79.93277778
In one line
Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim is one of America's oldest Jewish congregations, founded in 1749. Its 1840 Greek Revival temple on Hasell Street is the second oldest surviving synagogue building in the United States and a cradle of Reform Judaism.

23. Mother Emanuel AME Church

Coordinates
32.78639, -79.93194
In one line
Mother Emanuel is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal church in the American South, with roots reaching to 1816. Its Gothic Revival sanctuary, completed in spring 1892, has long been a center of Black faith, resistance, and civil rights, and a site of profound mourning since 2015.

24. Magnolia Plantation and Gardens

Coordinates
32.87651, -80.08351
In one line
Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, established by the Drayton family in 1676, holds some of America's oldest public gardens. Its romantic landscape of azaleas, camellias, and ancient live oaks draws visitors along the Ashley River, where the legacy of enslaved labor is also remembered.

25. Middleton Place

Coordinates
32.8998, -80.1365
In one line
Middleton Place holds the oldest landscaped gardens in the United States, begun in 1741 by Henry Middleton. Famous for its terraced lawns, butterfly lakes, and ancient camellias along the Ashley River, the estate also preserves the sobering history of the enslaved people who built it.

26. Drayton Hall

Coordinates
32.8709, -80.0763
In one line
Drayton Hall, built between 1747 and 1752 by John Drayton, is a rare surviving example of Palladian architecture in America. The only Ashley River plantation house to outlast both the Revolution and the Civil War, it stands unrestored, preserved almost exactly as time left it.

27. Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge

Coordinates
32.80277778, -79.915
In one line
The Arthur Ravenel Junior Bridge, opened in 2005, spans the Cooper River with two soaring diamond shaped towers and 128 cables. One of the longest cable stayed bridges in the Western Hemisphere, it links Charleston to Mount Pleasant and crowns the city skyline.

28. King Street

Coordinates
32.78416667, -79.93805556
In one line
King Street is Charleston's main commercial spine, running through the historic peninsula. From antique shops on Lower King to design boutiques and restaurants on Upper King, it has been the city's shopping and social heart for centuries, and a stage for civil rights history.

29. Marion Square

Coordinates
32.78694444, -79.93583333
In one line
A 10-acre green at the heart of downtown Charleston, established in 1882 as a parade ground. Once Citadel Green, it now hosts a Saturday farmers market, festivals, and a Holocaust memorial beneath shade trees.

30. Waterfront Park

Coordinates
32.77805556, -79.92527778
In one line
An eight-acre green opened in 1990 along the Cooper River, famous for its Pineapple Fountain and palmetto-lined esplanade. Designed by Sasaki Associates, it turned old industrial wharves into Charleston's beloved waterside promenade.

31. Hampton Park

Coordinates
32.8, -79.95611111
In one line
Charleston's largest peninsula park, 60 acres created in 1906 on a former racetrack and exposition ground. An Olmsted firm shaped its gardens and pond, and a 1865 ceremony here is cited as an early Memorial Day.

32. Magnolia Cemetery

Coordinates
32.81833333, -79.94222222
In one line
A 92-acre rural cemetery established in 1850 on a former plantation beside the Cooper River. Designed by Edward C. Jones, it holds Confederate generals and the crew of the submarine H. L. Hunley among its moss-draped graves.

33. College of Charleston

Coordinates
32.78416667, -79.93805556
In one line
Founded in 1770, the oldest municipal college in the United States, with founders who signed the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Its historic heart, Randolph Hall and the live-oak Cistern Yard, anchors a campus woven through downtown Charleston.

34. Cabbage Row

Coordinates
32.775206, -79.929231
In one line
Pre-Revolutionary buildings at 89 and 91 Church Street that inspired Catfish Row in DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and the Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess. Once a crowded tenement, now restored Charleston residences.

35. Shem Creek

Coordinates
32.7888, -79.8867
In one line
A tidal creek in Mount Pleasant where Charleston's shrimping fleet still docks. A 3,000-foot boardwalk, opened in 2011, winds past marsh, restaurants, and waters where dolphins surface among working shrimp boats.

36. Avery Research Center

Coordinates
32.7804961, -79.9446713
In one line
Housed in a former Black school founded in 1865, this College of Charleston archive collects and preserves the history and culture of African Americans in the Lowcountry, with manuscripts, photographs, and rotating exhibitions on Bull Street.

37. Folly Beach

Coordinates
32.64666667, -79.97805556
In one line
A laid-back barrier-island town south of Charleston, incorporated in 1938 and nicknamed the Edge of America. Famous for its pier, East Coast surf breaks, and the cottage where George Gershwin composed parts of Porgy and Bess.

38. Sullivan's Island

Coordinates
32.76805556, -79.83638889
In one line
A barrier island at Charleston Harbor's mouth, home to Fort Moultrie and its 1776 Revolutionary victory. It was also the chief arrival point for enslaved Africans entering British North America, now marked by a Toni Morrison Society bench.

39. Angel Oak

Coordinates
32.71709, -80.08043
In one line
A colossal Southern live oak on Johns Island, estimated at 400 to 500 years old. It rises about 66 feet, spreads a canopy over 17,000 square feet, and has sheltered the Lowcountry since long before Charleston was founded.

40. McLeod Plantation

Coordinates
32.76277778, -79.97236111
In one line
A preserved Sea Island cotton plantation on James Island, with its 1850s house, oak allée, and six original slave cabins. Now a Charleston County historic site interpreting Gullah Geechee life and the enslaved community at its center.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

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  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

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