Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the eighth-largest in the United States. Its economic, cultural and demographic center is Atlanta, and its total population was 6,144,050 according to the 2021 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau. The metro area forms the core of a broader trading area, the Atlanta–Athens-Clarke–Sandy Springs Combined Statistical Area. The Combined Statistical Area spans up to 39 counties in north Georgia, and one county in Alabama,

Chambers Chambers may refer to: Places Canada: * Chambers Township, Ontario United States: * Chambers County, Alabama *Chambers, Arizona, an unincorporated community in Apache County *Chambers, Nebraska * Chambers, West Virginia *Chambers Township, Holt ...

. The Combined Statistical Area recorded in the 2020 census a population of 6,930,423. Atlanta is the second-largest metropolitan area in the Census Bureau's Southeast region, behind that of Greater Washington, D.C. It surpassed the Greater Miami area in total population in 2021.

Definitions

By U.S. Census Bureau standards, the population of the Atlanta region spreads across a metropolitan area of – a land area comparable to that of Massachusetts. Because Georgia contains more counties than any other state except Texas (explained in part by the now-defunct county-unit system of weighing votes in

primary election Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

s), area residents live under a heavily decentralized collection of governments. As of the 2000 census, fewer than one in ten residents of the metropolitan area lived inside Atlanta city limits. A 2006 survey by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce counted 140 cities and towns in the 28‑county Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in mid-2005. Nine cities –

Johns Creek Johns Creek is a city in Fulton County, Georgia, United States. According to the 2020 census, the population was 82,453. The city is a northeastern suburb of Atlanta. History In the early 19th century, the Johns Creek area was dotted with ...

(2006),

Milton Milton may refer to: Names * Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname) ** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet * Milton (given name) ** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...

(2006),

Chattahoochee Hills Chattahoochee Hills (formerly Chattahoochee Hill Country) is a city in southern Fulton County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 2,378 living in an area of just over . The population in 2019 was estimated to 3 ...

(2007),

Dunwoody Dunwoody is a city located in DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. As a northern suburb of Atlanta, Dunwoody is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. It was incorporated as a city on December 1, 2008 but its area establishment dates back to ...

(2008), Peachtree Corners (2012), Brookhaven (2012),

Tucker Tucker may refer to: Places United States * Tucker, Arkansas * Tucker, Georgia * Tucker, Mississippi * Tucker, Missouri * Tucker, Utah, ghost town * Tucker County, West Virginia Outer space * Tucker (crater), a small lunar impact crater in the s ...

(2016), Stonecrest (2016) and South Fulton (2017) – have incorporated since then, following the lead of Sandy Springs in 2005. The Atlanta metropolitan area was first defined in 1950 as Fulton, DeKalb,

Gwinnett Gwinnett County ( ) is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. It forms part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. In 2020, the population was 957,062, making it the second-most populous county in Georgia (after Fulton C ...

Cobb Cobb may refer to: People * Cobb (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the surname Cobb * Cobb Rooney (1900–1973), American professional football running back Places New Zealand * Cobb River * Cobb Reservoir * Cobb Power ...

and Clayton counties. Walton,

Newton Newton most commonly refers to: * Isaac Newton (1642–1726/1727), English scientist * Newton (unit), SI unit of force named after Isaac Newton Newton may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Newton'' (film), a 2017 Indian film * Newton ( ...

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...

, Fayette,

Forsyth Forsyth may refer to: Places Oceania * Forsyth Island, Queensland, Australia, one of the West Wellesley Islands (aka Forsyth Islands) * Forsyth Island, Tasmania, Australia * Forsyth Island (New Zealand), in the outer Marlborough Sounds of South I ...

, Henry, Cherokee, Rockdale, and Butts counties were added after the 1970 census, with Barrow and Coweta counties joining in 1980 and Bartow, Carroll, Paulding, Pickens and Spalding counties in 1990. Atlanta's larger combined statistical area (CSA) adds the Gainesville and Athens metropolitan areas plus

LaGrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaThomaston,

Jefferson Jefferson may refer to: Names * Jefferson (surname) * Jefferson (given name) People * Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), third president of the United States * Jefferson (footballer, born 1970), full name Jefferson Tomaz de Souza, Brazilian foo ...

Calhoun John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) was the 7th vice president of the United States. Calhoun can also refer to: Surname * Calhoun (surname) Inhabited places in the United States *Calhoun, Georgia *Calhoun, Illinois *Calhoun, Kansas *Calhoun, Kentucky ...

, and

Cedartown Cedartown is a city and the county seat of Polk County, Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 10,190. Cedartown is the principal city of and is included in the Cedartown, Georgia Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is i ...

micropolitan areas, for a total 2012 population of 6,162,195. The CSA also abuts the Macon and

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio Columbus may also refer to: Places ...

MSAs. The region is one of the metropolises of the Southeastern United States, and is part of the emerging megalopolis known as Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion along the

I-85 Corridor Interstate 85 (I-85) is a major Interstate Highway in the Southeastern United States. Its southern terminus is at an interchange with I-65 in Montgomery, Alabama; its northern terminus is an interchange with I-95 in Petersburg, Virginia, n ...

. In 2019, the name of the MSA was changed from Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell to Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta.

Metropolitan statistical area

The counties listed below are included in the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. However, some entities define a much smaller metropolitan area by including only the counties which have the densest suburban development. Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton were the five original counties when the Atlanta metropolitan area was first defined in 1950, and continue to be the core of the metro area. These five counties along with six more (Cherokee, Douglas, Fayette, Henry, Rockdale, and Forsyth) are members of the Atlanta Regional Commission, a weak metropolitan government organization which also is a regional planning agency. The eleven ARC counties, bolded, and four more (Bartow, Coweta, Hall, Paulding), with an asterisk (*), form part of the

Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District is a water district that covers all of metro Atlanta, and the nearby part of its headwaters in north Georgia. Established by the 146th Georgia General Assembly in 2001, it includes 15 counties ...

, created in 2001.

Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area

The 12 counties listed above with under 85,000 residents are usually not included in any other metropolitan definition except the OMB/Census Bureau's MSA and CSA. Hall County forms the Gainesville MSA, but with astronomical growth to over 200,000 residents, is now also part of the Atlanta CSA. The official tourism website of the State of Georgia features
"Metro Atlanta" tourism region
that includes only eight counties: Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette, and Henry.

Combined statistical area

Atlanta GA-AL Combined Statistical Area

Municipalities

Edge cities

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

Perimeter Center Perimeter Center is a major edge city in Atlanta metropolitan area, metro Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is centered on Perimeter Mall, the nucleus around which it has formed. Perimeter Center is located north of Atlanta proper, and lies with ...

