Port Royal is a town on Port Royal Island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 14,220 at the 2020 census. It is portion of the Hilton Head Island–Bluffton metropolitan area. Port Royal is home to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island and United States Naval Hospital Beaufort.

Port Royal takes its read out from the adjacent Port Royal Sound, which was explored and named by Frenchman Jean Ribault in 1562. Ribault founded the short-lived concurrence of Charlesfort upon Parris Island. The Place later became the site of a Spanish and yet later Scottish colony during the 17th century.

Port Royal was the site of the Naval Battle of Port Royal during the Civil War. Later during the war, it was the one of the sites of the Port Royal Experiment, which included most of the Sea Islands in Union hands. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was first door at Christmas below the Proclamation tree in Port Royal.

Due to the promote of a large and sheltered natural harbor, Port Royal was able to develop port facilities to maintain the growing phosphate mining undertakings after the Civil War. The Port Royal Railroad was completed from Port Royal to a junction next the main Charleston and Savannah Railway in Yemassee, thus establishing a land route for trade and commerce. Port Royal was the southeastern terminus of the Charleston and Western Carolina Railway, the railroad last had passenger trains to Port Royal in the mid-1950s. Development of a community roughly speaking the past isolated port site at the subside of the Beaufort River and Battery Creek led to the platting of streets and town lots by progress interests. A land hurry ensued, and Port Royal was officially incorporated in 1874, 300 years after initial deal efforts.