Tennessee ( , ),
officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
in the
Southeastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
region of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. Tennessee is the
36th-largest by area and the
15th-most populous of the
50 states
The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states, a federal district ( Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States), five major territories, and various minor islands. Both the states and the United ...
. It is bordered by
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
to the north,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
to the northeast,
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
to the east,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
,
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...
, and
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
to the south,
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
to the southwest, and
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
to the northwest. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three
Grand Divisions of
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
,
Middle, and
West Tennessee
West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, delineated by state law. Its ...
.
Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Other major cities include
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
,
Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...
,
Chattanooga, and
Clarksville. Tennessee's population as of the
2020 United States census
The United States census of 2020 was the twenty-fourth decennial United States census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this was the first U.S. census to of ...
is approximately 6.9 million.
Tennessee is rooted in the
Watauga Association
The Watauga Association (sometimes referred to as the Republic of Watauga) was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few ...
, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
. Its name derives from "
Tanasi
Tanasi ( chr, ᏔᎾᏏ, translit=Tanasi) (also spelled Tanase, Tenasi, Tenassee, Tunissee, Tennessee, and other such variations) was a historic Overhill settlement site in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. ...
", a
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
town in the eastern part of the state that existed before the first European American settlement. Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later the
Southwest Territory
The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States a ...
, before its admission to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. It earned the nickname "The Volunteer State" early in its history due to a strong tradition of military service.
A
slave state
In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...
until the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, Tennessee was politically divided, with its western and middle parts supporting the
Confederacy and the eastern region harboring
pro
Pro is an abbreviation meaning "professional".
Pro, PRO or variants thereof may also refer to:
People
* Miguel Pro (1891–1927), Mexican priest
* Pro Hart (1928–2006), Australian painter
* Mlungisi Mdluli (born 1980), South African retired f ...
-
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
sentiment. As a result, Tennessee was the last state to secede and the first readmitted to the Union after the war.
During the 20th century, Tennessee transitioned from a predominantly agrarian society to a more diversified economy. This was aided in part by massive federal investment in the
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA) and the city of
Oak Ridge, which was established during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
to house the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
's uranium enrichment facilities for the construction of the
world's first atomic bombs. After the war, the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
became a key center of scientific research. In 2016, the element
tennessine
Tennessine is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Ts and atomic number 117. It is the second-heaviest known element and the penultimate element of the 7th period of the periodic table.
The discovery of tennessine was officially anno ...
was named for the state, largely in recognition of the roles played by Oak Ridge,
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
, and the
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...
in its discovery. Tennessee has also played a major role in the development of many forms of
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
, including
country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while ...
,
blues,
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...
,
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
, and
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
.
Tennessee has diverse terrain and landforms, and from east to west, contains a mix of cultural features characteristic of
Appalachia, the
Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
, and the
Deep South. The
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsy ...
along the eastern border reach some of the highest elevations in eastern North America, and the
Cumberland Plateau contains many scenic valleys and
waterfall
A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf.
Waterfalls can be formed in severa ...
s. The central part of the state is marked by cavernous bedrock and irregular rolling hills, and level, fertile plains define West Tennessee. The state is twice bisected by the
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other name ...
, and the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
forms its western border. Its economy is dominated by the
health care,
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
,
finance,
automotive,
chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...
,
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
, and
tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...
sectors, and
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...
,
soybean
The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses.
Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu a ...
s,
corn,
poultry
Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...
, and
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
are its primary agricultural products.
The
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, w ...
, the nation's most visited national park, is in eastern Tennessee.
Etymology
![Timberlake-map-tanasi-1765](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Timberlake-map-tanasi-1765.jpg)
Tennessee derives its name most directly from the
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
town of
Tanasi
Tanasi ( chr, ᏔᎾᏏ, translit=Tanasi) (also spelled Tanase, Tenasi, Tenassee, Tunissee, Tennessee, and other such variations) was a historic Overhill settlement site in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. ...
(or "Tanase", in
syllabary: ᏔᎾᏏ) in present-day
Monroe County, Tennessee
Monroe County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,250. Its county seat is Madisonville.
History
During the early part of the 18th century, the area around what is now ...
, on the Tanasi River, now known as the
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national ...
. This town appeared on British maps as early as 1725. In 1567,
Spanish explorer Captain
Juan Pardo and his party encountered a
Native American village named "Tanasqui" in the area while traveling inland from modern-day
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
; however, it is unknown if this was the same settlement as Tanasi. Recent research suggests that the Cherokees adapted the name from the
Yuchi
The Yuchi people, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma.
In the 16th century, Yuchi people lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee. In the late 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, G ...
word ''Tana-tsee-dgee'', meaning "brother-waters-place" or "where-the-waters-meet".
The modern spelling, ''Tennessee'', is attributed to Governor
James Glen of South Carolina, who used this spelling in his official correspondence during the 1750s. In 1788, North Carolina created "
Tennessee County
Tennessee County, North Carolina was a subdivision of the North Carolina's Washington District in the '' Overmountain Region''—which later became the state of Tennessee.
History
Tennessee County was organized in 1788 from a portion of Davids ...
", and in 1796, a
constitutional convention, organizing the new state out of the
Southwest Territory
The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States a ...
, adopted "Tennessee" as the state's name.
History
Pre-European era
The first inhabitants of Tennessee were
Paleo-Indians who arrived about 12,000 years ago at the end of the
Last Glacial Period. Archaeological excavations indicate that the lower Tennessee Valley was heavily populated by Ice Age
hunter-gatherers, and Middle Tennessee is believed to have been rich with
game animal
Game or quarry is any wild animal hunted for animal products (primarily meat), for recreation (" sporting"), or for trophies. The species of animals hunted as game varies in different parts of the world and by different local jurisdictions, tho ...
s such as
mastodon
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...
s. The names of the cultural groups who inhabited the area before European contact are unknown, but archaeologists have named several distinct cultural phases, including the
Archaic (8000–1000 BC),
Woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
(1000 BC–1000 AD), and
Mississippian (1000–1600 AD) periods. The Archaic peoples first domesticated dogs, and plants such as
squash
Squash may refer to:
Sports
* Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets
* Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling
* Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...
,
corn,
gourd
Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and '' Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the ear ...
s, and
sunflowers were first grown in Tennessee during the Woodland period. Later generations of Woodland peoples constructed the first mounds. Rapid civilizational development occurred during the Mississippian period, when Indigenous peoples developed organized
chiefdom
A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...
s and constructed numerous ceremonial structures throughout the state.
Spanish conquistadors who explored the region in the 16th century encountered some of the Mississippian peoples, including the
Muscogee Creek
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands[Yuchi
The Yuchi people, also spelled Euchee and Uchee, are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma.
In the 16th century, Yuchi people lived in the eastern Tennessee River valley in Tennessee. In the late 17th century, they moved south to Alabama, G ...]
, and
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
. By the early 18th century, most Natives in Tennessee had disappeared, most likely wiped out by diseases introduced by the Spaniards. The Cherokee began migrating into what is now eastern Tennessee from what is now Virginia in the latter 17th century, possibly to escape expanding European settlement and diseases in the north. They forced the Creek, Yuchi, and Shawnee out of the state in the early 18th century. The Chickasaw remained confined to West Tennessee, and the middle part of the state contained few Native Americans, although both the Cherokee and the Shawnee claimed the region as their hunting ground. Cherokee peoples in Tennessee were known by European settlers as the
Overhill Cherokee
Overhill Cherokee was the term for the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used by 1 ...
because they lived west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Overhill settlements grew along the rivers in East Tennessee in the early 18th century.
Exploration and colonization
The first recorded European expeditions into what is now Tennessee were led by Spanish explorers
Hernando de Soto in 1540–1541,
Tristan de Luna
Tristan (Latin/ Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to we ...
in 1559, and
Juan Pardo in 1566–1567. In 1673, English fur trader
Abraham Wood
Abraham Wood (1610–1682), sometimes referred to as "General" or "Colonel" Wood, was an English fur trader, militia officer, politician and explorer of 17th century colonial Virginia. Wood helped build and maintained Fort Henry at the falls of ...
sent an expedition from the
Colony of Virginia into
Overhill Cherokee territory in modern-day northeastern Tennessee. That same year, a French expedition led by missionary
Jacques Marquette
Jacques Marquette S.J. (June 1, 1637 – May 18, 1675), sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Ign ...
and
Louis Jolliet
Louis Jolliet (September 21, 1645after May 1700) was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. In 1673, Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore and ...
explored the Mississippi River and became the first Europeans to map the Mississippi Valley. In 1682, an expedition led by
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle constructed
Fort Prudhomme
Fort Prudhomme, or Prud'homme, was a simple stockade fortification, constructed in late Feb. 1682 on one of the Chickasaw Bluffs of the Mississippi River in West Tennessee by Cavelier de La Salle's French canoe expedition of the Mississippi Rive ...
on the
Chickasaw Bluffs
The Chickasaw Bluff is the high ground rising about above the Mississippi River flood plain between Fulton in Lauderdale County, Tennessee and Memphis in Shelby County, Tennessee.
This elevation, shaped as four bluffs, is named for the Chick ...
in West Tennessee. By the late 17th century, French traders began to explore the Cumberland River valley, and in 1714, under Charles Charleville's command, established French Lick, a fur trading settlement at the present location of Nashville near the
Cumberland River. In 1739, the French constructed
Fort Assumption
Fort Assumption (or Fort De L'Assomption) was a French fortification constructed in 1739 on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff on the Mississippi River in Shelby County, present day Memphis, Tennessee. The fort was used as a base against the Chickasaw ...
under
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (; ; February 23, 1680 – March 7, 1767), also known as Sieur de Bienville, was a French colonial administrator in New France. Born in Montreal, he was an early governor of French Louisiana, appointed four ...
on the Mississippi River at the present location of Memphis, which they used as a base against the Chickasaw during the
1739 Campaign of the
Chickasaw Wars
The Chickasaw Wars were fought in the 18th century between the Chickasaw allied with the British against the French and their allies the Choctaws and Illinois Confederation. The Province of Louisiana extended from Illinois to New Orleans, and the ...
.
