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Cheraw (/tʃ//ə/'/r//ɔː/ chəRAW', /local//ʃ//ə/'/r//ɔː/ shəRAW') is a town on the Pee Dee River in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,040 at the 2020 census. The greater Cheraw area in the zip code 29520 has a population of 13,689 according to the 2019 ACS data. It has been nicknamed "The Prettiest Town in Dixie".

When the first Europeans arrived in the area it was inhabited by the Cheraw and Pee Dee American Indian tribes. The Cheraw lived near the waterfall hill, near present day Cheraw, but by the 1730s they had been devastated by new infectious disease inadvertently carried by the European traders. Survivors joined the Catawba Confederacy for safety and left their name in history. Only a few scattered Cheraw families remained by the time of the American Revolution. A few European settlers entered their territory in the 1730s, and were then forced upriver when the Welsh came to claim the Welsh Baptist lands granted by the English government in the area around Society Hill. Many of the early settlers of the 1740s in Cheraw were ethnic English, Scots, French Huguenots, or Scots Irish. By 1750, Cheraw had become an established Anglo American village with a growing river trade, one of the first inland villages. It was one of only six places in South Carolina that appeared on English maps at the time. In the 1760s, Joseph and Eli Kershaw were granted the part of Cheraw that is now the downtown historic district. The Kershaws laid out a formal street system. By 1830 settlers lined all the streets with rows of elms. The Kershaws originally called the town "Chatham", but people never accepted this name, continuing to call it "Cheraw" or "Cheraw Hill".

There was a lack of organization and rule during the beginning of the 1740s in the backcountry of South Carolina. This lack of organization and unrest was an underlying cause of the resentment people of these areas felt toward the British Crown. In the Pee Dee area, planters organized a group called the Regulators to help bring order to the area. In 1768 St. David's Parish, the last Anglican Church built in South Carolina under King George III, was established to help serve the civic and religious needs of the Cheraw area. Later a judicial district and courthouse were established to help deal with the problem of order. However, there was still much discontent with the ruling authority, and in May 1776 the grand jury of the Cheraws District Two declared its independence from Great Britain. Many area men played prominent roles in the American Revolution. They included Claudius Pegues, General Henry W. Harrington, the Ellerbe brothers, Philip Pledger, and Eli Kershaw. There was much unrest in the area during this time because Cheraw fell into part of the British strategic line of defense, where garrisons were built to control revolutionaries and to encourage loyalists. Other towns in this line of defense included Camden, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. Cheraw also became a strategic point for the Americans. Military activity was especially heavy in Cheraw and surrounding counties from 1780 to 1781. During the Revolutionary War, St. David's Church was used as a hospital for British troops that operated under Lord Cornwallis's command and as quarters for the South Carolina militia. In December 1780, just across from Cheraw, American commander General Nathanael Greene set up a "camp of repose" to rest and train his men.

In 1819, the first steamboat came up river, and along with it a burst of prosperity because of expanded trade. Cheraw was incorporated as a town in 1820. The main crops from the Cheraw area were corn, cotton, tobacco, rice and indigo. Cheraw had the largest cotton market between Georgetown, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. Because of the cotton trade, the town boasted the largest bank in South Carolina outside of Charleston before the Civil War. Despite a serious fire in 1835, by 1850 the town was a prosperous center of trade.

Leading up to the Civil War, Cheraw citizens played a key role in South Carolina's secession from the Union. On November 19, 1860, the first call for secession in a public meeting was made at the Chesterfield County Courthouse. John A. Inglis of Cheraw was in attendance. He later introduced the resolution for South Carolina to secede. Inglis was also named the chairman of the committee that wrote the document for South Carolina's secession. From the beginning of the war, Cheraw was known as a place of refuge and a storehouse for valuables. In March 1865, General William T. Sherman brought his Union troops to Cheraw for several days. Cheraw was the first municipality to use the Civilian Conservation Corps in South Carolina to build a state park. In addition to St. David's Episcopal Church and Cemetery, the Cheraw Historic District and Robert Smalls School are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cheraw is located in eastern Chesterfield County at the fall line of the Pee Dee River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0.64%, is water. U. S. Route 1 passes through the center of the city, leading northeast 21 mile (34 km) to Rockingham, North Carolina, and southwest 55 mile (89 km) to Camden. U. S. Route 52 joins US 1 in the center of Cheraw but leads northwest 22 mile (35 km) to Wadesboro, North Carolina, and south 41 mile (66 km) to Florence. South Carolina Highway 9 also passes through the center of Cheraw, leading southeast 15 mile (24 km) to Bennettsville and west 12 mile (19 km) to Chesterfield, the county seat.

+Cheraw racial compositionRaceNum. Perc. White (non Hispanic)1,96238.93%Black or African American (non Hispanic)2,64152.4%Native American150.3%Asian761.51%Pacific Islander20.04%Other/Mixed2194.35%Hispanic or Latino1252.48%
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,040 people, 2,358 households, and 1,499 families residing in the town.