Atlanta is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the county seat of Fulton County and extends into neighboring DeKalb County. With a population of 498,715 at the 2020 census and an estimated 529,110 in 2025, Atlanta is the eighth-most populous city in the Southeast and the 36th-most populous city in the United States. Atlanta is classified as a Beta+ global city. The Atlanta metropolitan area has an estimated population of over 6.4 million and is the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level, Atlanta features a unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the densest urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States.
Atlanta was originally founded as the terminus of a major state-sponsored railroad, but soon became the convergence point for several railroad lines, spurring its rapid growth. The largest of these was the Western and Atlantic Railroad, from which the name "Atlanta" is derived, reflecting the city's growing reputation as a major transportation hub. During the American Civil War, the city served a strategically important role for the Confederacy. It was captured in 1864 following the Atlanta campaign, and under Union General William T. Sherman, Atlanta was almost entirely burned to the ground during the March to the Sea.
Atlanta rebounded dramatically in the post–Civil War period and quickly became a national industrial center and the unofficial capital of the "New South". After World War II, Atlanta emerged as a manufacturing and technology hub. During the 1950s and 1960s, it became a major organizing center of the American civil rights movement, with Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and many other locals serving as prominent leaders. In the modern era, Atlanta has remained a major transportation center, with Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport becoming the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic in 1998. It has maintained this position every year since, except in 2020, with an estimated 93.7 million passengers in 2022.
With a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $473 billion in 2021, Atlanta has the 11th-largest economy among U.S. cities and the 22nd-largest in the world. Its economy is diverse, with dominant sectors including transportation, aerospace, logistics, healthcare, news and media operations, film and television production, information technology, finance, biomedical research, and public policy. Atlanta established itself on the world stage when it won the bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics. The Games had a lasting impact on Atlanta's development into the 21st century, leading to significant investment in the city's universities, parks, and tourism industry. The gentrification of some of its neighborhoods has intensified in the 21st century with the growth of the Atlanta Beltline rail trail, altering Atlanta's demographics, politics, aesthetics, and culture.
History
Native American settlements
For thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers in North Georgia, the indigenous Creek people, Cherokee people, and their ancestors inhabited the area. Standing Peachtree, a Creek village where Peachtree Creek flows into the Chattahoochee River, was the closest Native American settlement to what is now Atlanta. Through the early 19th century, European Americans systematically encroached on the Creek of northern Georgia, forcing them out of the area from 1802 to 1825. The Creek were forced to leave the area in 1821, under Indian Removal by the federal government, and European American settlers arrived the following year.
Western and Atlantic Railroad
In 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad in order to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest. The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would be linked to Savannah. After engineers surveyed various possible locations for the terminus, the "zero milepost" was driven into the ground in what is now Foundry Street, Five Points. When asked in 1837 about the future of the little village, Stephen Harriman Long, the railroad's chief engineer said the place would be good "for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else". A year later, the area around the milepost had developed into a settlement, first known as Terminus, and later Thrasherville, after a local merchant who built homes and a general store in the area. By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents and was renamed Marthasville to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. Later, John Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed Atlanta, supposedly a feminine version of the word "Atlantic", referring to the Western and Atlantic Railroad. (Atalanta was also Martha Lumpkin's middle name.) The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.
American Civil War
By 1860, Atlanta's population had grown to 9,554. During the American Civil War, the nexus of multiple railroads in Atlanta made the city a strategic hub for the distribution of military supplies.
In 1864, the Union Army moved southward following the capture of Chattanooga and began its invasion of north Georgia. The region surrounding Atlanta was the location of several major army battles, culminating with the Battle of Atlanta and a four-month-long siege of the city by the Union Army under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood decided to retreat from Atlanta, and he ordered the destruction of all public buildings and possible assets that could be of use to the Union Army. On the next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered Atlanta to the Union Army, and on September 7, Sherman ordered the city's civilian population to evacuate. On November 11, 1864, Sherman prepared for the Union Army's March to the Sea by ordering the destruction of Atlanta's remaining military assets.
Reconstruction and late 19th century
After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt during the Reconstruction era. The work attracted many new residents. Due to the city's superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868. In the 1880 Census, Atlanta had surpassed Savannah as Georgia's largest city.
Beginning in the 1880s, Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, promoted Atlanta to potential investors as a city of the "New South" that would be based upon a modern economy and less reliant on agriculture. By 1885, the founding of the Georgia School of Technology (now the Georgia Institute of Technology) and the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of historically black colleges made up of units for men and women, had established Atlanta as a center for higher education. In 1895, Atlanta hosted the Cotton States and International Exposition, which attracted nearly 800,000 attendees and successfully promoted the New South's development to the world.