![Ftloudouninterior](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Ftloudouninterior.jpg)
In the 1750s and 1760s,
longhunter
A longhunter (or long hunter) was an 18th-century explorer and hunter who made expeditions into the American frontier for as much as six months at a time. Historian Emory Hamilton says that "The Long Hunter was peculiar to Southwest Virginia onl ...
s from Virginia explored much of East and Middle Tennessee. Settlers from the
Colony of South Carolina
Province of South Carolina, originally known as Clarendon Province, was a province of Great Britain that existed in North America from 1712 to 1776. It was one of the five Southern colonies and one of the thirteen American colonies. The monar ...
built
Fort Loudoun on the
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national ...
in 1756, the first British settlement in what is now Tennessee and the westernmost British outpost to that date. Hostilities erupted between the British and the Cherokees into
an armed conflict, and a
siege of the fort ended with its surrender in 1760. After the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
, Britain issued the
Royal Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The Procla ...
, which forbade settlements west of the
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
in an effort to mitigate conflicts with the Natives. But migration across the mountains continued, and the first permanent European settlers began arriving in northeastern Tennessee in the late 1760s. Most of them were
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, but nearly 20% were
Scotch-Irish. They formed the
Watauga Association
The Watauga Association (sometimes referred to as the Republic of Watauga) was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few ...
in 1772, a semi-autonomous representative government, and three years later reorganized themselves into the
Washington District
The Washington District is a Norfolk Southern Railway line in the U.S. state of Virginia that connects Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria and Lynchburg, Virginia, Lynchburg. Most of the line was originally built from 1850 to 1860 by the Orange and ...
to support the cause of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. The next year, after an unsuccessful petition to Virginia, North Carolina agreed to annex the Washington District to provide protection from Native American attacks.
In 1775,
Richard Henderson negotiated a series of treaties with the Cherokee to sell the lands of the Watauga settlements at
Sycamore Shoals
The Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, usually shortened to Sycamore Shoals, is a rocky stretch of river rapids along the Watauga River in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Archeological excavations have found Native Americans lived near the shoals s ...
on the banks of the
Watauga River
The Watauga River () is a large stream of western North Carolina and East Tennessee. It is long with its headwaters in Linville Gap to the South Fork Holston River at Boone Lake.
Course
The Watauga River rises from a spring near the base ...
. An agreement to sell land for the
Transylvania Colony
The Transylvania Colony, also referred to as the Transylvania Purchase, was a short-lived, extra-legal colony founded in early 1775 by North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson, who formed and controlled the Transylvania Company. Henders ...
, which included the territory in Tennessee north of the Cumberland River, was also signed. Later that year,
Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...
, under Henderson's employment, blazed a trail from
Fort Chiswell
Chiswell , sometimes , is a small village at the southern end of Chesil Beach, in Underhill, on the Isle of Portland in Dorset. It is the oldest settlement on the island, having formerly been known as Chesilton. The small bay at Chiswell is ca ...
in Virginia through the
Cumberland Gap
The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It is famous in American colonial history for its r ...
, which became part of the
Wilderness Road, a major thoroughfare into Tennessee and Kentucky. The Chickamauga, a Cherokee faction loyal to the British led by
Dragging Canoe
Dragging Canoe (ᏥᏳ ᎦᏅᏏᏂ, pronounced ''Tsiyu Gansini'', "he is dragging his canoe") (c. 1738 – February 29, 1792) was a Cherokee war chief who led a band of Cherokee warriors who resisted colonists and United States settlers in the ...
, opposed the settling of the Washington District and Transylvania Colony, and in 1776 attacked
Fort Watauga
Fort Watauga, more properly Fort Caswell, was an American Revolutionary War fort that once stood at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. The fort was originally built in 1775–1776 by the area's front ...
at Sycamore Shoals. The warnings of Dragging Canoe's cousin
Nancy Ward
''Nanyehi'' (Cherokee: ᎾᏅᏰᎯ: "One who goes about"), known in English as Nancy Ward (c. 1738 – 1822 or 1824), was a Beloved Woman and political leader of the Cherokee. She advocated for peaceful coexistence with European Americans and, ...
spared many settlers' lives from the initial attacks.
In 1779,
James Robertson and
John Donelson
John Donelson (1718–1785) was an American frontiersman, ironmaster, politician, city planner, and explorer. After founding and operating what became Washington Iron Furnace in Franklin County, Virginia for several years, he moved with his family ...
led two groups of settlers from the Washington District to the French Lick. These settlers constructed
Fort Nashborough
Fort Nashborough, also known as Fort Bluff, Bluff Station, French Lick Fort, Cumberland River Fort and other names, was the stockade established in early 1779 in the French Lick area of the Cumberland River valley, as a forerunner to the settl ...
, which they named for
Francis Nash
Francis Nash (October 7, 1777) was a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Prior to the war, he was a lawyer, public official, and politician in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and was heavily involved ...
, a
brigadier general
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...
of the
Continental Army. The next year, the settlers signed the
Cumberland Compact, which established a representative government for the colony called the
Cumberland Association. This settlement later grew into the city of Nashville. That same year
John Sevier
John Sevier (September 23, 1745 September 24, 1815) was an American soldier, frontiersman, and politician, and one of the founding fathers of the State of Tennessee. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, he played a leading role in Tennes ...
led a group of
Overmountain Men
The Overmountain Men were American frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains which are the leading edge of the Appalachian Mountains, who took part in the American Revolutionary War. While they were present at multiple engagements in t ...
from Fort Watauga to the
Battle of Kings Mountain
The Battle of Kings Mountain was a military engagement between Patriot and Loyalist militias in South Carolina during the Southern Campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in a decisive victory for the Patriots. The battle took pla ...
in South Carolina, where they defeated the British.
![Southwest Territory Counties (1790)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Southwest_Territory_Counties_%281790%29.svg)
Three counties of the
Washington District
The Washington District is a Norfolk Southern Railway line in the U.S. state of Virginia that connects Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria and Lynchburg, Virginia, Lynchburg. Most of the line was originally built from 1850 to 1860 by the Orange and ...
broke off from
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
in 1784 and formed the
State of Franklin. Efforts to obtain admission to the
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
failed, and the counties, now numbering eight, rejoined North Carolina by 1788. North Carolina ceded the area to the federal government in 1790, after which it was organized into the
Southwest Territory
The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States a ...
on May 26 of that year. The act allowed the territory to petition for statehood once the population reached 60,000. Administration of the territory was divided between the Washington District and the Mero District, the latter of which consisted of the Cumberland Association and was named for Spanish territorial governor
Esteban Rodríguez Miró
Esteban Rodríguez Miró y Sabater, KOS (1744 – June 4, 1795), also known as Esteban Miro and Estevan Miro, was a Spanish army officer and governor of the Spanish American provinces of Louisiana and Florida.
Miró was one of the most popular ...
. President
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
appointed
William Blount
William Blount (March 26, 1749March 21, 1800) was an American Founding Father, statesman, farmer and land speculator who signed the United States Constitution. He was a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention o ...
as territorial governor. The Southwest Territory recorded a population of 35,691 in the
first United States census that year, including 3,417 slaves.
Statehood and antebellum era
![Map-of-tennassee-government-1796](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Map-of-tennassee-government-1796.jpg)
As support for statehood grew among the settlers, Governor Blount called for elections, which were held in December 1793. The 13-member territorial House of Representatives first convened in Knoxville on February 24, 1794, to select ten members for the legislature's upper house, the council. The full legislature convened on August 25, 1794. In June 1795, the legislature conducted a census of the territory, which recorded a population of 77,263, including 10,613 slaves, and a poll that showed 6,504 in favor of statehood and 2,562 opposed. Elections for a constitutional convention were held in December 1795, and the delegates convened in Knoxville on January 17, 1796, to begin drafting a state constitution. During this convention, the name Tennessee was chosen for the new state. The constitution was completed on February 6, which authorized elections for the state's new legislature, the
Tennessee General Assembly. The legislature convened on March 28, 1796, and the next day, John Sevier was announced as the state's first governor. Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state and the first created from federal territory.
Tennessee reportedly earned the nickname "The Volunteer State" during the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
, when 3,500 Tennesseans answered a recruitment call by the General Assembly for the war effort. These soldiers, under
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
's command, played a major role in the American victory at the
Battle of New Orleans
The Battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815 between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, roughly 5 miles (8 km) southeast of the Frenc ...
in 1815, the last major battle of the war. Several Tennesseans took part in the
Texas Revolution of 1835–36, including Governor
Sam Houston and Congressman and frontiersman
Davy Crockett, who was killed at the
Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Anto ...
. The state's nickname was solidified during the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
when President
James K. Polk
James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. He previously was the 13th speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and ninth governor of Tennessee (183 ...
of Tennessee issued a call for 2,800 soldiers from the state, and more than 30,000 volunteered.
![TheHermitage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/TheHermitage.jpg)
Between the 1790s and 1820s, additional land cessions were negotiated with the Cherokee, who had established
a national government modeled on the
U.S. Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...
. In 1818, Jackson and Kentucky governor
Isaac Shelby
Isaac Shelby (December 11, 1750 – July 18, 1826) was the first and fifth Governor of Kentucky and served in the state legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina. He was also a soldier in Lord Dunmore's War, the American Revolutionary Wa ...
reached an agreement with the Chickasaw to sell the land between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers to the United States, which included all of West Tennessee and became known as the "
Jackson Purchase
The Jackson Purchase, also known as the Purchase Region or simply the Purchase, is a region in the U.S. state of Kentucky bounded by the Mississippi River to the west, the Ohio River to the north, and the Tennessee River to the east.
Jackson's ...
". The Cherokee moved their capital from Georgia to the Red Clay State Park, Red Clay Council Grounds in southeastern Tennessee in 1832, due to new laws forcing them from their previous capital at New Echota. In 1838 and 1839, U.S. troops Cherokee removal, forcibly removed thousands of Cherokees and their black slaves from their homes in southeastern Tennessee and forced them to march to Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma. This event is known as the Trail of Tears, and an estimated 4,000 died along the way.
