Is Johns Island the same as Kiawah Island? How the sea islands fit together

Johns Island is the big island you cross to reach Kiawah and Seabrook, and all three share the 29455 ZIP code. That’s why the names get mixed up. They’re separate islands with separate governments. Here’s how Johns, Kiawah, Seabrook, Wadmalaw and James islands fit together, checked against town, county and Census Bureau sources on Oct. 29, 2026.

Is Johns Island the same as Kiawah Island?

No. Kiawah is a separate barrier island with about 10 miles of beach. It has its own government, the Town of Kiawah Island, which the state incorporated on Sept. 13, 1988, and the town describes the island as a private gated community.

Johns Island sits behind Kiawah and Seabrook. The Kiawah River runs between it and Kiawah, and the Stono River separates it from James Island and the mainland. It has no town government of its own: nearly all of it is either City of Charleston or unincorporated Charleston County. Our guide Is Johns Island in Charleston? explains which is which.

Three things keep the two confused:

• Johns Island, Kiawah and Seabrook all use 29455, so a 29455 address can be on any of the three, or on the mainland across the Stono River.
• You reach Kiawah and Seabrook by crossing Johns Island on Bohicket Road and Betsy Kerrison Parkway.
• Kiawah River is a 2,000-acre community on Johns Island, along the river of the same name, not on Kiawah Island. And the Town of Kiawah Island’s town hall, at 4475 Betsy Kerrison Parkway, is “off the island,” in the town’s own words. It’s on the Johns Island side, inside a small piece of Kiawah’s town limits.

How do Johns, Kiawah, Seabrook, Wadmalaw and James islands compare?

Island	Local government	Addresses read	From Johns Island
Johns Island	City of Charleston or unincorporated Charleston County	Johns Island, SC 29455	—
Kiawah Island	Town of Kiawah Island, since 1988; gated	Kiawah Island, SC 29455	Betsy Kerrison Parkway, then Kiawah Island Parkway
Seabrook Island	Town of Seabrook Island, since 1987; mostly gated	Seabrook Island, SC 29455	Betsy Kerrison Parkway, then Seabrook Island Road
Wadmalaw Island	Unincorporated Charleston County, plus the Town of Rockville	Wadmalaw Island, SC 29487	Maybank Highway west, over Church Creek
James Island	Town of James Island, City of Charleston and unincorporated county	James Island or Charleston, SC 29412	Maybank Highway east, over the Stono River

The addresses are from the Johns Island post office, the Kiawah and Seabrook town halls, the Charleston Tea Garden, and James Island’s town hall and McLeod Plantation.

Area (Census Bureau geography)	People, 2020–24	Land area	Median household income, 2020–24
Johns Island (Johns Island division)	22,013	75.7 sq mi	$118,103
Kiawah Island (Town of Kiawah Island)	2,326	11.2 sq mi	$213,594
Seabrook Island (Town of Seabrook Island)	2,204	5.8 sq mi	$127,500
Wadmalaw Island (Wadmalaw Island division)	2,703	41.9 sq mi	$105,592
James Island (Town of James Island only)	12,198	4.8 sq mi	$104,217
Charleston County	420,264	918.3 sq mi	$88,494

People and income are the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates for 2020–24, the latest five-year release. Land area is from the Bureau’s 2026 Gazetteer files. The 2020 Census counted 22,854 people in the Johns Island division, 2,013 in the Town of Kiawah Island, 2,050 in the Town of Seabrook Island and 141 in the Town of Rockville.

A note on the geography: the Census Bureau’s Johns Island division takes in the whole island as OpenStreetMap outlines it, and its land area is within a square mile of that outline’s. Kiawah and Seabrook share a separate division, and Wadmalaw has its own. For James Island we used the town, which covers only part of the island; the Bureau’s James Island division also takes in Folly Beach.

Is Johns Island affluent?

By household income, yes. The median household income in the Census Bureau’s Johns Island division was $118,103 in the 2020–24 American Community Survey. That’s about a third higher than Charleston County’s $88,494, and above the medians for South Carolina ($69,324) and the United States ($80,734).

Kiawah is in another bracket. The Town of Kiawah Island’s median household income was $213,594, and the median value of an owner-occupied home there was $2 million or more, the top of the survey’s scale. Seabrook’s median income, $127,500, isn’t measurably different from Johns Island’s, given the margins of error.

By two other measures, Johns Island looks like the rest of the county. About 1 in 10 residents (9.9%) lived below the poverty line, against 11.3% countywide, and its median home value of $518,500 was within the margin of error of the county’s $489,100.

Survey estimates for small places are rough. Johns Island’s median income carries a margin of error of $12,214, and Kiawah’s $44,182. Figures for the 29455 ZIP code, about 27,600 people, mix Kiawah and Seabrook in with Johns Island.

How do you get from Johns Island to its neighbors?

Two roads cross the Stono River off the island: Main Road and Maybank Highway. Distances below are by road from the Angel Oak, measured with OSRM, a router that uses OpenStreetMap’s road map.

• James Island: Maybank Highway (SC 700) runs east over the Stono River bridge. Charleston County’s widening project there adds an outbound lane “off of Johns Island and onto James Island.” McLeod Plantation is about 8 miles from the Angel Oak this way.
• West Ashley and US 17: Main Road runs north over the Limehouse Bridge and on to US 17. Stono River County Park is at the foot of the bridge on the mainland side, about 7 miles from the Angel Oak.
• Kiawah and Seabrook: Bohicket Road runs south from Maybank Highway to Betsy Kerrison Parkway, according to Charleston County. At the traffic circle by Freshfields Village, Kiawah Island Parkway heads to Kiawah and Seabrook Island Road to Seabrook. Kiawah Beachwalker Park is about 13 miles from the Angel Oak.
• Wadmalaw: Maybank Highway also runs west, crossing Church Creek onto Wadmalaw less than a mile from the Angel Oak. The Charleston Tea Garden is about 10 miles away.
• Folly Beach: from James Island, Folly Road (SC 171) runs south to Folly Island. Our beach guide has the route.

Our road projects guide tracks the construction on these roads.

Which places get put on the wrong island?

We checked each place in the list above against OpenStreetMap’s Johns Island boundary, the same one our restaurant list uses, and against the Census Bureau’s town maps.

• Not on Johns Island: McLeod Plantation Historic Site is on James Island. Stono River County Park is on the West Ashley side of the Stono. Freshfields Village is inside the Town of Kiawah Island, and Bohicket Marina is inside the Town of Seabrook Island. The Charleston Tea Garden and Deep Water Vineyard are on Wadmalaw.
• On Johns Island, despite the name: The Dunlin resort and the rest of the Kiawah River community, and the Town of Kiawah Island’s town hall.

Mailing addresses won’t settle it. Stono River County Park and Bohicket Marina both use Johns Island addresses without being on the island, and Freshfields Village, with its Kiawah Island address, calls itself the crossroads of Kiawah, Seabrook and Johns islands.

Know a place we should check? Tell us.