20th century
During the first decades of the 20th century, Atlanta enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth. In three decades' time, Atlanta's population tripled, as the city limits expanded to include nearby streetcar suburbs. The city's skyline grew taller with the construction of the Equitable, Flatiron, Empire, and Candler buildings. Sweet Auburn emerged as a center of Black commerce. The period was also marked by strife and tragedy. Increased racial tensions led to the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when Whites attacked Blacks, leaving at least 27 people dead and over 70 injured, with extensive damage in Black neighborhoods. In 1913, Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent, was convicted of the murder of a 13-year-old girl in a highly publicized trial. He was sentenced to death, but the governor commuted his sentence to life. An enraged and organized lynch mob took him from jail in 1915 and hanged him in Marietta. The Jewish community in Atlanta and across the country were horrified. On May 21, 1917, the Great Atlanta Fire destroyed 1,938 buildings in what is now the Old Fourth Ward, resulting in one fatality and the displacement of 10,000 people.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the epic film based on the best-selling novel by Atlanta's Margaret Mitchell. The gala event at Loew's Grand Theatre was attended by the film's legendary producer, David O. Selznick, and the film's stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland, but Oscar winner Hattie McDaniel, an African-American actress, was barred from the event due to racial segregation laws.
Atlanta played a vital role in the Allied effort during World War II. Colonel Blake Van Leer, the president of Georgia Tech, played a significant part by lobbying war-related manufacturing companies like Lockheed Martin to move to Atlanta, successfully lobbying the Government to build military bases, in turn helping attract thousands of new residents through new jobs. Van Leer also launched major research centers, which included Neely Nuclear Research Center and funds to help make Georgia Tech the "MIT" of the south while also founding Southern Polytechnic State University.
These new defense industries attracted thousands of new residents and generated revenues, resulting in rapid population and economic growth. In the 1950s, the city's newly constructed highway system, supported by federal subsidies, allowed middle-class Atlantans the ability to relocate to the suburbs. As a result, the city began to make up an ever-smaller proportion of the metropolitan area's population.
Civil rights movement
African-American veterans returned from World War II seeking full rights in their country and began heightened activism. In exchange for support by that portion of the Black community that could vote, in 1948 the mayor ordered the hiring of the first eight African-American police officers in the city.
Much controversy preceded the 1956 Sugar Bowl, when the Pitt Panthers, with African-American fullback Bobby Grier on the roster, met the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. There had been controversy over whether Grier should be allowed to play due to his race, and whether Georgia Tech should even play at all due to Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin's opposition to racial integration. After Griffin publicly sent a telegram to the state's Board of Regents requesting Georgia Tech not to engage in racially integrated events, Georgia Tech's president Blake R. Van Leer rejected the request and threatened to resign. Later, students from both Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia held a protest against Griffin's stance, which soon turned into a riot. The students broke windows, upturned parking meters, hung Griffin in effigy, and marched all the way to the governor's mansion, surrounding it until 3:30 a.m. Griffin publicly blamed Georgia Tech's president for the "riots" and requested he be replaced and Georgia Tech's state funding be cut off. On December 5 the Georgia Tech board of regents voted 13–1 in favor of allowing the game to proceed as scheduled.
In the 1960s, Atlanta became a major organizing center of the civil rights movement, with Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities playing major roles in the movement's leadership. While Atlanta in the postwar years had relatively minimal racial strife compared to other cities, Blacks were limited by discrimination, segregation, and continued disenfranchisement of most voters. In 1961, the city attempted to thwart blockbusting by realtors by erecting road barriers in Cascade Heights, countering the efforts of civic and business leaders to foster Atlanta as the "city too busy to hate."
Desegregation of the public sphere came in stages, with public transportation desegregated by 1959, the restaurant at Rich's department store by 1961, movie theaters by 1963, and public schools by 1973 (nearly 20 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional).
In 1960, Whites comprised 61.7% of the city's population. During the 1950s–70s, suburbanization and White flight from urban areas led to a significant demographic shift. By 1970, African Americans were the majority of the city's population and exercised their recently enforced voting rights and political influence by electing Atlanta's first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973. Under Mayor Jackson's tenure, Atlanta's airport was modernized, strengthening the city's role as a transportation center. The opening of the Georgia World Congress Center in 1976 further confirmed Atlanta's rise as a convention city. Construction of the city's subway system began in 1975, with rail service commencing in 1979. Despite these improvements, Atlanta lost more than 100,000 residents between 1970 and 1990, over 20% of its population. At the same time, it developed new office space after attracting numerous corporations, with an increasing portion of workers from northern areas.
1996 Summer Olympic games
Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Following the announcement, the city government undertook several major construction projects to improve Atlanta's parks, sporting venues, and transportation infrastructure; however, for the first time, none of the $1.7 billion cost of the games was governmentally funded. While the games experienced transportation and accommodation problems and the Centennial Olympic Park bombing occurred despite extra security precautions, the spectacle was still a watershed event in Atlanta's history. According to former Mayor Kasim Reed, the Olympic Games generated "a direct economic impact of at least USD 5 billion". For the first time in Olympic history, every one of the record 197 national Olympic committees invited to compete sent athletes, sending more than 10,000 contestants participating in a record 271 events. The related projects, such as Atlanta's Olympic Legacy Program and civic efforts, initiated a fundamental transformation of the city in the following decade.