It became part of the city with the annexation of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on October 11, 2002.

For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau previously defined Parris Island as a census-designated place (CDP) when it was an unincorporated area of Beaufort County.

As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, Parris Island is included within the Beaufort Urban Cluster and the larger Hilton Head Island–Beaufort Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Four years later, a town named Santa Elena was founded here by Spanish Conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

It later came into the hands of Colonel Alexander Parris, sometimes spelled "Paris", Public Treasurer of South Carolina.

The neighboring Port Royal Sound is the deepest natural harbor on the Atlantic coast of the United States south of New York.

[7] The Charlesfort-Santa Elena Site and Parris Island Drydock and Commanding Generals House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Parris Island was the setting for the first third of Stanley Kubrick's 1987 war film Full Metal Jacket, as well as the scene of several flashbacks in the TV series Revolution.