As settlers pushed west of the Cumberland Plateau, a slavery-based agrarian economy took hold in these regions. Cotton planters used extensive slave labor on large Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, plantation complexes in West Tennessee's fertile and flat terrain after the Jackson Purchase. Cotton also took hold in the Nashville Basin during this time. Entrepreneurs such as Montgomery Bell used slaves in the production of iron in the Western Highland Rim, and slaves also cultivated such crops as tobacco and corn throughout the Highland Rim. East Tennessee's geography did not allow for large plantations as in the middle and western parts of the state, and as a result, slavery became increasingly rare in the region. A strong Abolitionism in the United States, abolition movement developed in East Tennessee, beginning as early as 1797, and in 1819, Elihu Embree of Jonesborough, Tennessee, Jonesborough began publishing the ''Manumission Intelligencier'' (later ''The Emancipator''), the nation's first exclusively anti-slavery newspaper.
Civil War
At the onset of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, most Middle and West Tennesseans favored efforts to preserve their slavery-based economies, but many Middle Tennesseans were initially skeptical of secession. In East Tennessee, most people favored remaining in the Union. In 1860, slaves composed about 25% of Tennessee's population, the lowest share among the states that joined the
Confederacy. Tennessee provided more Union troops than any other Confederate state, and the second-highest number of Confederate troops, behind Virginia.
Due to its central location, Tennessee was a crucial state during the war and saw more military engagements than any state except Virginia.
After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860 United States presidential election, 1860, secessionists in the state government led by Governor Isham Harris Ordinance of Secession, sought voter approval to sever ties with the United States, which was rejected in a referendum by a 54–46% margin in February 1861. After the Confederate Battle of Fort Sumter, attack on Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln's call for troops in response, the legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederacy on May 7, 1861. On June 8, with Middle Tennesseans having significantly changed their position, voters approved a second referendum on secession by a 69–31% margin, becoming the last state to secede. In response, East Tennessee Unionists organized East Tennessee Convention, a convention in Knoxville with the goal of splitting the region to form a new state loyal to the Union. In the fall of 1861, Unionist guerrillas in East Tennessee East Tennessee bridge burnings, burned bridges and attacked Confederate sympathizers, leading the Confederacy to invoke martial law in parts of the region. In March 1862, Lincoln appointed native Tennessean and War Democrat Andrew Johnson as military governor of the state.
![Kurz and Allison - Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Kurz_and_Allison_-_Battle_of_Franklin%2C_November_30%2C_1864.jpg)
General Ulysses S. Grant and the U.S. Navy captured the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in February 1862 at the battles of Battle of Fort Henry, Fort Henry and Battle of Fort Donelson, Fort Donelson. Grant then proceeded south to Pittsburg Landing and held off a Confederate counterattack at Battle of Shiloh, Shiloh in April in what was at the time the bloodiest battle of the war. Memphis fell to the Union in June after a Battle of Memphis, naval battle on the Mississippi River. Union strength in Middle Tennessee was tested in a series of Confederate offensives beginning in the summer of 1862, which culminated in General William Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland routing General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Battle of Stones River, Stones River, another one of the war's costliest engagements. The next summer, Rosecrans's Tullahoma campaign forced Bragg's remaining troops in Middle Tennessee to retreat to Chattanooga with little fighting.
During the Chattanooga campaign, Confederates attempted to besiege the Army of the Cumberland into surrendering, but reinforcements from the Army of the Tennessee under the command of Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Joseph Hooker arrived. The Confederates were driven from the city at the battles of Battle of Lookout Mountain, Lookout Mountain and Battle of Missionary Ridge, Missionary Ridge in November 1863. Despite Unionist sentiment in East Tennessee, Confederates held the area for most of the war. A few days after the fall of Chattanooga, Confederates led by James Longstreet unsuccessfully Knoxville campaign, campaigned to take control of Knoxville by attacking Union General Ambrose Burnside's Battle of Fort Sanders, Fort Sanders. The capture of Chattanooga allowed Sherman to launch the Atlanta campaign from the city in May 1864. The last major battles in the state came when Army of Tennessee regiments under John Bell Hood Franklin–Nashville campaign, invaded Middle Tennessee in the fall of 1864 in an effort to draw Sherman back. They were checked by John Schofield at Battle of Franklin (1864), Franklin in November and completely dispersed by George Henry Thomas, George Thomas at Battle of Nashville, Nashville in December. On April 27, 1865, the list of maritime disasters, worst maritime disaster in American history occurred when the ''Sultana (steamboat), Sultana'' steamboat, which was transporting freed Union prisoners, Sultana (steamboat)#Disaster, exploded in the Mississippi River north of Memphis, killing 1,168 people.
When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, Tennessee was largely held by Union forces and thus not among the states enumerated, so it freed no slaves there.
Andrew Johnson declared all slaves in Tennessee free on October 24, 1864.
On February 22, 1865, the legislature approved an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting slavery, which was approved by voters the following month, making Tennessee the only Southern state to abolish slavery.
Tennessee ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery in every state, on April 7, 1865, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to former slaves, on July 18, 1866. Johnson became vice president when Lincoln was 1864 United States presidential election, reelected, and president after Lincoln's Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, assassination in May 1865. On July 24, 1866, Tennessee became the first Confederate state to have its elected members readmitted to Congress.
Reconstruction and late 19th century
The years after the Civil War were characterized by tension and unrest between blacks and former Confederates, the worst of which occurred in Memphis riots of 1866, Memphis in 1866. Because Tennessee had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment before its readmission to the Union, it was the only former secessionist state that did not have a military governor during Reconstruction Era, Reconstruction. The Radical Republicans seized control of the state government toward the end of the war, and appointed William G. Brownlow, William G. "Parson" Brownlow governor. Under Brownlow's administration from 1865 to 1869, the legislature allowed African American men to vote, disenfranchised former Confederates, and took action against the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in December 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, Pulaski as a vigilante group to advance former Confederates' interests. In 1870, Southern Democrats regained control of the state legislature, and over the next two decades, passed Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation.
![AmCyc Memphis (Tennessee)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/AmCyc_Memphis_%28Tennessee%29.jpg)
A number of epidemics swept through Tennessee in the years after the Civil War, including cholera in 1873, which devastated the Nashville area, and yellow fever in 1878, which killed more than one-tenth of Memphis's residents. Reformers worked to modernize Tennessee into a "New South" economy during this time. With the help of Northern investors, Chattanooga became one of the first industrialized cities in the South.
[ Memphis became known as the "Cotton Capital of the World" during the late 19th century, and Nashville, Knoxville, and several smaller cities saw modest industrialization.] Northerners also began exploiting the coalfields and mineral resources in the Appalachian Mountains. To pay off debts and alleviate overcrowded prisons, the state turned to convict leasing, providing prisoners to mining companies as strikebreakers, which was protested by miners forced to compete with the system. An armed uprising in the Cumberland Mountains known as the Coal Creek War in 1891 and 1892 resulted in the state ending convict leasing.
Despite New South promoters' efforts, agriculture continued to dominate Tennessee's economy. The majority of freed slaves were forced into sharecropping during the latter 19th century, and many others worked as agricultural wage laborers. In 1897, Tennessee celebrated its statehood centennial one year late with the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in Nashville. A Parthenon (Nashville), full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens was designed by architect William Crawford Smith and constructed for the celebration, owing to the city's reputation as the "Athens of the South."
Earlier 20th century
Due to increasing racial segregation and poor standards of living, many black Tennesseans fled to industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest as part of the first wave of the Great Migration (African American), Great Migration between 1915 and 1930. Many residents of rural parts of Tennessee relocated to larger cities during this time for more lucrative employment opportunities.[ As part of the Temperance movement, Tennessee became the first state in the nation to effectively ban the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol in a series of laws passed between 1907 and 1917.] During Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition, illicit production of moonshine became extremely common in East Tennessee, particularly in the mountains, and continued for many decades afterward.
Sgt. Alvin York, Alvin C. York of Fentress County, Tennessee, Fentress County became one of the most famous and honored American soldiers of World War I. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for single-handedly capturing an entire German machine gun regiment during the Meuse–Argonne offensive. On July 9, 1918, Tennessee suffered the Great Train Wreck of 1918, worst rail accident in U.S. history when two passenger trains head-on collision, collided head on in Nashville, killing 101 and injuring 171. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and final state necessary to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave women the Women's suffrage, right to vote. In 1925, John T. Scopes, a high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, Dayton, was Scopes Trial, tried and convicted for teaching evolution in violation of the state's recently passed Butler Act. Scopes was prosecuted by former United States Secretary of State, Secretary of State and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and defended by attorney Clarence Darrow. The case was intentionally publicized, and highlighted the Rejection of evolution by religious groups, creationism-evolution controversy among religious groups. In 1926, Congress authorized the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains, which was officially established in 1934 and dedicated in 1940.
When the Great Depression struck in 1929, much of Tennessee was severely impoverished even by national standards. As part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA) was created in 1933 to provide electricity, jobs, flood control, improved waterway navigation, agricultural development, and economic modernization to the Tennessee Valley, Tennessee River Valley.[ The TVA built several hydroelectric dams in the state in the 1930s and 1940s, which inundated communities and thousands of farmland acreage, and forcibly displaced families via Eminent domain in the United States, eminent domain.] The agency quickly grew into the country's largest electric utility and initiated a period of dramatic economic growth and transformation that brought many new industries and employment opportunities to the state.
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, East Tennessee was chosen for the production of weapons-grade fissile enriched uranium as part of the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, a research and development undertaking led by the U.S. to produce the world's first atomic bombs. The planned community of Oak Ridge was built to provide accommodations for the facilities and workers; the site was chosen due to the abundance of TVA electric power, its low population density, and its inland geography and topography, which allowed for the natural separation of the facilities and a low vulnerability to attack. The Clinton Engineer Works was established as the production arm of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, which enriched uranium at three major facilities for use in atomic bombs. The first of the bombs was detonated in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in a test code-named Trinity (nuclear test), Trinity, and the second, nicknamed "Little Boy", was Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dropped on Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. After the war, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
became an institution for scientific and technological research.[
]
Mid-20th century to present
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional in ''Brown v. Board of Education'' in 1954, Oak Ridge High School (Tennessee), Oak Ridge High School in 1955 became the first school in Tennessee to be School integration in the United States, integrated. The next year, nearby Clinton High School (Clinton, Tennessee), Clinton High School was integrated, and Tennessee National Guard troops were sent in after pro-segregationists threatened violence. Between February and May 1960, a Nashville sit-ins, series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville organized by the Nashville Student Movement resulted in the desegregation of facilities in the city. On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. King had traveled there to support Memphis sanitation strike, striking African American sanitation workers.
