Savannah's Historic District has been a National Historic Landmark since 1966, built on the Oglethorpe Plan, a distinctive grid of public squares laid out in 1733 at the city's founding. The city originally had 24 squares; three, Elbert, Ellis, and Liberty, were lost to 20th-century development, Elbert and Liberty paved over for street improvements, Ellis Square demolished in the 1950s for a parking garage. Ellis Square was reclaimed and reopened in 2010, leaving 22 squares standing today, all free and open to the public. Forsyth Park, added in the 1840s, is covered as its own standalone landmark.
James Oglethorpe's original grid, alternating public squares with residential blocks and dedicated public-building lots, still structures the entire historic district today, worth understanding as a genuinely functioning 18th-century urban plan, not a preserved museum piece disconnected from daily use.
Elbert and Liberty Squares were paved over for street improvements and remain lost today; only small markers, a grassy area near the Civic Center for Elbert, the "Flame of Freedom" sculpture for Liberty, survive on their original sites. That's a genuine, permanent historical loss the district absorbed, distinct from Ellis Square, the third square lost, which was demolished for a parking garage in the 1950s and later reclaimed.
Unlike Elbert and Liberty, which remain lost, Ellis Square came back specifically in 2010, when the city removed the parking garage and rebuilt the square, making it the newest addition to the surviving 22 by decades, a modern civic decision rather than an original 18th-century survivor.
Savannah's Historic District sits along the Savannah River, walkable in full, with Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport roughly a 20-minute drive from downtown.
Savannah's National Historic Landmark status protects a genuinely still-functioning 18th-century city plan, with 22 of its original 24 squares surviving today. Forsyth Park, the district's best-known green space, is covered in full below.
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