A series of ancient beaches and sand dunes called sand hills, some of them 30 miles (48 km) wide, runs from southwestern Georgia across central South Carolina and into south-central North Carolina.
The sand was left behind millions of years ago by a receding sea.
The sand hills are quite deep and cover 8,760 square miles (22,779 sq km) across those three states.
Even though the region gets plenty of rain, the sand doesn’t retain moisture well, so the sand hills area is considered semi-arid.
The Carolina sand hills are sometimes called “deserts in the rain.”