The 1962 Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court case ''Baker v. Carr'' arose out of a challenge to the longstanding rural bias of apportionment of seats in the Tennessee legislature and established the principle of "one man, one vote". The construction of Interstate 40 in Tennessee, Interstate 40 through Memphis became a national talking point on the issue of Eminent domain in the United States, eminent domain and grassroots lobbying when the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) attempted to construct the highway through the city's Overton Park. A Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, local activist group spent many years contesting the project, and in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the group and established the framework for Judicial review in the United States, judicial review of government agencies in the List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark case of ''Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe''. TVA's construction of the Tellico Dam in Loudon County became the subject of national controversy in the 1970s when the endangered snail darter fish was reported to be affected by the project. After lawsuits by environmental groups, the debate was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court case ''Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill'' in 1978, leading to amendments of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, Endangered Species Act.
The 1982 World's Fair was held in Knoxville. Also known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, the fair's theme was "Energy Turns the World". The exposition was one of the most successful, and the most recent world's fair to be held in the U.S. In 1986, Tennessee held a yearlong celebration of the state's heritage and culture called "Homecoming '86". Tennessee celebrated its bicentennial in 1996 with a yearlong celebration called "Tennessee 200". A new state park that traces the state's history, Bicentennial Mall State Park, Bicentennial Mall, was opened at the foot of Capitol Hill in Nashville. The same year, the canoe slalom, whitewater slalom events at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, Summer Olympic Games were held on the Ocoee River in Polk County, Tennessee, Polk County.
In 2002, Tennessee amended its constitution to establish a Lotteries in the United States, lottery. In 2006, the state constitution Tennessee Marriage Protection Amendment, was amended to outlaw same-sex marriage. This amendment was invalidated by the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case ''Obergefell v. Hodges''. On December 23, 2008, the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, largest industrial waste spill in United States history occurred at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant when more than 1.1 billion gallons of fly ash, coal ash slurry was accidentally released into the Emory River, Emory and Clinch Rivers. The cleanup cost more than $1 billion and lasted until 2015.
Geography
Tennessee is in the Southeastern United States. Culturally, most of the state is considered part of the Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
, and the eastern third is part of Appalachia. Tennessee covers roughly , of which , or 2.2%, is water. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 16th smallest state in land area. The state is about long from east to west and wide from north to south. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, economically, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions: East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee
West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, delineated by state law. Its ...
.[ It borders eight other states: ]Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
and Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
to the north, North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
to the east, Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...
, and Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
on the south, and Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
and Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
on the west. It is tied with Missouri as the state bordering the most other states. Tennessee is trisected by the Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other name ...
, and its geographical center is in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Murfreesboro. Nearly three–fourths of the state is in the Central Time Zone, with most of East Tennessee on Eastern Time Zone, Eastern Time. The Tennessee River forms most of the division between Middle and West Tennessee.
Tennessee's eastern boundary roughly follows the highest crests of the Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsy ...
, and the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
forms its western boundary. Due to flooding of the Mississippi that has changed its path, the state's western boundary deviates from the river in some places. The northern border was originally defined as parallel 36°30′ north, 36°30′ north latitude and the Royal Colonial Boundary of 1665, but due to faulty surveys, begins north of this line in the east, and to the west, gradually veers north before shifting south onto the actual 36°30′ parallel at the Tennessee River in West Tennessee.[ Uncertainties in the latter 19th century over the location of the state's border with Virginia culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court Virginia v. Tennessee, settling the matter in 1893, which resulted in the division of Bristol, Tennessee, Bristol between the two states. An 1818 survey erroneously placed Tennessee's southern border south of the 35th parallel north, 35th parallel; Georgia legislators Tennessee–Georgia water dispute, continue to dispute this placement, as it prevents Georgia from accessing the Tennessee River.
Marked by a diversity of landforms and topographies, Tennessee features six principal Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic provinces, from east to west, which are part of three larger regions: the ]Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsy ...
, Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and Cumberland Plateau, part of the Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
; the Highland Rim and Nashville Basin, part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the Interior Plains; and the Gulf Coastal Plain, East Gulf Coastal Plain, part of the Atlantic Plains. Other regions include the southern tip of the Cumberland Mountains, the Tennessee Valley, Western Tennessee Valley, and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The state's highest point, which is also the third-highest peak in eastern North America, is Clingmans Dome, at above sea level. Its lowest point, , is on the Mississippi River at the Mississippi state line in Memphis.[ Tennessee has the most caves in the United States, with more than 10,000 documented.
Geological formations in Tennessee largely correspond with the state's topographic features, and, in general, decrease in age from east to west. The state's oldest rocks are igneous rock, igneous strata more than 1 billion years old found in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the youngest deposits in Tennessee are sands and silts in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and river valleys that drain into the Mississippi River. Tennessee is considered seismically active and contains two major seismic zones, although destructive earthquakes rarely occur there. The Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone spans the entirety of East Tennessee from northwestern Alabama to southwestern Virginia, and is considered one of the most active zones in the Southeastern United States, frequently producing low-magnitude earthquakes. The New Madrid Seismic Zone in the northwestern part of the state produced 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes, a series of devastating earthquakes between December 1811 and February 1812 that formed Reelfoot Lake near Tiptonville, Tennessee, Tiptonville.
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Topography
The southwestern Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsy ...
lie within Tennessee's eastern edge, and are divided into several subranges, namely the Great Smoky Mountains, Bald Mountains, Unicoi Mountains, Unaka Range, Unaka Mountains, and Iron Mountains. These mountains, which average above sea level in Tennessee, contain some of the highest elevations in eastern North America. The state's border with North Carolina roughly follows the highest peaks of this range, including Clingmans Dome. Most of the Blue Ridge area is protected by the Cherokee National Forest, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, w ...
, and several federal wilderness areas and state parks. The Appalachian Trail roughly follows the North Carolina state line before shifting westward into Tennessee.
Stretching west from the Blue Ridge Mountains for about are the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also known as the Tennessee Valley or Great Valley of East Tennessee. This area consists of linear parallel ridges separated by valleys that trend northeast to southwest, the general direction of the entire Appalachian range. Most of these ridges are low, but some of the higher ones are commonly called mountains. Numerous tributaries join to form the Tennessee River in the Ridge and Valley region.
The Cumberland Plateau rises to the west of the Tennessee Valley, with an average elevation of . This landform is part of the larger Appalachian Plateau and consists mostly of flat-topped table (landform), tablelands. The plateau's eastern edge is relatively distinct, but the western escarpment is irregular, containing several long, crooked stream valleys separated by rocky cliffs with numerous waterfall
A waterfall is a point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf.
Waterfalls can be formed in severa ...
s. The Cumberland Mountains, with peaks above , comprise the northeastern part of the Appalachian Plateau in Tennessee, and the southeastern part of the Cumberland Plateau is divided by the Sequatchie Valley. The Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park, Cumberland Trail traverses the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains.
West of the Cumberland Plateau is the Highland Rim, an elevated plain that surrounds the Nashville Basin, a dome (geology), geological dome. Both of these physiographic provinces are part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the larger Interior Plains. The Highland Rim is Tennessee's largest geographic region, and is often split into eastern and western halves. The Eastern Highland Rim is characterized by relatively level plains dotted by rolling hills, and the Western Highland Rim and western Nashville Basin are covered with uneven rounded knobs with steep ravines separated by meandering streams. The Nashville Basin has rich, fertile farmland, and porous limestone bedrock very close to the surface underlies both the Nashville Basin and Eastern Highland Rim. This results in karst that forms numerous caves, sinkholes, depressions, and underground streams.
West of the Highland Rim is the Tennessee Valley, Western Tennessee Valley, which consists of about in width of hilly land along the banks of the Tennessee River. West of this is the Gulf Coastal Plain, a broad feature that begins at the Gulf of Mexico and extends northward into southern Illinois. The plain begins in the east with low rolling hills and wide stream valleys, known as the West Tennessee Highlands, and gradually levels out to the west. It ends at steep loess bluffs overlooking the Mississippi embayment, the westernmost physiographic division of Tennessee, which is part of the larger Mississippi Alluvial Plain. This flat wide strip is commonly known as the Mississippi Bottoms, and contains lowlands, floodplains, and swamps.
Hydrology
Tennessee is drained by List of rivers in Tennessee, three major rivers, the Tennessee River, Tennessee, Cumberland River, Cumberland, and Mississippi River, Mississippi. The Tennessee River begins at the juncture of the Holston River, Holston and French Broad River, French Broad rivers in Knoxville, flows southwest to Chattanooga, and exits into Alabama before reemerging in the western part of the state and flowing north into Kentucky. Its major tributaries include the Clinch River, Clinch, Little Tennessee River, Little Tennessee, Hiwassee River, Hiwassee, Sequatchie River, Sequatchie, Elk River (Tennessee River tributary), Elk, Beech River, Beech, Buffalo River (Tennessee), Buffalo, Duck River (Tennessee), Duck, and Big Sandy River (Tennessee), Big Sandy rivers.[ The Cumberland River flows through the north-central part of the state, emerging in the northeastern Highland Rim, passing through Nashville, turning northwest to Clarksville, and entering Kentucky east of the Tennessee River.] Its principal branches in Tennessee are the Obey River, Obey, Caney Fork River, Caney Fork, Stones River, Stones, Harpeth River, Harpeth, and Red River (Cumberland River tributary), Red rivers.[ The Mississippi River drains nearly all of West Tennessee.] Its tributaries are the Obion River, Obion, Forked Deer River, Forked Deer, Hatchie River, Hatchie, Loosahatchie River, Loosahatchie, and Wolf River (Tennessee), Wolf rivers.[ The ]Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operate many hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries, which form large reservoirs throughout the state.