* Hartsfield-Jackson area * Gwinnett Place/ Sugarloaf area More than one half of metro Atlanta's population is in unincorporated areas or areas considered a census-designated-place (CDP) by the census bureau. One notable example is East Cobb, an unincorporated area (though not a CDP) adjacent to

Marietta Marietta may refer to: Places in the United States *Marietta, Jacksonville, Florida *Marietta, Georgia, the largest US city named Marietta *Marietta, Illinois *Marietta, Indiana *Marietta, Kansas *Marietta, Minnesota *Marietta, Mississippi *Mar ...

and Roswell in Cobb County. With an estimated population of approximately 208,000 as of 2019, it would be the second largest city in the metro besides Atlanta if incorporated. Metro Atlanta includes the following incorporated and unincorporated suburbs (both inside and outside Atlanta), exurbs, and surrounding cities, sorted by population according to 2010 census data (or later data if the city was incorporated after 2010 and census data is unavailable):

Cities and suburbs

Principal city * Atlanta pop. 498,044 Places with 75,000 to 99,999 inhabitants * South Fulton (incorporated 2017) pop. 95,158 * Sandy Springs pop. 93,853 * Roswell pop. 88,346 *

pop. 76,728 Places with 50,000 to 74,999 inhabitants * Alpharetta pop. 57,551 *

pop. 56,579 * Stonecrest (incorporated 2016) pop. 53,490 * Smyrna pop. 51,271 Places with 25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants *

pop. 46,267 * Peachtree Corners (incorporated 2012) pop. 43,905 * Brookhaven (incorporated 2012) pop. 40,456 *

Mableton Mableton is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Cobb County, Georgia, United States. According to the 2020 census, Mableton has a population of 40,834. Upon Brookhaven's cityhood in December 2012, Mableton became ...

(CDP) 37,115 * Peachtree City pop. 34,364 * Gainesville pop. 33,804 *

East Point East Point is the name of several places: In Australia * East Point, Northern Territory ** East Point Military museum located in East Point, Northern Territory In Canada *East Point, Prince Edward Island In Hong Kong: *East Point, Hong Kong In ...

pop. 33,712 *

(incorporated 2016) pop. 33,380 *

Newnan Newnan is a city in Metro Atlanta and the county seat of Coweta County, Georgia, about southwest of Atlanta. Its population was 42,549 at the 2020 census, up from 33,039 in 2010. History Newnan was established as county seat of Coweta Coun ...

pop. 33,039 * Redan (CDP) pop. 33,015 *

pop. 32,661 *

Douglasville The city of Douglasville is the county seat of Douglas County, Georgia, Douglas County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. , the city had a population of 34,650, up from 30,961 in 2010 United States census, 2010 and 20,065 in 2000 Uni ...

pop. 30,961 * Kennesaw pop. 29,783 * Chamblee pop. 29,231 * Lawrenceville pop. 28,546 * Carrollton pop. 26,738 * Duluth pop. 26,660 * Stockbridge pop. 25,636 Places with 24,999 or fewer inhabitants * Woodstock pop. 23,896 *

Griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Ancient Greek: , ''gryps''; Classical Latin: ''grȳps'' or ''grȳpus''; Late Latin, Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a legendary creature with the body, tail ...

pop. 23,643 * Candler-McAfee (CDP) pop. 23,025 *

Canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ent ...

pop. 22,958 * McDonough pop. 22,084 * Acworth pop. 20,425 * Cartersville pop. 19,731 * Union City pop. 19,456 * Decatur pop. 19,335 * North Druid Hills (CDP) pop. 18,947 * Sugar Hill pop. 18,522 *

Forest Park A forest park is a park whose main theme is its forest of trees. Forest parks are found both in the mountains and in the urban environment. Examples Chile * Forest Park, Santiago China *Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai * Mufushan National Fores ...

pop. 18,468 *

Snellville Snellville is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States, east of Atlanta. The population was 18,242 at the 2010 census, and in 2019 the estimated population was 20,077. It is a developed suburb of Atlanta and a part of the Atlanta metr ...

pop. 18,242 *

North Decatur North Decatur is a census-designated place (CDP) in DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The population was 16,698 at the 2010 census. Geography North Decatur is located at (33.803054, -84.290123). According to the United States Census Bureau ...

(CDP) pop. 16,698 * Fayetteville pop. 15,945 * Lithia Springs (CDP) pop. 15,491 * Suwanee pop. 15,355 *

Conyers Conyers is an Atlanta suburb, the county seat of and only city in Rockdale County, Georgia, Rockdale County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. The city is 24 miles (38.6 km) east of Atlanta, downtown Atlanta and is a part of t ...

pop. 15,195 * Belvedere Park (CDP) pop. 15,152 * Riverdale pop. 15,134 * Druid Hills (CDP) pop. 14,568 * Winder pop. 14,099 * Villa Rica pop. 13,956 * College Park pop. 13,942 *

Powder Springs Powder Springs is a city in Cobb County, Georgia, United States. The population was 13,940 at the 2010 census, with an estimated population for 2019 of 15,758. In 2015, the city elected its first black mayor, Al Thurman. He was the first African- ...

pop. 13,940 * Monroe pop. 13,478 *

Covington Covington may refer to: People * Covington (surname) Places United Kingdom * Covington, Cambridgeshire * Covington, South Lanarkshire United States * Covington, Georgia * Covington, Indiana * Covington, Kentucky, the largest American cit ...

pop. 13,118 * Fairburn pop. 12,950 * Buford pop. 12,225 * Lilburn pop. 11,596 * Mountain Park (Gwinnett) (CDP) pop. 11,554 * Dallas pop. 11,544 * Loganville pop. 10,458 *

Panthersville Panthersville is a census-designated place (CDP) in DeKalb County, Georgia, DeKalb County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. The population was 9,749 at the 2010 census. History The community most likely was named after a Cherokee Ind ...

(CDP) pop. 9,749 * Vinings (CDP) pop. 9,734 * Tyrone pop. 9,534 * Thomaston pop. 9,170 * Norcross pop. 9,116 * Doraville pop. 8,330 * Clarkston pop. 7,554 *

Braselton Braselton ( ) is a town in Barrow, Gwinnett, Hall, and Jackson counties in the U.S. state of Georgia, approximately northeast of Atlanta. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 7,511, and in 2018 the estimated population was 11,652. ...

pop. 7,511 * Irondale (CDP) pop. 7,446 * Centerville (CDP) pop. 7,148 * Hampton pop. 6,987 *

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

(CDP) pop. 6,887 * Barnesville pop. 6,775 *

Austell Austell is a city in Cobb and Douglas Counties in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 7,713. History The area that is now Austell was frequented by game ...

pop. 6,581 * Morrow pop. 6,445 *

Lovejoy ''Lovejoy'' is a British television comedy-drama mystery series, based on the novels by John Grant under the pen name Jonathan Gash. The show, which ran to 71 episodes over six series, was originally broadcast on BBC1 between 10 January 19 ...

pop. 6,422 * Hapeville pop. 6,373 * Conley (CDP) pop. 6,228 * Stone Mountain pop. 5,802 *

Flowery Branch Flowery Branch is a city in Hall County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 9,391. It is part of the Gainesville, Georgia metropolitan area, and lies on the shores of Lake Lanier. History Flowery Branch wa ...

pop. 5,679 * Cumming pop. 5,430 * Locust Grove pop. 5,402 * Jonesboro pop. 4,724 *

Palmetto Palmetto (meaning "little palm") may refer to: Palms Several small palms in the Arecaceae (palm tree) family: *in the genus '' Sabal'': **Bermuda palmetto, ''Sabal bermudana'' **Birmingham palmetto, ''Sabal'' 'Birmingham' **Dwarf, or bush palm ...

pop. 4,448 *

Dacula Dacula ( ) is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. It is an exurb of Atlanta, located approximately northeast of downtown. The population as of the 2010 census was 4,442, and the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population to be 6, ...

pop. 4,442 *

Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 13, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 432 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running western, the second-longest-running western series on U ...

