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Atlanta (/ æ t ˈ l æ n (t) ə / at-LAN-(t)ə) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, and a portion of the city extends into neighboring DeKalb County.
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Atlanta, city, capital (1868) of Georgia, U.S., and seat (1853) of Fulton county (but also partly in DeKalb county). It lies in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwestern part of the state, just southeast of the Chattahoochee River. Atlanta is Georgia’s largest city and the principal trade and transportation centre of the southea...
Atlanta owes its existence to the railroads, the routes of which were determined by geography. Lying as it does at the southern extremity of the Appalachian Mountains, it became the gateway through which most overland traffic had to pass between the southern Atlantic Seaboard and regions to the west. In 1837 a spot near what is now Five Points, in the centre of the present-day city, was selected for the southern terminus of a railroad that was subsequently built northward to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The location was known first as Terminus and then as Marthasville; in 1845 it was renamed Atlanta for the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Several other rail lines had converged on the city by 1860.
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During the American Civil War Atlanta became a supply depot, a site of Southern war industries, and the keystone of Confederate rail transportation east of the Mississippi River. It was thus the prime military objective of General William Tecumseh Sherman’s invasion of Georgia from Chattanooga (see Atlanta Campaign). The city fell to his Union troops on September 1, 1864, and was converted into a military camp. On November 15 Sherman departed on his devastating “March to the Sea,” but not before much of the city had been burned.
During Reconstruction Atlanta was a centre of federal government activities in the South. It was the site of the convention that drew up the Georgia constitution of 1868, and under the Republican state administration it became the state capital (chosen permanently by popular referendum in 1877). Atlanta came to epitomize the spirit of the “New South,” having risen from the ashes of the Civil War and become an advocate of reconciliation with the North in order to restore business. This spirit was dramatized by three Atlanta expositions: the International Cotton (1881), the Piedmont (1887), and the Cotton States and International (1895). At the last one, educator Booker T. Washington made his historic declaration (the Atlanta Compromise) urging African Americans to seek economic security before political or social equality with whites.
The spirit of the city has tended to be liberal within the framework of Southern conservatism, though its customs have been influenced by the Protestant church traditions of the Bible Belt. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was born and raised in Atlanta; his boyhood home, Ebenezer Baptist Church (where he and his father once preached), and his grave site adjacent to the church are preserved at the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site. In 1973 Atlanta became the first major city in the South to elect an African American mayor, Maynard Jackson.
Atlanta is still the focal point of an important network of rail lines and interstate highways. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, 10 miles (16 km) southwest of downtown Atlanta, is one of the world’s busiest airports. The first rapid-transit commuter rail opened in 1979, and by the early 21st century the system had expanded to include several more lines. Atlanta remains the financial and commercial capital of the Southeast and is its most important distribution centre. Printing and publishing, high-technology industries, telecommunications, airline services, military and government services, and banking and insurance are supplemented by industries producing aircraft, beverages, automobiles, electronics and electrical equipment, chemicals, processed foods, and paper products. Atlanta is also the focus of federal government activity in the Southeast and is the headquarters of the 6th Federal Reserve District. The city itself is relatively small but is surrounded by a sprawl of low-density suburbs.
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Atlanta is a major educational centre, with more than 40 degree-granting institutions in the metropolitan area. The city has a prestigious consortium of historically black colleges, notably Morehouse College (1867), Spelman College (1881), and Clark Atlanta University, the latter formed in 1988 by the merger of Atlanta University (1865) and Clark College (1869). Others schools include Emory University (1836), Georgia Institute of Technology (1885), Georgia State University (1913), and Oglethorpe University (1835). Atlanta is also the chief medical centre of the Southeast and is home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a division of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
Atlanta’s notable buildings include the State Capitol (1889) and the Cyclorama (1885; in Grant Park), which contains a gigantic painting and diorama of the Battle of Atlanta. Peachtree Center is a complex of hotels, offices, and shops at the heart of downtown. The Woodruff Arts Center (1968) includes the High Museum of Art, a concert hall, an art school, and a theatre. Centennial Olympic Park was built for use during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.
Atlanta is home to a number of professional sports franchises, two of which moved into the city in the wake of its postwar population boom of the 1950s. Major League Baseball’s Braves relocated to Atlanta from Milwaukee in 1965, and the National Basketball Association’s Hawks moved there from St. Louis in 1968. Other teams in the major professional sports leagues include the Falcons of the National Football League, the Dream of the Women’s National Basketball Association, and Atlanta United FC of Major League Soccer.
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