About half the state's land area is in the Tennessee Valley drainage basin of the Tennessee River.[ The Cumberland River basin covers the northern half of Middle Tennessee and a small portion of East Tennessee.][ A small part of north-central Tennessee is in the Green River (Kentucky), Green River watershed. All three of these basins are tributaries of the Ohio River watershed. Most of West Tennessee is in the Lower Mississippi River watershed.][ The entirety of the state is in the Mississippi River#Watershed, Mississippi River watershed, except for a small sliver near the southeastern corner traversed by the Conasauga River, which is part of the Mobile Bay watershed.
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Ecology
Tennessee is within a temperate deciduous forest biome commonly known as the Eastern Deciduous Forest. It has eight List of ecoregions in the United States (EPA), ecoregions: the Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge, Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, Ridge and Valley, Central Appalachian, Southwestern Appalachian, Interior Low Plateaus, Southeastern Plains, Mississippi Valley Loess Plains, and Mississippi Alluvial Plain (ecoregion), Mississippi Alluvial Plain regions. Tennessee is the most biodiverse inland state, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most biodiverse national park, and the Duck River (Tennessee), Duck River is the most biologically diverse waterway in North America. The Nashville Basin is renowned for its diversity of flora and fauna. Tennessee is home to 340 species of birds, 325 freshwater fish species, 89 mammals, 77 amphibians, and 61 reptiles.[
Forests cover about 52% of Tennessee's land area, with Oak–hickory forest, oak–hickory the dominant type. Appalachian–Blue Ridge forests#Dry oak–pine forests, Appalachian oak–pine and Cove (Appalachian Mountains)#Cove forest, cove hardwood forests are found in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Cumberland Plateau, and bottomland hardwood forest, bottomland hardwood forests are common throughout the Gulf Coastal Plain.][ Pine forests are also found throughout the state.] The Southern Appalachian spruce–fir forest in the highest elevations of the Blue Ridge Mountains is considered the second-most endangered ecosystem in the country. Some of the last remaining large American chestnut trees grow in the Nashville Basin and are being used to help breed blight-resistant trees. Middle Tennessee is home to many unusual and rare ecosystems known as Calcareous glade, cedar glades, which occur in areas with shallow limestone bedrock that is largely barren of overlying soil and contain many endemic plant species.
Common mammals found throughout Tennessee include white-tailed deer, red fox, red and gray foxes, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, wild turkeys, rabbits, and squirrels. American black bear, Black bears are found in the Blue Ridge Mountains and on the Cumberland Plateau. Tennessee has the third-highest number of amphibian species, with the Great Smoky Mountains home to the most salamander species in the world. The state ranks second in the nation for the diversity of its freshwater fish species.
Climate
Most of Tennessee has a humid subtropical climate, with the exception of some of the higher elevations in the Appalachians, which are classified as a cooler oceanic climate, mountain temperate or humid continental climate. The Gulf of Mexico is the dominant factor in Tennessee's climate, with winds from the south responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally, the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year. The highest average monthly precipitation usually occurs between December and April. The driest months, on average, are August to October. The state receives an average of of precipitation annually. Snowfall ranges from in West Tennessee to over in East Tennessee's highest mountains.
Summers are generally hot and humid, with most of the state averaging a high of around . Winters tend to be mild to cool, decreasing in temperature at higher elevations. For areas outside the highest mountains, the average overnight lows are generally near freezing. The highest recorded temperature was at Perryville, Tennessee, Perryville on August 9, 1930, while the lowest recorded temperature was at Mountain City, Tennessee, Mountain City on December 30, 1917.
While Tennessee is far enough from the coast to avoid any direct impact from a hurricane, its location makes it susceptible to the remnants of tropical cyclones, which weaken over land and can cause significant rainfall. The state annually averages about 50 days of thunderstorms, which can be severe with large hail and damaging winds. Tornadoes are possible throughout the state, with West and Middle Tennessee the most vulnerable. The state averages 15 tornadoes annually. They can be severe, and the state leads the nation in the percentage of total tornadoes that have fatalities. Winter storms such as in 1993 Storm of the Century, 1993 and February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm, 2021 occur occasionally, and ice storms are fairly common. Fog is a persistent problem in some areas, especially in East Tennessee.
Cities, towns, and counties
Tennessee is divided into List of counties in Tennessee, 95 counties, each of which has a county seat. The state has List of municipalities in Tennessee, 340 municipalities in total. The Office of Management and Budget designates List of metropolitan areas of Tennessee, ten metropolitan areas in Tennessee, four of which extend into neighboring states.
Nashville is Tennessee's capital and largest city, with nearly 700,000 residents.[ Its Nashville metropolitan area, 13-county metropolitan area has been the state's largest since the early 1990s and is one of the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, with about 2 million residents. Memphis, with more than 630,000 inhabitants, was the state's largest city until 2016, when Nashville surpassed it.] It is in Shelby County, Tennessee, Shelby County, Tennessee's largest county in both population and land area. Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...
, with about 190,000 inhabitants, and Chattanooga, with about 180,000 residents, are the third- and fourth-largest cities, respectively.[ Clarksville is a significant population center, with about 170,000 residents.][ Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Murfreesboro is the sixth-largest city and Nashville's largest suburb, with more than 150,000 residents.][ In addition to the major cities, the Tri-Cities, Tennessee, Tri-Cities of Kingsport, Tennessee, Kingsport, Bristol, Tennessee, Bristol, and Johnson City, Tennessee, Johnson City are considered the sixth major population center.
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Demographics
The 2020 United States census
The United States census of 2020 was the twenty-fourth decennial United States census. Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2020. Other than a pilot study during the 2000 census, this was the first U.S. census to of ...
reported Tennessee's population at 6,910,840, an increase of 564,735, or 8.90%, since the 2010 United States census, 2010 census. Between 2010 and 2019, the state received a natural increase of 143,253 (744,274 births minus 601,021 deaths), and an increase from net migration of 338,428 people into the state. Immigration to the United States, Immigration from outside the U.S. resulted in a net increase of 79,086, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 259,342. Tennessee's center of population is in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Murfreesboro in Rutherford County, Tennessee, Rutherford County.
According to the 2010 census, 6.4% of Tennessee's population were under age5, 23.6% were under 18, and 13.4% were 65 or older. In recent years, Tennessee has been a top source of domestic migration, receiving an influx of people relocating from places such as California, the Northeastern United States, Northeast, and the Midwestern United States, Midwest due to the low cost of living and booming employment opportunities. In 2019, about 5.5% of Tennessee's population was foreign-born. Of the foreign-born population, approximately 42.7% were naturalized citizens and 57.3% non-citizens.[ The foreign-born population consisted of approximately 49.9% from Latin America, 27.1% from Asia, 11.9% from Europe, 7.7% from Africa, 2.7% from Northern America, and 0.6% from Oceania.
With the exception of a slump in the 1980s, Tennessee has been one of the fastest-growing states in the nation since 1970, benefiting from the larger Sun Belt phenomenon. The state has been a top destination for people relocating from Northeastern United States, Northeastern and Midwestern United States, Midwestern states. This time period has seen the birth of new economic sectors in the state and has positioned the Nashville and Clarksville metropolitan areas as two of the fastest-growing regions in the country.]
Ethnicity
In 2020, 6.9% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (of any race), up from 4.6% in 2010. Between 2000 and 2010, Tennessee's Hispanic population grew by 134.2%, the third-highest rate of any state. In 2020, Non-Hispanic or Latino Whites were 70.9% of the population, compared to 57.7% of the population nationwide. In 2010, the five most common self-reported ethnic groups in the state were American ancestry, American (26.5%), English ancestry, English (8.2%), Irish ancestry, Irish (6.6%), German ancestry, German (5.5%), and Scotch-Irish (2.7%). Most Tennesseans who self-identify as having American ancestry are of English American, English and Scotch-Irish American, Scotch-Irish ancestry. An estimated 21–24% of Tennesseans are of predominantly English American, English ancestry.
Religion
Since colonization, Tennessee has always been predominantly Christianity, Christian. About 81% of the population identifies as Christian, with Protestants making up 73% of the population. Of the Protestants in the state, Evangelicalism, Evangelical Protestants compose 52% of the population, Mainline Protestants 13%, and Black church, Historically Black Protestants 8%. Catholic Church in the United States, Roman Catholics make up 6%, Mormons 1%, and Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox Christians less than 1%. The largest denominations by number of adherents are the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Churches of Christ. Islam, Muslims and Judaism, Jews each make up about 1% of the population, and adherents of other religions make up about 3% of the population. About 14% of Tennesseans are Irreligion, non-religious, with 11% identifying as "Nothing in particular", 3% as agnosticism, agnostics, and 1% as atheism, atheists.
Tennessee is included in most definitions of the Bible Belt, and is ranked as List of U.S. states and territories by religiosity, one of the nation's most religious states. Several Protestant denominations have their headquarters in Tennessee, including the Southern Baptist Convention and National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., National Baptist Convention (in Nashville); the Church of God in Christ and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (in Memphis); and the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), Church of God and the Church of God of Prophecy (in Cleveland, Tennessee, Cleveland); and the National Association of Free Will Baptists (in Antioch, Tennessee, Antioch). Nashville has publishing houses of several denominations.
Economy
As of 2021, Tennessee had a gross regional domestic product, gross state product of $418.3 billion. In 2020, the state's per capita income, per capita personal income was $30,869. The Household income in the United States, median household income was $54,833. About 13.6% percent of the population was below the poverty line. In 2019, the state reported a total employment of 2,724,545 and a total number of 139,760 employer establishments. Tennessee is a Right-to-work law, right-to-work state, like most of its Southern neighbors. Trade union, Unionization has historically been low and continues to decline, as in most of the U.S.