(CDP) pop. 3,135 * Avondale Estates pop. 2,960 *

Lakeview Estates Lakeview Estates, also known as Sunrise Lakes by local residents, is a census-designated place (CDP) in Rockdale County, Georgia, Rockdale County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. The population was 2,637 at the 2000 census. Lakeview ...

(CDP) pop. 2,695 *

Grayson Grayson may refer to: Places Canada * Grayson, Saskatchewan * Rural Municipality of Grayson No. 184, Saskatchewan United States * Grayson, California * Grayson, Georgia ** Grayson High School * Grayson, Kentucky * Grayson, Louisiana * Gra ...

pop. 2,666 * Lake City pop. 2,612 *

pop. 2,378 *

Lithonia Lithonia (, ; AAVE: ) is a city in eastern DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The city's population was 2,662 at the 2020 census. Lithonia is in the Atlanta metropolitan area. "Lithonia" means "city/town of stone". Lithonia is in the heart ...

pop. 1,924 * Berkeley Lake pop. 1,574

Geography

Topography and geology

The area sprawls across the low foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the north and the Piedmont to the south. The northern and some western suburbs tend to be higher and significantly more hilly than the southern and eastern suburbs. The average elevation is around . The highest point in the immediate area is

Kennesaw Mountain Kennesaw Mountain is a mountain between Marietta and Kennesaw, Georgia in the United States with a summit elevation of . It is the highest point in the core (urban and suburban) metro Atlanta area, and fifth after further-north exurban counties ...

at , followed by Stone Mountain at , Sweat Mountain at , and

Little Kennesaw Mountain Little Kennesaw Mountain is a mountain in Cobb County, Georgia, northwest of Marietta and south of Kennesaw. It is a sub-peak of Kennesaw Mountain, the site of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil Wa ...

at . Others include Blackjack Mountain,

Lost Mountain Lost Mountain is a mountain in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, located approximately 10 miles northwest of Antlers, Oklahoma. It is a part of the Kiamichi Mountains, a subrange of the Ouachita Mountains. Its summit is 791 feet above sea level.Oklah ...

, Brushy Mountain, Pine Mountain, and

Mount Wilkinson Mount Wilkinson is a low mountain immediately north-northwest of and directly overlooking downtown Vinings, in southeast Cobb County, Georgia, USA. Although it rises significantly from the surrounding terrain, it is actually at or slightly belo ...

(

Vinings Mountain Mount Wilkinson is a low mountain immediately north-northwest of and directly overlooking downtown Vinings, Georgia, Vinings, in southeast Cobb County, Georgia, Cobb County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States, USA. Although it rises sig ...

). Many of these play prominently in the various battles of the Atlanta Campaign during the American Civil War. If the further-north counties are included, Bear Mountain is highest, followed by

Pine Log Mountain Pine Log Mountain is located in the U.S. state of Georgia with a summit elevation of . The peak is three miles west of the town of Waleska separated only by the gated community of Lake Arrowhead. The summit falls within Cherokee County, althou ...

Sawnee Mountain Sawnee Mountain is a low mountain between the piedmont and Appalachian foothills of the U.S. state of Georgia, north of Atlanta. Average rainfall/46.26in/yr/ average snowfall/5.7in/yr/. The name Sawnee Mountain actually refers to the entire rid ...

, and

Hanging Mountain Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary' ...

, followed by the others listed above. Stone, Sweat, Bear, and Sawnee are all home to some of the area's broadcast stations. The area's

subsoil Subsoil is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. Like topsoil, it is composed of a variable mixture of small particles such as sand, silt and clay, but with a much lower percentage of organic matter and humus, and it ...

is a dense clay soil, colored rusty by the

iron oxide Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. All are black magnetic solids. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of whic ...

present in it. It becomes very

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

dy and sticky when wet, and hard when dry, and

stain A stain is a discoloration that can be clearly distinguished from the surface, material, or medium it is found upon. They are caused by the chemical or physical interaction of two dissimilar materials. Accidental staining may make materials app ...

s light-colored carpets and clothing easily. It also tends to have a low pH, further aggravating gardeners. The fineness of it also means it is easily deposited into streams during heavy rains, creating silt problems where it is exposed due to construction. This transported red soil can be seen downstream on the riverbanks of south Georgia (where the native clay is white), and down to the

Florida panhandle The Florida Panhandle (also West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida; it is a Salient (geography), salient roughly long and wide, lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia (U. ...

(where the native sand is also white). Topsoil is present only in natural forest areas, created by the decomposition of leaf litter.

Earthquakes and fault lines

An extinct fault line called the Brevard Fault runs roughly parallel to the

Chattahoochee River The Chattahoochee River forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida - Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the confluence of the Chatta ...

, but as its last movements were apparently

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

, it is considered extinct and not a threat to the region. Still, minor earthquakes do rattle the area (and all of Georgia) occasionally. One notable one was in April 2003 (magnitude 4.6) coming from the northwest, its epicenter just across the state line in northeastern Alabama. While many people slept through the 5A.M. quake, it caused a minor panic in others completely unaware of what was happening. Similar earthquakes occur in this region called the

Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone The Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone (ETSZ), also known as the East Tennessee Seismic Zone and the Southern Appalachian Seismic Zone, is a geographic band stretching from northeastern Alabama to southwestern Virginia that is subject to frequent small ...

, often felt much more widely across the stronger crust of eastern North America as compared to the west. Thus, the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina earthquake was also felt in Atlanta and throughout the Southeast. It caused damage as far as central Alabama and West Virginia. Two small earthquakes were also felt on the southeast side near Eatonton in early April 2009. The New Madrid Seismic Zone (near the Missouri-Tennessee borders) and the seismic zone producing the 1886 magnitude 7.3 earthquake are still capable of producing moderate or major earthquakes, which the entire Atlanta area will feel moderately or even strongly.

