Surfside Beach is a town in Horry County, South Carolina, United States.

In the early nineteenth century, there is evidence of a slave plantation of 3,200 acres (1838) at what is now Surfside Beach.

[6] The 1765 diary of John Bartram, botanist, shows him lodging at what was probably Stephen Peak's slave plantation, "at the west end of long bay".

[6] In 1773, William Bartram, naturalist, also "got to the West end of Long Bay, where [he] lodged at a large Indigo plantation".

[5] Other farmed animals and crops are thought to have included cattle, sheep, pigs, Indian corn and peas.

[citation needed] Principal industries were lumber and feed farming for the 30 or so horses and mules in the area.

Holiday of Galivants Ferry, renamed the area Floral Beach after his wife, Flora.

[citation needed] The settlement expanded after the reactivation of Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in 1956.

[citation needed] Surfside Beach adopted a public-places smoking ban which took effect October 1, 2007.

Surfside Beach is the first town in Horry County to enact such a ban, and one of only a handful in South Carolina to do so at the time.

On February 4, 2023, at 2:39 PM local time, a Chinese spy balloon that had been flying across the United States for days was shot down directly over the town's coast by an AIM-9X Sidewinder launched from a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.

US military aircraft were spotted directly overhead of the town minutes before the balloon was shot down.

The Mayor has no administrative duties and no powers beyond presiding over the meetings and acts as a figurehead of the Town within Councils direction.