Taxation
Tennessee has a reputation as a low-tax state and is usually ranked as one of the five states with the lowest tax burden on residents. It is one of nine states that do not have a state income tax, general income tax; the sales tax is the primary means of funding the government. The Hall income tax was imposed on most dividends and interest at a rate of 6% but was completely phased out by 2021. The first $1,250 of individual income and $2,500 of joint income was exempt from this tax. Property taxes are the primary source of revenue for local governments.[
The state's sales and use tax rate for most items is 7%, the second-highest in the nation, along with Mississippi, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Indiana. Food is taxed at 4%, but candy, dietary supplements, and prepared foods are taxed at 7%. Local sales taxes are collected in most jurisdictions at rates varying from 1.5% to 2.75%, bringing the total sales tax between 8.5% and 9.75%. The average combined rate is about 9.5%, the nation's highest average sales tax. Intangible property tax is assessed on the shares of stockholders of any loan, investment, insurance, or for-profit cemetery companies. The assessment ratio is 40% of the value times the jurisdiction's tax rate.] Since 2016, Tennessee has had no inheritance tax.
Agriculture
Tennessee has the Agriculture in Tennessee, eighth-most farms in the nation, which cover more than 40% of its land area and have an average size of about . Cash receipts for crops and livestock have an estimated annual value of $3.5 billion, and the agriculture sector has an estimated annual impact of $81 billion on the state's economy.[ Beef cattle is the state's largest agricultural commodity, followed by broilers and ]poultry
Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...
.[ Tennessee ranks 12th in the nation for the number of cattle, with more than half of its farmland dedicated to cattle grazing.][ Soybeans and corn are the state's first and second-most common crops, respectively,][ and are most heavily grown in West and Middle Tennessee, especially the northwestern corner of the state. Tennessee ranks seventh in the nation in ]cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
production, most of which is grown in the fertile soils of central West Tennessee.
The state ranks fourth nationwide in the production of tobacco, which is predominantly grown in the Ridge-and-Valley region of East Tennessee. Tennessee farmers are also known worldwide for their cultivation of tomatoes and Horticulture, horticultural plants. Other important cash crops in the state include hay, wheat, egg as food, eggs, and snap beans.[ The Nashville Basin is a top equestrian region, due to soils that produce grass favored by horses. The Tennessee Walking Horse, first bred in the region in the late 18th century, is one of the world's most recognized horse breeds. Tennessee also ranks second nationwide for mule breeding and the production of goat meat.][ The state's timber industry is largely concentrated on the Cumberland Plateau and ranks as one of the top producers of hardwood nationwide.
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Industry
Until World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, Tennessee, like most Southern states, remained predominantly agrarian. Chattanooga became one of the first industrial cities in the south in the decades after the American Civil War, Civil War, when many factories, including iron foundries, steel mills, and textile mills were constructed there.[ But most of Tennessee's industrial growth began with the federal investments in the ]Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA) and the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
in the 1930s and 1940s. The state's industrial and manufacturing sector continued to expand in the succeeding decades, and Tennessee is now home to more than 2,400 advanced manufacturing establishments, which produce a total of more than $29 billion worth of goods annually.
The automotive industry in the United States, automotive industry is Tennessee's largest manufacturing sector and one of the nation's largest. Nissan Motors, Nissan's Nissan Smyrna Assembly Plant, assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, Smyrna is the largest automotive assembly plant in North America. Two other automakers have assembly plants in Tennessee: General Motors in Spring Hill Manufacturing, Spring Hill and Volkswagen in Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant, Chattanooga. Ford Motor Company, Ford is constructing Blue Oval City, an assembly plant in Stanton, Tennessee, Stanton that is expected to be operational in 2025. In addition, the state contains more than 900 automotive suppliers. Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors have their North American corporate headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, Franklin. The state is also one of the top producers of food industry, food and drink products, its second-largest manufacturing sector.[ A number of well-known brands originated in Tennessee, and even more are produced there.][ Tennessee also ranks as one of the largest producers of chemical industry, chemicals.] Chemical products manufactured in Tennessee include industrial chemicals, paints, pharmaceuticals, synthetic resin, plastic resins, and soaps and personal care, hygiene products. Additional important products manufactured in Tennessee include metal fabrication, fabricated metal products, electrical equipment, consumer electronics and home appliance, electrical appliances, and nonelectrical machinery.
Business
Economy of Tennessee#Business, Tennessee's commercial sector is dominated by a wide variety of companies, but its largest service industries include health care, transportation, music and entertainment, banking, and finance. Large corporations with headquarters in Tennessee include FedEx, AutoZone, International Paper, and First Horizon Corporation, all based in Memphis; Pilot Corporation and Regal Entertainment Group in Knoxville; Hospital Corporation of America based in Nashville; Unum in Chattanooga; Acadia Senior Living and Community Health Systems in Franklin; Dollar General in Goodlettsville, and LifePoint Health, Tractor Supply Company, and Delek US in Brentwood.
Since the 1990s, the geographical area between Oak Ridge and Knoxville has been known as the Tennessee Technology Corridor, with more than 500 high-tech firms in the region. The research and development industry in Tennessee is also one of the largest employment sectors, mainly due to the prominence of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
(ORNL) and the Y-12 National Security Complex in the city of Oak Ridge. ORNL conducts scientific research in materials science, nuclear physics, energy, supercomputer, high-performance computing, systems biology, and National security of the United States, national security, and is the largest United States Department of Energy national laboratories, national laboratory in the United States Department of Energy, Department of Energy (DOE) system by size. The technology sector is also a rapidly growing industry in Middle Tennessee, particularly in the Nashville metropolitan area.
Energy and mineral production
Tennessee's electric utilities are regulated monopolies, as in many other states. The Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA) owns over 90% of the state's generating capacity. Nuclear power in the United States, Nuclear power is Tennessee's largest source of electricity generation, producing about 43.4% of its power in 2021. The same year, 20.2% of the power was produced from 22.4% from Coal power in the United States, coal, 17.8% from Gas-fired power plant, natural gas, 15.8% from Hydroelectric power in the United States, hydroelectricity, and 1.3% from other Renewable energy in the United States, renewables. About 59.7% of the electricity generated in Tennessee produces Low-carbon power, no greenhouse gas emissions. Tennessee is home to the two newest civilian Nuclear reactor, nuclear power reactors in the U.S., at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Rhea County, Tennessee, Rhea County. Tennessee was also an early leader in hydroelectric power, and today is the third-largest hydroelectric power-producing state east of the Rocky Mountains. Tennessee is a net consumer of electricity, receiving power from other TVA facilities in neighboring states.
Tennessee has very little petroleum and natural gas reserves, but is home to one oil refinery, in Memphis.[ Bituminous coal is mined in small quantities in the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains.][ There are sizable reserves of lignite coal in West Tennessee that remain untapped.] Coal production in Tennessee peaked in 1972, and today less than 0.1% of coal in the U.S. comes from Tennessee.[ Tennessee is the nation's leading producer of ball clay.] Other major mineral products produced in Tennessee include sand, gravel, crushed stone, Portland cement, marble, sandstone, clay, common clay, lime (material), lime, and zinc.[ The Copper Basin (Tennessee), Copper Basin, in Tennessee's southeastern corner in Polk County, was one of the nation's most productive copper mining in the United States, copper mining districts between the 1840s and 1980s, and supplied about 90% of the copper the Confederacy used during the Civil War. Mining activities in the basin resulted in a major environmental disaster, which left the surrounding landscape barren for more than a century. Iron ore was another major mineral mined in Tennessee until the early 20th century. Tennessee was also a top producer of phosphate until the early 1990s.
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Tourism
Tennessee is the 11th-most visited state in the nation, receiving a record of 126 million tourists in 2019. Its top tourist attraction is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, w ...
, the most visited national park in the U.S., with more than 14 million visitors annually. The park anchors a large tourism industry based primarily in nearby Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Pigeon Forge, which includes Dollywood, the most visited ticketed attraction in Tennessee.[ Attractions related to Tennessee's musical heritage are spread throughout the state. Other top attractions include the Tennessee State Museum and Parthenon (Nashville), Parthenon in Nashville; the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis; Lookout Mountain, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel, Ruby Falls, and the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga; the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, the Bristol Motor Speedway, Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, and the Hiwassee River, Hiwassee and Toccoa/Ocoee River, Ocoee rivers in Polk County.]
The National Park Service preserves four Civil War battlefields in Tennessee: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Stones River National Battlefield, Shiloh National Military Park, and Fort Donelson National Battlefield. The NPS also operates Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, Trail of Tears#Landmarks and commemorations, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Tennessee is home to eight National Scenic Byways, including the Natchez Trace Parkway, the East Tennessee Crossing Byway, the Great River Road, the U.S. Route 441 in Tennessee, Norris Freeway, Tennessee State Route 63, Cumberland National Scenic Byway, Tennessee State Route 111, Sequatchie Valley Scenic Byway, The Trace (Land Between the Lakes), The Trace, and the Cherohala Skyway. Tennessee maintains 56 state parks, covering . Many reservoirs created by TVA dams have also generated water-based tourist attractions.
Culture
A culturally diverse state, Tennessee blends Appalachia#Culture, Appalachian and Culture of the Southern United States, Southern flavors, which originate from its English, Scotch-Irish, and African roots, and has evolved as it has grown. Its Grand Divisions also manifest into distinct cultural regions, with East Tennessee commonly associated with Southern Appalachia, and Middle and West Tennessee commonly associated with Upland South#History and culture, Upland Southern culture. Parts of West Tennessee, especially Memphis, are sometimes considered part of the Deep South. The Tennessee State Museum in Nashville chronicles the state's history and culture.
Tennessee is perhaps best known culturally for its musical heritage and contributions to the development of many forms of popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
. Notable authors with ties to Tennessee include Cormac McCarthy, Peter Taylor (writer), Peter Taylor, James Agee, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Thomas S. Stribling, Ida B. Wells, Nikki Giovanni, Shelby Foote, Ann Patchett, Ishmael Reed, and Randall Jarrell. The state's well-known contributions to Cuisine of the Southern United States, Southern cuisine include Memphis-style barbecue, Hot chicken, Nashville hot chicken, and Tennessee whiskey.
Music
Tennessee has played a critical role in the development of many forms of American popular music, including blues, country music, country, rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...
, rockabilly, soul music, soul, bluegrass music, bluegrass, Contemporary Christian music, Contemporary Christian, and gospel music, gospel. Many consider Memphis's Beale Street the epicenter of the blues, with musicians such as W. C. Handy performing in its clubs as early as 1909.[ Memphis was historically home to Sun Records, where musicians such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich began their recording careers, and where rock and roll took shape in the 1950s.] Stax Records in Memphis became one of the most important labels for soul artists in the late 1950s and 1960s, and a subgenre known as Memphis soul emerged. The Bristol sessions, 1927 Victor recording sessions in Bristol, Tennessee, Bristol generally mark the beginning of the country music genre and the rise of the ''Grand Ole Opry'' in the 1930s helped make Nashville the center of the country music recording industry. Nashville became known as "Music City", and the ''Grand Ole Opry'' remains the nation's longest-running radio show.
Many museums and historic sites recognize Tennessee's role in nurturing various forms of popular music, including Sun Studio, Memphis Rock N' Soul Museum, Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis, the Ryman Auditorium, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, National Museum of African American Music, and Music Row in Nashville, the International Rock-A-Billy Museum in Jackson, the Mountain Music Museum in Kingsport, and the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol. The Rockabilly Hall of Fame, an online site recognizing the development of rockabilly, is also based in Nashville. Several annual music festivals take place throughout the state, the largest of which are the Memphis in May#Beale Street Music Festival (BSMF), Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, the CMA Music Festival in Nashville, Bonnaroo Music Festival, Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee, Manchester, and Riverbend Festival, Riverbend in Chattanooga.
Education
Education in Tennessee is administered by the Tennessee Department of Education. The state Board of Education has 11 members: one from each Congressional district, a student member, and the executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), who serves as ex-officio nonvoting member. Public primary and secondary education systems are operated by county, city, or special school districts to provide education at the local level, and operate under the direction of the Tennessee Department of Education. The state also has many private schools.
The state enrolls approximately 1 million K–12 students in 137 districts. In 2021, the four-year high school graduation rate was 88.7%, a decrease of 1.2% from the previous year. According to the most recent data, Tennessee spends $9,544 per student, the 8th lowest in the nation.
Colleges and universities
Public higher education is overseen by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), which provides guidance to the state's two public university systems. The University of Tennessee system operates four primary campuses in University of Tennessee, Knoxville, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, University of Tennessee at Martin, Martin, and University of Tennessee Southern, Pulaski; a University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Health Sciences Center in Memphis; and an University of Tennessee Space Institute, aerospace research facility in Tullahoma. The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR), also known as The College System of Tennessee, operates 13 community colleges and 27 campuses of the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCAT). Until 2017, the TBR also operated six public universities in the state; it now only gives them administrative support.
In 2014, the Tennessee General Assembly created the Tennessee Promise, which allows in-state high school graduates to enroll in two-year post-secondary education programs such as associate degrees and certificates at community colleges and trade schools in Tennessee tuition-free, funded by the state lottery, if they meet certain requirements. The Tennessee Promise was created as part of then-governor Bill Haslam's "Drive to 55" program, which set a goal of increasing the number of college-educated residents to at least 55% of the state's population. The program has also received national attention, with multiple states having since created similar programs modeled on the Tennessee Promise.
Tennessee has 107 private institutions. Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
in Nashville is consistently ranked as one of the nation's leading research institutions. Nashville is often called the "Athens of the South" due to its many colleges and universities. Tennessee is also home to six historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Media
Tennessee is home to more than 120 newspapers. The most-circulated paid newspapers in the state include ''The Tennessean'' in Nashville, ''The Commercial Appeal'' in Memphis, the ''Knoxville News Sentinel'', the ''Chattanooga Times Free Press'', and ''The Leaf-Chronicle'' in Clarksville, ''The Jackson Sun'', and ''The Daily News Journal'' in Murfreesboro. All of these except the ''Times Free Press'' are owned by Gannett.
Six List of United States television markets, television media markets—Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Tri-Cities, and Jackson—are based in Tennessee. The Nashville market is the third-largest in the Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
and the ninth-largest in the southeastern United States, according to Nielsen Media Research. Small sections of the Huntsville, Alabama and Paducah, Kentucky-Cape Girardeau, Missouri-Harrisburg, Illinois markets also extend into the state. Tennessee has 43 full-power and 41 low-power broadcasting, low-power television stations and more than 450 Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-licensed radio stations. The ''Grand Ole Opry'', based in Nashville, is the longest-running radio show in the country, having broadcast continuously since 1925.
Transportation
The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) is the primary agency that is tasked with regulating and maintaining Tennessee's transportation infrastructure. Tennessee is currently one of five states with no transportation-related debts.
Roads
Tennessee has of roads, of which are maintained by the state. Of the state's highways, are part of the Interstate Highway System. Tennessee has no toll roads in the United States, tolled roads or bridges but has the sixth-highest mileage of high-occupancy vehicle lane, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, which are utilized on freeways in the congestion-prone Nashville and Memphis metropolitan areas.
Interstate 40 in Tennessee, Interstate 40 (I-40) is the longest Interstate Highway in Tennessee, traversing the state for . Known as "Tennessee's Main Street", I-40 serves the major cities of Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, and throughout its entire length in Tennessee, one can observe the diversity of the state's geography and landforms.[ I-40's branch interstates include Interstate 240 (Tennessee), I-240 in Memphis; Interstate 440 (Tennessee), I-440 in Nashville; Interstate 840 (Tennessee), I-840 around Nashville; Pellissippi Parkway, I-140 from Knoxville to Maryville, Tennessee, Maryville; and I-640 in Knoxville. In a north–south orientation, from west to east, are interstates Interstate 55 in Tennessee, 55, which serves Memphis; Interstate 65 in Tennessee, 65, which passes through Nashville; Interstate 75 in Tennessee, 75, which serves Chattanooga and Knoxville; and Interstate 81 in Tennessee, 81, which begins east of Knoxville, and serves Bristol to the northeast. Interstate 24 in Tennessee, I-24 is an east–west interstate that enters the state in Clarksville, passes through Nashville, and terminates in Chattanooga. U.S. Route 23 in Tennessee, I-26, although technically an east–west interstate, begins in Kingsport and runs southwardly through Johnson City, Tennessee, Johnson City before exiting into North Carolina. Interstate 155 (Missouri-Tennessee), I-155 is a branch route of I-55 that serves the northwestern part of the state. Interstate 275 (Tennessee), I-275 is a short spur route in Knoxville. Interstate 269, I-269 runs from Millington, Tennessee, Millington to Collierville, Tennessee, Collierville, serving as an outer bypass of Memphis.][
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Airports
Major airports in Tennessee include Nashville International Airport (BNA), Memphis International Airport (MEM), McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) outside of Knoxville, Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (CHA), Tri-Cities Regional Airport (TRI) in Blountville, Tennessee, Blountville, and McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport (MKL) in Jackson. Because Memphis International Airport is the hub of FedEx Corporation, it is the World's busiest airport, world's busiest cargo airport. The state also has 74 general aviation airports and 148 heliports.[
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Railroads
For passenger rail service, Memphis and Newbern, Tennessee, Newbern are served by the Amtrak City of New Orleans (train), City of New Orleans line on its run between Chicago and New Orleans. Nashville is served by the Music City Star commuter rail service. Tennessee currently has of freight trackage in operation, most of which are owned by CSX Transportation. Norfolk Southern Railway also operates lines in East and southwestern Tennessee. BNSF operates a major transport hub, intermodal facility in Memphis.
Waterways
Tennessee has a total of of Inland waterways of the United States, navigable waterways, the 11th highest in the nation.[ These include the Mississippi River, Mississippi, Tennessee River, Tennessee, and Cumberland River, Cumberland rivers. Five inland ports are located in the state, including the Port of Memphis, which is the fifth-largest in the United States and the second largest on the Mississippi River.
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Law and government
The Constitution of Tennessee was adopted in 1870. The state had two previous constitutions. The first was adopted in 1796, the year Tennessee was admitted to the union, and the second in 1834. Since 1826, Nashville has been the capital of Tennessee. The capital was previously in three other cities. Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...
was the capital from statehood in 1796 until 1812, except for September 21, 1807, when the legislature met in Kingston, Tennessee, Kingston for a day. The capital was relocated to Nashville in 1812, where it remained until it was relocated back to Knoxville in 1817. The next year, the capital was moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Murfreesboro, where it remained until 1826. Nashville was officially named Tennessee's permanent capital in 1843.
Executive and legislative branches
Like the federal government, Tennessee's government has three branches. The executive branch is led by the Governor of Tennessee, governor, who holds office for a four-year term and may serve a maximum of two consecutive terms. The governor is the only official elected statewide. The current governor is Bill Lee (Tennessee politician), Bill Lee, a Republican Party (United States), Republican. The governor is supported by 22 cabinet-level departments, most headed by a commissioner the governor appoints. The executive branch also includes several agencies, boards, and commissions, some of which are under the auspices of one of the cabinet-level departments.
The bicameralism, bicameral legislative branch, the Tennessee General Assembly, consists of the 33-member Tennessee Senate, Senate and the 99-member Tennessee House of Representatives, House of Representatives. Senators serve four-year terms and House members serve two-year terms.[ Each chamber chooses a Speaker, who is elected by a joint session of the legislature. The Speaker of the Senate also serves as the Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee, lieutenant governor, a practice found only in one other state, and the House Speaker is third in line for the governorship. The legislature can override a veto power in the United States, veto by a simple majority, and the state has no "pocket veto". The legislature convenes at noon on the second Tuesday in January and meets for a total of 90 days over two sessions, usually adjourning in late April or early May.] Special sessions may be called by the governor or by two-thirds of the members of both chambers.
Judicial system
Tennessee's highest court is the Tennessee Supreme Court, state Supreme Court. It has a List of justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court, chief justice and four associate justices. No more than two justices can be from the same Grand Divisions of Tennessee, Grand Division. The Supreme Court of Tennessee appoints the state's Tennessee Attorney General, Attorney General, a practice only found in Tennessee. Both the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Court of Appeals and the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, Court of Criminal Appeals have 12 judges, who are evenly from each Grand Division. Under the Tennessee Plan, the governor appoints justices on all three courts to eight-year terms; they must be retention election, retained by the voters during the first general election after appointment and at the end of their term. Tennessee is divided into 31 judicial districts, each with a circuit and chancery court, and a district attorney and judges elected to eight-year terms. Separate criminal courts serve 13 of the 31 judicial districts; circuit courts handle criminal cases in the remaining districts. Local courts include general sessions, juvenile and domestic, and municipal courts.
Tennessee maintains four dedicated law enforcement agencies: the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC). The Highway Patrol is the primary entity that enforces highway safety regulations and general non-wildlife state laws. It is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Safety. The TWRA is an independent agency tasked with enforcing all wildlife, boating, and fishery regulations outside of state parks. TDEC enforces state environmental laws and regulations. The TBI is the primary state-level criminal investigative department. State park rangers are responsible for all activities and law enforcement inside the Tennessee State Parks system. Capital punishment in Tennessee, Capital punishment is legal in Tennessee and has existed at various times since statehood. Lethal injection is the primary means of execution, but electrocution is also allowed.
Local
Tennessee is divided into List of counties in Tennessee, 95 counties, with 92 county governments that use a county commission legislative body and a separately elected county executive. The governments of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson (Nashville), Moore County, Tennessee, Moore (Lynchburg, Tennessee, Lynchburg), and Trousdale County, Tennessee, Trousdale (Hartsville, Tennessee, Hartsville) are consolidated city-county, consolidated with their county seats. Each county elects a sheriff, property assessor, trustee, register of deeds, and county clerk. Tennessee has more than 340 municipalities. Most cities and towns use the Mayor–council government#Weak-mayor government form, weak mayor-council (mayor-aldermen), Mayor–council government#Strong-mayor government form, strong-mayor council, City commission government, city commission, or Council–manager government, council–manager forms of government. Local law enforcement is divided between county sheriff's offices and municipal police departments. In every county except Davidson, the sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer.
Federal
Tennessee sends Tennessee's congressional districts#Current districts and representatives, nine representatives to the United States House of Representatives. The current delegation consists of seven Republican Party (United States), Republicans and two Democratic Party (United States), Democrats. Its United States Senate, U.S. senators are Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, both Republicans. Tennessee is under the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over three United States district court, district courts in the state: the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Eastern, United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Middle, and United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Western districts.
Tribal
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is Tennessee's only federally recognized Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe. It owns in Henning, Tennessee, Henning, which the tribe placed into federal trust in 2012. This is governed directly by the tribe.
Politics
Tennessee's politics are currently dominated by the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party. Republicans currently hold the state's U.S. Senate seats, 7 out of 9 Congressional seats, 73 out of 99 state House seats, and 27 out of 33 state Senate seats. Democratic Party (United States), Democratic strength is largely concentrated in Nashville, Memphis, and parts of Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clarksville. Several suburban areas of Nashville and Memphis also contain significant Democratic minorities.[ Tennessee is one of thirteen states which holds its presidential primaries on Super Tuesday.] Tennessee does not require voters to declare a party affiliation when registering. The state is one of eight states which require voters to present a form of voter identification laws in the United States, photo identification. In a 2020 study, Tennessee ranked 21st on the "Cost of Voting Index", a measure of "the ease of voting across the United States".
Between the end of the Civil War and the mid-20th century, Tennessee was part of the Democratic Solid South, but had the largest Republican minority of any former Confederate state. During this time, East Tennessee was heavily Republican and the western two thirds mostly voted Democratic, with the latter dominating the state. This division was related to the state's pattern of Unionist and Confederate loyalism during the Civil War.[ Tennessee's Tennessee's 1st congressional district, 1st and Tennessee's 2nd congressional district, 2nd congressional districts, based in the Tri-Cities and Knoxville, respectively, are among the few historically Republican districts in the South. The first has been in Republican hands continuously since 1881, and Republicans or their antecedents have held it for all but four years since 1859. The second has been held continuously by Republicans or their antecedents since 1855.
During Reconstruction, freedmen and former free blacks were granted the right to vote; most joined the Republican Party. Numerous African Americans were elected to local offices, and some to state office. Following Reconstruction, Tennessee continued to have competitive party politics, but in the 1880s, the White-dominated state government passed Jim Crow laws, one of which imposed a poll tax requirement for voter registration. These served to Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era, disenfranchise most African Americans, and their power in state and local politics was markedly reduced. After the disenfranchisement of blacks, the Republican Party became a primarily white Sectionalism, sectional party supported mostly in East Tennessee. In the early 1900s, the state legislature approved legislation allowing cities to adopt a city commission government, commission form of government based on at-large voting as a means to limit African American political participation.] Not until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were African Americans able to regain their full voting rights.
Between the end of Reconstruction and the mid-20th century, Tennessee voted consistently Democratic in Presidential elections, except in two nationwide Republican Landslide victory, landslides in the 1920s. Tennesseans narrowly supported Warren G. Harding over Ohio Governor James M. Cox, James Cox in 1920, and more decisively voted for Herbert Hoover over New York Governor Al Smith in 1928. During the first half of the 20th century, state politics were dominated by the Democratic E. H. Crump#Political machine, Crump machine in Memphis. For most of the second half of the 20th century, Tennessee was a swing state in presidential elections. During this time, Democratic presidential nominees from Southern states, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, tended to fare better in Tennessee than their Northern counterparts, especially among split-ticket voters outside the metropolitan areas. In the 1950s, Tennessee twice voted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Allied Commander of the Armed Forces during World War II. Howard Baker, first elected in 1966, became the first Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee since Reconstruction. The Republican Southern strategy did not have as much of an effect in Tennessee as in most Southern states, but the elections of Winfield Dunn as governor and Bill Brock to the U.S. Senate in 1970 further helped make the GOP competitive among Whites in statewide elections. In the 2000 United States presidential election in Tennessee, 2000 presidential election, Vice President Al Gore, who had previously served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Tennessee, failed to carry his home state, an unusual occurrence but indicative of strengthening Republican support.
Beginning in the early 21st century, Tennessee transitioned into a solid Republican state, primarily due to rural white voters who have rejected the increasing Modern liberalism in the United States, liberalism of the Democratic Party. In 2004 United States presidential election in Tennessee, 2004, Republican President George W. Bush increased his margin of victory in the state to 14% from 4% in 2000. In 2007, Ron Ramsey became the first Republican Speaker of the State Senate since Reconstruction, and the following year the Republicans gained control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Voters, however, continued to elect Moderate (politics), moderate Republicans, such as centrists Bill Haslam and Lamar Alexander, until the late 2010s with the rise of Trumpism in the GOP at a nationwide scale. Since 2016, Tennessee has been the most populous state to vote Republican by more than 60% in presidential elections, and in 2020 United States presidential election in Tennessee, 2020 voted Republican by the largest margin of any state in terms of number of votes.
Sports
Tennessee is home to four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, major professional sports franchises: the Tennessee Titans have played in the National Football League (NFL) since 1997, the Nashville Predators have played in the National Hockey League (NHL) since 1998, the Memphis Grizzlies have played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) since 2001, and Nashville SC has played in Major League Soccer (MLS) since 2020.
The state is also home to eight minor league teams. Four of these are Minor League Baseball clubs. The Nashville Sounds, which began play in 1978, and Memphis Redbirds, which began in 1998, each compete in the International League at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, the highest before Major League Baseball. The Tennessee Smokies, which have played continuously since 1972, and Chattanooga Lookouts, which have played continuously since 1976, are members of the Double-A (baseball), Double-A classification Southern League (1964–present), Southern League. Tennessee has three minor league Association football, soccer teams. Memphis 901 FC has played in the second-tier USL Championship since 2019. Chattanooga Red Wolves SC has been a member of the third-tier USL League One since 2019. Founded in 2009, Chattanooga FC began playing in the third-tier National Independent Soccer Association in 2020. The state has one minor league ice hockey team: the Knoxville Ice Bears, which began play in 2002 and are members of the Southern Professional Hockey League.
The state is home to 12 NCAA Division I programs. Four of these participate in the top level of college football, the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Bowl Subdivision. In Knoxville, the Tennessee Volunteers college teams play in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).[ In Nashville, the Vanderbilt Commodores are also members of the SEC.][ The Memphis Tigers are members of the American Athletic Conference, and Murfreesboro's Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders play in Conference USA.][ Nashville is also home to the Belmont Bruins, members of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) but moving to the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) in July 2022; Tennessee State Tigers and Lady Tigers, Tennessee State Tigers, OVC members with no plans to change conferences; and the Lipscomb Bisons, members of the ASUN Conference.][ Tennessee State plays football in Division I's second level, the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision, Football Championship Subdivision, while Belmont and Lipscomb List of NCAA Division I non-football programs, do not have football teams.][ Through the 2021–22 school year, the OVC also includes the Austin Peay Governors from Clarksville, the UT Martin Skyhawks from Martin, and the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles from Cookeville, Tennessee, Cookeville. UT Martin and Tennessee Tech will remain in the OVC, while Peay will move to the ASUN. The Chattanooga Mocs and Johnson City's East Tennessee State Buccaneers are full members, including football, of the Southern Conference.][
Tennessee is also home to the Bristol Motor Speedway, which features NASCAR Cup Series racing two weekends a year, routinely selling out more than 160,000 seats on each date. The Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, which previously held Xfinity Series, Nationwide and IndyCar Series, IndyCar races until it was shut down in 2011, reopened to host the NASCAR Cup Series in 2021. Tennessee's only graded stakes horserace, the Iroquois Steeplechase, is held in Nashville each May. The WGC Invitational is a PGA Tour golf tournament that has been held in Memphis since 1958.]
See also
* Index of Tennessee-related articles
* Outline of Tennessee
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
Official website
Tennessee Department of Tourist Development
Tennessee State Library and Archives
Tennessee Blue Book
Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
Tennessee State Agency Databases
by the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association
TNGen Web Project
free genealogy resources for the state
Tennessee QuickFacts
by the U.S. Census Bureau
Tennessee scientific resources
by the U.S. Geological Survey
Tennessee state data
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Tennessee State Profile and Energy Estimates
by U.S. Energy Information Administration
Tennessee Code Annotated
by LexisNexis
Tennessee Landforms
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Tennessee,
1796 establishments in the United States
Southern United States
State of Franklin
States and territories established in 1796
States of the Confederate States of America
States of the United States
U.S. states with multiple time zones
Contiguous United States