Climate

The Atlanta metro area has a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...

with four seasons, although summer is the longest. January daily lows average from north to south, and highs range from , but often reach well above or below this average. There is an average annual snowfall of about , falling mostly from December through March, though there was snow north of the city on April 3, 1987. Snow flurries are actually common during the winter months when there is an especially deep trough in the jet stream. These events usually do not amount to more than a slight dusting and therefore go unrecognized in most weather summaries. Summers, by contrast, are long and consistently hot and humid, with July mornings averaging and afternoons averaging , slight breezes, and typically a 20–40% chance of afternoon thunderstorms. During the summer afternoon thunderstorms, temperatures may suddenly drop to 70–77 degrees with locally heavy rainfall. Average annual rainfall is about , with late winter and early spring (as well as July) being the wettest and fall (especially October) being the driest. From 1878 to 2011, the highest recorded temperatures at Atlanta were on three days in the extraordinarily hot July 1980, followed by that month and in August 2007, the hottest month ever for the area. This was broken on the last day of June 2012, when the temperature reached , during a massive heat wave that hit most of the country, with another 105 the next day tying the July record. The lowest recorded temperatures were and on January 20 and 21 of 1985, and on February 13, 1899, during severe cold snaps that went so far south they devastated the entire citrus industry in central Florida. Hurricane Opal brought sustained tropical storm conditions to the area one night in early October 1995, uprooting hundreds of trees and causing widespread power outages, after soaking the area with rain for two days prior. Since 1950 some metro counties have been hit more than 20 times by tornadoes, with Cobb (26) and Fulton (22) being two of the highest in the state. The Dunwoody tornado in early April 1998 was the worst tornado to have struck the area. A tornado struck downtown Atlanta in March 2008, causing a half-billion dollars in damage, one of the most expensive storms ever recorded anywhere. The area experiences a winter storm with significant snowfall about once each year, however this can be extremely irregular with several consecutive years receiving no measurable snow. A blizzard (see:

1993 Storm of the Century The 1993 Storm of the Century (also known as the 93 Superstorm, The No Name Storm, or the Great Blizzard of '93/1993) was a cyclonic storm that formed over the Gulf of Mexico on March 12, 1993. The cold weather, heavy snowfall, high winds and st ...

) caught much of the Southeast off-guard in 1993, dumping at the Atlanta airport on March 13, and much more than that in the suburbs to the north and west, as well as in the mountains. The only other recorded winter storm of comparable severity was the Great Blizzard of 1899. The heaviest snow, however, was in January 1940, when buried the city during its coldest month on record. The second-heaviest was in 1983, when a very late storm dumped on March 24.

Ice storms An ice storm, also known as a glaze event or a silver storm is a type of winter storm characterized by freezing rain. The U.S. National Weather Service defines an ice storm as a storm which results in the accumulation of at least of ice on ex ...

have also occurred in the area. The well-remembered 1973 ice storm was brutal as was the storm in 1982. The Southeastern U.S. drought of 2006–2008 began with dry weather in 2006, and left area lakes very low. The drought finally began to abate significantly after the

2009 Atlanta floods The September 2009 Southeastern United States floods were a group of floods that affected several counties throughout northern Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The worst flooding occurred across the Atlanta metropolitan area ...

, when some areas got up to of rain in a week, with half of that falling in just 24 hours near the end of the period. The USGS calculated it to be a greater-than-

500-year flood A 100-year flood is a flood event that has a 1 in 100 chance (1% probability) of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. The 100-year flood is also referred to as the 1% flood, since its annual exceedance probability is 1%.Holmes, R.R., Jr. ...

Environment

The area's prolific rains are drained by many different

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

s and creeks. The main basin is that of the

, running northeast to southwest. The further northwestern suburbs drain into the

Etowah River The Etowah River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 27, 2011 waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, north of Atlanta. On Matthew Carey's 1795 ...

via the Little River and Lake Allatoona. The southern suburbs are drained by the

Flint River The Flint River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 15, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Georgia. The river drains of western Georgia, flowing south from the u ...

, and the east-southeastern ones by the Oconee River and Yellow River. By 2005 the metro area was using of water per day (about per person per day) from these rivers. This usage was reduced by more than 10% during the drought, but soared back up after watering restrictions were eased (and before the flooding ensued). The need for water is seen as a barrier to further growth in the area, but permanent measures for non-emergency water conservation have never been put in place. The state legislature has refused to pass a requirement for

low-flow toilet A low-flush toilet (or low-flow toilet or high-efficiency toilet) is a flush toilet that uses significantly less water than traditional high-flow toilets. Before the early 1990s in the United States, standard flush toilets typically required at l ...

s to be installed in homes that are sold, bowing to pressure from the real estate sales industry. Disputes over water are becoming increasingly common, with both Alabama and Florida filing

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

s and threatening

injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...

s to prevent Georgia from taking too much water, mostly for metro Atlanta. South Carolina also threatened when a

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

east to the

Savannah River The Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of South Carolina and Georgia. Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form the norther ...

was mentioned even informally. The state has now been ordered by a judge to reduce withdrawals from the Chattahoochee south of Lanier to 1970s levels within three years (2012), something that would create an immediate emergency water shortage if it were actually enforced.

Flora

The native forest canopy is mainly oak, redbud,

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in Mexi ...

, poplar,

tuliptree ''Liriodendron'' () is a genus of two species of characteristically large trees, deciduous over most of their populations, in the magnolia family (Magnoliaceae). These trees are widely known by the common name tulip tree or tuliptree for their ...

, pine, and

sweetgum ''Liquidambar'', commonly called sweetgum (star gum in the UK), gum, redgum, satin-walnut, or American storax, is the only genus in the flowering plant family Altingiaceae and has 15 species. They were formerly often treated in Hamamelidaceae ...

, with

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

having been common decades before in what is now considered oak-hickory forest.

Saw palmetto ''Serenoa repens'', commonly known as saw palmetto, is the sole species currently classified in the genus ''Serenoa''. It is a small palm, growing to a maximum height around . It is endemic to the subtropical and tropical Southeastern United S ...

, Sabal palmetto and

Trachycarpus fortunei ''Trachycarpus fortunei'', the Chinese windmill palm, windmill palm or Chusan palm, is a species of hardy evergreen palm tree in the family Arecaceae, native to parts of China, Japan, Myanmar and India. Description Growing to tall, ''Trachyca ...

have become common ornamentals as well. Traveling from the south, the metro area is generally the first area in which autumn leaf color can be seen, due to the different trees growing at the higher elevation and latitude. Underneath, the flowering dogwood is very common, the black cherry are quite prolific, with

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...

popping up sometimes as well.

Sourwood ''Oxydendrum arboreum'', the sourwood or sorrel tree, is the sole species in the genus ''Oxydendrum'', in the family Ericaceae. It is native to eastern North America, from southern Pennsylvania south to northwest Florida and west to southern I ...

is also in its native range, and is easily identified by the fact that it turns fiery red in early October, much brighter and weeks earlier than most other trees (which usually peak in early November). Shrubby plants include blackberry, horsechestnut, sumac, and sometimes

hawthorn Hawthorn or Hawthorns may refer to: Plants * '' Crataegus'' (hawthorn), a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae * ''Rhaphiolepis'' (hawthorn), a genus of about 15 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the family Rosace ...

Virginia creeper ''Parthenocissus quinquefolia'', known as Virginia creeper, Victoria creeper, five-leaved ivy, or five-finger, is a species of flowering vine in the grape family, Vitaceae. It is native to eastern and central North America, from southeastern Ca ...

, poison ivy, and briar are common vines. The

Confederate yellow daisy ''Helianthus porteri'' is a species of sunflower known by the common names Porter's sunflower, Stone Mountain daisy and Confederate daisy. The term "daisy" is a imprecise because the species is a sunflower ('' Helianthus'') rather than a daisy ( ...

is a wildflower native only to the area around Stone Mountain. Common garden plants include dogwood,

azalea Azaleas are flowering shrubs in the genus ''Rhododendron'', particularly the former sections ''Tsutsusi'' (evergreen) and '' Pentanthera'' (deciduous). Azaleas bloom in the spring (April and May in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, and Octob ...

, hydrangea, flowering cherry, maples, pin oak,

red-tip photinia ''Photinia'' () is a genus of about 30 species of small trees and large shrubs, but the taxonomy has recently varied greatly, with the genera ''Heteromeles'', '' Stranvaesia'' and '' Aronia'' sometimes included in ''Photinia''. They are a part ...

, holly,

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

, white pine, magnolia,

Bradford pear ''Pyrus calleryana'', or the Callery pear, is a species of pear tree native to China and Vietnam, in the family Rosaceae. It is most commonly known for its cultivar 'Bradford' and its offensive odor, widely planted throughout the United States a ...

forsythia ''Forsythia'' , is a genus of flowering plants in the olive family Oleaceae. There are about 11 species, mostly native to eastern Asia, but one native to southeastern Europe. ''Forsythia'' – also one of the plant's common names – is ...

, liriope (

mondograss ''Ophiopogon japonicus'' (dwarf lilyturf, mondograss, fountainplant, monkeygrass; ja, リュウノヒゲ ''ryu-no-hige'' ("dragon's beard") or ジャノヒゲ ''ja-no-hige'' ("snake's beard") is a species of ''Ophiopogon'' native to China, Indi ...

), and English ivy. Lawns can be either cool-season grasses like

fescue ''Festuca'' (fescue) is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the grass family Poaceae (subfamily Pooideae). They are evergreen or herbaceous perennial tufted grasses with a height range of and a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on every ...

and

rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...

, or warm-season like zoysia and bermudagrass which turn brown in late fall. A few homeowners associations actually prohibit green grass in the winter. Native to the nearby mountains, maples are now one of the most common landscape trees for new homes and parking lots, giving their color in the fall instead of spring. When planted close to buildings (which provide shelter and radiate heat), they can retain some of their color into December, especially if November has been warm. Common lawn weeds are

mock strawberry ''Potentilla indica'', known commonly as mock strawberry, Indian-strawberry, or false strawberry, often referred to as a backyard strawberry, mainly in North America, is a flowering plant in the family Rosaceae. It has foliage and an aggregate ac ...

violet Violet may refer to: Common meanings * Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue * One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly: ** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants Places United States * Viol ...

wild onion Wild onion can refer to * any uncultivated species in the genus ''Allium'', especially: **''Allium bisceptrum'' ** ''Allium canadense'' ** ''Allium tricoccum'' ** ''Allium validum'' ** ''Allium vineale'' * ''Asphodelus tenuifolius'' * ''Cyperus bulb ...

, and of course the ubiquitous dandelion, crabgrass, and plantain. By far the most notorious introduced species is

kudzu Kudzu (; also called Japanese arrowroot or Chinese arrowroot) is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing deciduous perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands, but invasive species, invasive in many ...

, a highly

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

which climbs and smothers trees and shrubs. New effective herbicides as well as increased development of formerly rural areas has greatly reduced kudzu in the metro area (although still quite common elsewhere in Georgia). Wisteria planted decades ago by farmers in then-rural areas has become wild and is common in undeveloped forests. Some vines exceed 50 years of age and cover dozens of acres of forest, creating a dense, purple explosion each spring. Japanese honeysuckle is extremely common, its fragrance an early summer delight. A common ornamental shrub, the

Chinese privet ''Ligustrum sinense'' (Chinese privet; syn. ''L. villosum''; in Mandarin: 杻; pinyin: chǒu) is a species of privet native to China, Taiwan and Vietnam,Flora of China''Ligustrum sinense''/ref> and naturalized in Réunion, the Andaman Islands, ...

, has escaped to become the state's most invasive non-native plant species.

Fauna

Among

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s, the eastern gray squirrel is by far the most ubiquitous, stealing birdseed from the bird feeders which many locals maintain. Chipmunks and small brown

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

s are common, but it is relatively rare to hear of them doing any damage.

Opossum Opossums () are members of the marsupial order Didelphimorphia () endemic to the Americas. The largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, it comprises 93 species in 18 genera. Opossums originated in South America and entered North ...

, raccoons,

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es,

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

s and

armadillo Armadillos (meaning "little armored ones" in Spanish) are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata. The Chlamyphoridae and Dasypodidae are the only surviving families in the order, which is part of the superorder Xenarthra, along wi ...

s are frequently seen. Garden and meadow snakes are common; six venomous

pit viper The Crotalinae, commonly known as pit vipers,Mehrtens JM (1987). ''Living Snakes of the World in Color''. New York: Sterling Publishers. 480 pp. . crotaline snakes (from grc, κρόταλον ''krotalon'' castanet), or pit adders, are a subfa ...

snakes ( Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, timber rattlesnake,

pygmy rattlesnake :''Common names: pygmy rattlesnake, eastern pygmy rattlesnake, ground rattlesnake, leaf rattler, death rattler, more.'' Wright AH, Wright AA (1957). ''Handbook of Snakes of the United States and Canada''. Ithaca and London: Comstock Publishing A ...

, coral snake,

water moccasin ''Agkistrodon piscivorus'' is a species of pit viper in the subfamily Crotalinae of the family Viperidae. It is one of the world's few semiaquatic vipers (along with the Florida cottonmouth), and is native to the southeastern United States. A ...

and

copperhead Copperhead may refer to: Snakes * ''Agkistrodon contortrix'', or copperhead, a venomous pit viper species found in parts of North America * ''Austrelaps'', or Australian copperhead, a genus of venomous elapids found in southern Australia and Tas ...

) are indigenous, but reports of bites are rare. Many types of frogs, including tree frogs and bullfrogs, are easily heard in early summer, as are cicadas in July and August. Black bears occasionally wander down from the mountains, and white-tailed deer are abundant; overpopulated in some areas. Homeowners in the outer suburbs are prone to landscaping damage due to scavenging deer. The most common birds are the brown thrasher (the GA state bird), American crow, European (or common) starling,

American robin The American robin (''Turdus migratorius'') is a migratory bird of the true thrush genus and Turdidae, the wider thrush family. It is named after the European robin because of its reddish-orange breast, though the two species are not closel ...

, mourning dove,

house sparrow The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pale brown and grey, a ...

northern cardinal The northern cardinal (''Cardinalis cardinalis'') is a bird in the genus ''Cardinalis''; it is also known colloquially as the redbird, common cardinal, red cardinal, or just cardinal (which was its name prior to 1985). It can be found in southea ...

house finch The house finch (''Haemorhous mexicanus'') is a bird in the finch family Fringillidae. It is native to western North America and has been introduced to the eastern half of the continent and Hawaii. This species and the other two American rosef ...

, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, bluejay,

white-breasted nuthatch The white-breasted nuthatch (''Sitta carolinensis'') is a species of bird in the nuthatch family Sittidae. It is a medium-sized nuthatch, measuring approximately in length. Coloration varies somewhat along the species' range, but the are lig ...

, eastern bluebird, mockingbird,

brown-headed nuthatch The brown-headed nuthatch (''Sitta pusilla'') is a small songbird endemic to pine forests throughout the Southeastern United States. Genetic analyses indicated low differentiation between northern and southern populations in Florida, but the stud ...

, and Carolina wren. Birds of prey thrive in the area, with three varieties of hawks common near open fields in even the most populated areas. Falcons roost on skyscrapers in downtown Atlanta and can be regularly seen feasting on pigeons. The American kestrel is sometimes seen. Late in the year, three species of owls can be heard nightly in wooded areas. Various woodpeckers can be seen in forested lots, including the

red-bellied woodpecker The red-bellied woodpecker (''Melanerpes carolinus'') is a medium-sized woodpecker of the family Picidae. It breeds mainly in the eastern United States, ranging as far south as Florida and as far north as Canada. Though it has a vivid orange-red ...

northern flicker The northern flicker or common flicker (''Colaptes auratus'') is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker spec ...

(also known as the "yellow-shafted flicker"), and the downy woodpecker. The red-headed woodpecker is common in open fields and on golf courses. The American goldfinch is present mostly in winter, and the ruby-throated hummingbird only in summer.

Government and politics

In geographic terms, Georgia has the smallest average county size of any state. This focuses government more locally but allows greater conflict between multiple jurisdictions, each with its own agenda. The first significant

intergovernmental agency An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states an ...

in metro Atlanta was the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which runs the MARTA public transportation system. Alongside other factors such as race and

class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...

, as well as a lack of planning and perceived lack of need, problems associated with the inner city of Atlanta ( crime,

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

, and poor

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

performance) influenced Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton county voters to refuse to allow construction of MARTA into their respective counties during the 1970s. These decisions resulted in permanent effects on

land development Land development is the alteration of landscape in any number of ways such as: * Changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing * Subdividing real estate into lots, typically for the purpose ...

in the region, making use of private automobiles even more of a necessity. The Atlanta Regional Commission is so far the closest that the area has come to a metropolitan government. It approves only those projects deemed to have a positive effect beyond the immediate area in which they are to be constructed. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is somewhat of a cross between ARC and MARTA, working to improve mobility, air quality, and land use practices in the region. GRTA also operates Xpress buses from 11 counties, and could operate commuter rail service in the future. Currently, plans for commuter rail and eventual intercity rail (including the long-proposed but still unfunded

Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal The Georgia Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal (MMPT) is a planned passenger terminal, designed by FXFOWLE Architects and Cooper Carry, to be built in a location to be determined near the Five Points MARTA rail station in The Gulch area of Downtown ...

) are the responsibility of the

Georgia Rail Passenger Authority The Georgia Rail Passenger Program (GRPP) was a set of plans, as yet unbuilt, for intercity and commuter rail in the U.S. state of Georgia. Commuter Routes Seven commuter routes were proposed to serve the Atlanta suburbs and nearby cities. Athens ...

, which receives almost no funding. Since 2007 proposals have been floated to allow new multi-county

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...

es, in addition to existing county sales taxes for roads, to pay for regional transportation initiatives.

Demographics

The 2020 census counted 6,089,815 people in the 28-county metro area. This was an increase of 803,087 versus the same 28-county area in 2010. The population increased by 15.2% between 2010 and 2020, less than the 28.6% increase between 2000 and 2010. Atlanta MSA in 2000 did not include Butts, Dawson, Haralson, Heard, Jasper, Lamar, Meriwether, and Pike counties, whose population totalled in 2000: 135,783; in 2010: 156,368 (2.96% of total new 28-county metro)
Compares the larger 28-county Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta MSA 2010 with a smaller 20‑county Atlanta MSA 2000; however the 8 new counties represent less than 3% of the larger 28‑county metro.
Source: for race and Hispanic population, U.S. Census Bureau 2010 and 2000 census; for foreign-born population: US Census Bureau 2010 and 2000 American Community Surveys
''Immigrants in 2010 Metropolitan America'', Brookings Institution
/small>

Race and ethnicity

White Americans made up 55.4% of metro Atlanta's population in 2010, a relative decrease from 63.0% ten years earlier, but in absolute numbers their population increased by over 330,000. Non-Hispanic whites proportionally dropped from 59.5% to 50.7% of the metro's population, while increasing by about 224,000.

Black American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

s are the largest racial minority with 32.4% of the population in 2010, up from 28.9% in 2000. The city of Atlanta has long been regarded as a " black mecca" for its role as a center of black education, political power, wealth, and culture. From 2000 to 2010, the geographic distribution of blacks in Metro Atlanta changed radically. Long concentrated in the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County, the black population there dropped as more than half a million African Americans settled across other parts of the metro area, including approximately 112,000 in Gwinnett County, 71,000 in Fulton outside Atlanta, 58,000 in Cobb, 50,000 in Clayton, 34,000 in Douglas, and 27,000 each in Newton and Rockdale counties. Due to its availability of jobs, Atlanta has been a destination for young college-educated blacks in the Reverse Great Migration of African Americans from the North since the turn of the 21st century, with many settling quickly into suburban locations. The metropolitan area has the second highest total African American population of any metropolitan area, with only the New York City metro area having more. Hispanic Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group. At 10.4% of the metro's population in 2010, versus only 6.5% in 2000, the metro's Hispanic population increased an astounding 109.6%, or 298,459 people, in ten years. Major Hispanic groups include 354,351

Mexicans Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States. The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish language, Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Languages of Mexico, Indigenous linguistic groups ...

, 43,337

Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans ( es, Puertorriqueños; or boricuas) are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants. Overview The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred t ...

and 17,648 Cubans. All of those groups' populations increased by over 90% in the ten-year period. Of the metro's 299,000-person increase in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010, 98,000 were in Gwinnett County, 57,000 in Cobb, 55,000 in Fulton (all but 3,000 outside the city of Atlanta), 20,000 in Hall, and 15,000 in DeKalb County. The

Asian-American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

population also increased rapidly from 2000 to 2010. There were 296,956 Asian-Americans in the metro area in 2010, making up 5.9% of the population. This represented an 87% increase over 2000. The largest Asian groups are 108,980

Indian-Americans Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

, 93,870

Korean-American Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian Americans ...

s, 67,660 Chinese-Americans, and 66,554 Vietnamese-Americans. Atlanta also has Georgia's largest

Bosnian-American Bosnian Americans are Americans whose ancestry can be traced to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The vast majority of Bosnian Americans immigrated to the United States during and after the Bosnian War which lasted from 1992–95. Nevertheless, many Bosnia ...

population, with approximately 10,000 in the metro area, mainly in Gwinnett County. Metro Atlanta has an increasingly international population, with 716,434 foreign-born residents in 2010, a 69% increase since 2000, with suburban Gwinnnett County being one of the most diverse counties in the Southeastern United States. This was the fourth largest rate of growth among the nation's top 100 metros, after

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...

, Orlando and Las Vegas. The foreign-born proportion of the population went up from 10.3% to 13.6%, and Atlanta moved up from 14th to 12th in ranking of U.S. metro areas with the largest immigrant population by sheer numbers. Still, its 13.6% proportion of immigrants is only the 29th highest of the nation's top 100 metros. Metro Atlanta's immigrants are more suburban than those of most cities. Out of the top 100 U.S. metros, Atlanta has the 11th highest ratio of the foreign-born living in the suburbs and not in the core city. Atlanta has a few ethnic enclaves such as a Koreatown, and areas such as the

Buford Highway Corridor State Route 13 (SR 13) is a state highway in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Georgia, that travels through portions of Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, and Hall counties. It begins at West Peachtree Street and Spring Street ( ...

in DeKalb County and parts of Gwinnett County are commercial centers for multiple ethnic communities. In 1990, greater Atlanta had the largest Japanese population in the Southeast United States. The

Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta The is a diplomatic mission of Japan. It is located in the Buckhead area of Atlanta. The consulate's jurisdiction includes Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina.Lively, Kit.
EDUCATION IS MADE IN JAPAN, EXPORTED TO ATLANTA
" '' Orlando Sentinel''. December 24, 1990. A1. Retrieved on January 11, 2012.

Language

In 2008, approximately 83.3% of the population five years and older spoke only English at home, which is roughly 4,125,000 people. Over 436,000 people (8.8%) spoke Spanish at home, giving Metro Atlanta the 15th highest number of Spanish speakers among American metropolitan areas (MSAs). Over 193,000 people (3.9%) spoke other Indo-European languages at home. People who speak an

Asian language A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Turk ...

at home numbered over 137,000 and made up 2.8% of the population.

Economy

The Atlanta area is home to 31 Fortune 1000 headquarters. 2022 rankings: The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is the sixth district of the 12

Federal Reserve Banks A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve A ...

of the United States and is headquartered in midtown Atlanta. The Atlanta Fed covers the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, the eastern two-thirds of Tennessee, the southern portion of Louisiana, and southern Mississippi as part of the Federal Reserve System.

Utilities

The area is the world's largest toll-free calling zone spanning , has four active telephone

area codes A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

, and local calling extending into portions of two others.

404 404 may refer to: * 404 (number) * AD 404 * 404 BC * HTTP 404, the HTTP error response status for "Not Found" Cars * Peugeot 404 * Bristol 404, produced in the 1950s * Unimog 404 Highways * A404(M) motorway, in England * Ontario Highway 40 ...

, which originally covered all of northern Georgia until 1992, now covers mostly the area inside the Perimeter (Interstate 285). In 1995 the

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

s were put into

770 __NOTOC__ Year 770 ( DCCLXX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 770 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...

, requiring mandatory ten‑digit dialing even for local calls under FCC rules. This made Atlanta one of the US's first cities to employ ten-digit dialing, which was begun by BellSouth the year before the Centennial

1996 Olympic Games The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. In 1998, 678 was overlaid onto both of the existing 404 and 770 area codes. Mobile phones, originally only assigned to 404, may now have any local area code regardless of where in the region they were issued. Area code 470, the newest area code, was overlaid with 404 and 770 in the same fashion as 678. The local calling area also includes portions of 706/762 and a small area of

256 Year 256 ( CCLVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Claudius and Glabrio (or, less frequently, year 1009 ''Ab urbe condi ...

in Alabama on the Georgia border. The city of Atlanta is the most wired city in the United States. Many residents access the internet on a high-speed broadband and/or WiFi connection. It is home to one of the world's largest fiber-optic bundles. Major petroleum and natural gas pipelines cross the area, running from the Gulf coast, Texas, and Louisiana to the population centers of the

Northeastern U.S. The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

This includes Colonial Pipeline and

Plantation Pipeline The Plantation Pipe Line Company, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, delivers refined petroleum products to communities and businesses throughout the South and parts of the Eastern United States. The company is owned by a partnership between Ex ...

, both based in Alpharetta. Metro Atlanta primarily uses natural gas for central heating and

water heaters Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a s ...

, with the major exception of heat pumps in

apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...

s built during and since the 1980s. This is because winters are mild, and large apartment buildings usually require little energy to heat. Backup heat (also used during defrosting) is usually supplied by electric

resistance heating Joule heating, also known as resistive, resistance, or Ohmic heating, is the process by which the passage of an electric current through a conductor (material), conductor produces heat. Joule's first law (also just Joule's law), also known in c ...

, though some homes have

hybrid heat A hybrid heat system reacts to changes in temperature and automatically adjusts to the method available to heat or cool a house. It combines a furnace with a heat pump. Mechanics A heat pump can be used to both cool or heat a house. The heat p ...

ing units which use gas backup when it is cold. Exurban homes may also use all-electric instead of gas, if gas mains have not been extended to an area. Cooktops and

oven upA double oven A ceramic oven An oven is a tool which is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been us ...

s are a mix of gas and electric, while gas

clothes dryer A clothes dryer, also known as tumble dryer or simply dryer, is a powered household appliance that is used to remove moisture from a load of clothing, bedding and other textiles, usually shortly after they are washed in a washing machine. Many dry ...

s are rather rare. with a manual- valve gas starter, and some are now equipped with permanent

gas log Gas is one of the four fundamental state of matter, states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma (physics), plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), chemical element, elemental molec ...

s with electric switch start. Some homes also have natural gas barbecue grills, formerly sold at utility company stores.

Georgia Power Georgia Power is an electric utility headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was established as the Georgia Railway and Power Company and began operations in 1902 running streetcars in Atlanta as a successor to the Atlanta Consolida ...

is the main

electric power Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions o ...

company across the state and the metro area, beginning in 1902 as

Georgia Railway and Power Company Georgia Power is an electric utility headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. It was established as the Georgia Railway and Power Company and began operations in 1902 running streetcars in Atlanta as a successor to ...

, Atlanta's streetcar (

trolley Trolley may refer to: Vehicles and components * Tram, or trolley or streetcar, a rail vehicle that runs on tramway tracks * Trolleybus, or trolley, an electric bus drawing power from overhead wires using trolley poles ** Trolleytruck, a trolleyb ...

) company. Several

electric membership corporation A utility cooperative is a type of cooperative that is tasked with the delivery of a public utility such as electricity, water or telecommunications to its members. Profits are either reinvested for infrastructure or distributed to members in ...

s also serve the suburbs. These include the second-largest EMC in the nation in Jackson EMC, Cobb EMC, Walton EMC, and

Sawnee EMC Sawnee EMC (SEMC; founded as Forsyth County EMC) is an electrical generation and transmission cooperative founded in July 1938 and based in Cumming, Georgia. , Sawnee EMC is the third-largest electric co-op in Georgia and the eighth-largest in th ...

. The city of Marietta operates its own electric utility, Marietta Power, under the Board of Lights & Water (BLW). It is also a member of the

Municipal Electric Association of Georgia A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality ...

(MEAG). Atlanta Gas Light is the natural gas utility for the region, and has been so for over a

century A century is a period of 100 years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. A centennial or ...

and a half, since it installed gas lamps in Atlanta in 1856. It operated as a

regulated monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

until November 1998, the after the state legislature voted in early 1997 to deregulate natural gas marketing, and make customers choose among nearly 20 different marketers still selling the same AGL- wholesaled gas, such as Gas South, Infinite Energy, SCANA and

Georgia Natural Gas Atlanta Gas Light Company (AGLC), commonly still known as Atlanta Gas Light (AGL), is the largest natural gas wholesaler in the Southeast U.S., and is the leading subsidiary of parent company AGL Resources. It was founded in 1856 and is headqua ...

. Most of the gas comes via

from Louisiana. Water is provided by various county and a few city systems. Several of these systems actually serve parts of neighboring counties and cities as well. The Cobb-Marietta Water Authority serves not only Cobb, but also parts of neighboring Paulding and Cherokee counties, for example. During drought or other emergency, cities and counties can enact

outdoor water-use restriction An outdoor water-use restriction is a ban or other lesser restrictions put into effect that restricts the outdoor use of water supplies. Often called a watering ban or hosepipe ban, it can affect: *irrigation of lawns *car washing *recreational ...

s, however some cross- jurisdiction

water system A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following: # A drainage basin (see water purification – source ...

s have also acted to put bans in place. In late September 2007, the state Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, stepped-in with its first-ever ban, covering most of the northern half of the state. While

surface water Surface water is water located on top of land forming terrestrial (inland) waterbodies, and may also be referred to as ''blue water'', opposed to the seawater and waterbodies like the ocean. The vast majority of surface water is produced by prec ...

is by far the primary source of water for the region, the drought had many systems (and a few wealthy homeowners) drilling new

wells Wells most commonly refers to: * Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England * Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground * Wells (name) Wells may also refer to: Places Canada *Wells, British Columbia England * Wells ...

for ground water, though the local water table is around deep, on average.

Sewerage Sewerage (or sewage system) is the infrastructure that conveys sewage or surface runoff (stormwater, meltwater, rainwater) using sewers. It encompasses components such as receiving drainage, drains, manholes, pumping stations, storm overflows, a ...

is also handled by the water utilities, but the various water and sewer networks may not conform to the same boundaries, resulting in interbasin water transfers. This is for practical reasons, because the area is hilly and divided by several watersheds, because the area has developed irregularly and erratically, and because water treatment plants are usually not near sewage treatment plants. Septic tanks are still used in the older homes of some exurbs.

Housing

Low-density

residential subdivision Subdivisions are the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known as a subdivision. Subdivisions may be simple, involving only a single selle ...

development dominates the metro Atlanta suburbs. Changes in house prices for the metro area are publicly tracked on a regular basis using the Case–Shiller index; the statistic is published by

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is con ...

and is also a component of S&P's 20‑city composite index of the value of the U.S. residential real estate market.

Community improvement districts

All of Georgia's community improvement districts are located in metro Atlanta. * Buckhead Community Improvement District, covering Buckhead *

Perimeter Center Community Improvement Districts A perimeter is a closed path that encompasses, surrounds, or outlines either a two dimensional shape or a one-dimensional length. The perimeter of a circle or an ellipse is called its circumference. Calculating the perimeter has several pract ...

, covering the

area of Sandy Springs and Dunwoody/ *

Cumberland Community Improvement District The Cumberland Community Improvement District (CID) is a self-taxing district covering in southern Cobb County, Georgia that includes the intersections of I-75, I-285 and U.S. Highway 41.

, around Cumberland Mall * Town Center Area Community Improvement District, around Town Center at Cobb mall *

Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District Gwinnett County ( ) is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. It forms part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. In 2020, the population was 957,062, making it the second-most populous county in Georgia (after Fulton C ...

, around Gwinnett Place Mall
Gateway85 Community Improvement District
covering area southeast of Norcross * Evermore Community Improvement District, or

Highway 78 Community Improvement District A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

, covering part of the

U.S. 78 U.S. Route 78 (US 78) is an east–west United States highway that runs for 715 miles (1,151 km) from Memphis, Tennessee, to Charleston, South Carolina. From Byhalia, Mississippi to Birmingham, Alabama, US 78 is concurrent with Interstate 2 ...

corridor in Gwinnett near

* Lilburn Community Improvement District, established early 2010 in Lilburn *

Aerotropolis Atlanta CIDs An aerotropolis is a metropolitan subregion whose infrastructure, land use, and economy are centered on an airport. It fuses the terms "aero-" (aviation) and "metropolis". Like the traditional metropolis made up of a central city core and its out ...

Boulevard CID (industrial district) A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may b ...

, created 2010 In May 2016, the City of Atlanta launched Atlanta City Studio, the city's first "pop-up urban design laboratory focused on shaping the future of city neighborhoods." The studio hosts "lectures, open forums, urban art presentations and other neighborhood and design components." Atlanta City Studio will relocate twice per year in order for residents to interact with staff and share their ideas about improving city design. The studio is located on the second floor of Ponce City Market and in January 2017 will relocate "to a retail location on the Westside, possibly on MLK Jr. Drive or Cascade Road."

Education

Colleges and universities

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a private women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and is considered one of the ...

– Decatur * Atlanta Metropolitan State College – Atlanta *

Atlanta Technical College Atlanta Technical College (Atlanta Tech or ATC) is a public technical college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) and provides education services for Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton and Clayton Count ...

– