The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847. Later, John Edgar Thomson, Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested the town be renamed Atlanta. By 1842, the town had six buildings and 30 residents and was renamed Marthasville to honor Governor Wilson Lumpkin's daughter Martha. 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. When asked in 1837 about the future of the little village, Stephen H.Long, the railroad's chief engineer said the place would be good "for one tavern, a blacksmith shop, a grocery store, and nothing else". 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. The initial route was to run southward from Chattanooga to a terminus east of the Chattahoochee River, which would be linked to Savannah. 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. This has altered its demographics, politics, aesthetics, and culture. The gentrification of some its neighborhoods, initially spurred by the 1996 Summer Olympics, has intensified in the 21st century with the growth of the Atlanta Beltline. Its economy is considered diverse, with dominant sectors in industries including transportation, aerospace, logistics, healthcare, news and media operations, film and television production, information technology, finance, and biomedical research and public policy. With a gross domestic product (GDP) of $406 billion, Atlanta has the 10th largest economy of cities in the U.S. In the modern era, Atlanta has stayed true to its reputation as a major center of transportation, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport becoming the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic in 1998 (a position it has held every year since, with the exception of 2020 as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic) During the 1950s and 1960s, it became a major organizing center of the American Civil Rights Movement, with Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and many other locals becoming prominent figures in the movement's leadership. However, the city rebounded dramatically in the post-war period and quickly became a national industrial center and the unofficial capital of the " New South".
The city was almost entirely burnt to the ground during General William T. During the American Civil War, it served a strategically important role for the Confederacy until it was captured in 1864. One of those railroads included the Western and Atlantic Railroad, from which the name “Atlanta” is derived, signifying the city’s growing reputation as a major hub of transportation. Ītlanta was originally founded as the terminus of a major state-sponsored railroad, but it soon became the convergence point among several railroads, spurring its rapid growth. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over 1,000 ft above sea level, it features unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the most dense urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia.
However, it serves as the cultural and economic heart of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area, home to 6,144,050 people, making it the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. With a population of 498,715 living within the city limits, it is the eighth-most populous city in the Southeast and 38th most populous city in the United States according to the 2020 U.S. Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International AirportĪtlanta ( / æ t ˈ l æ n t ə/ at- LAN-tə) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S.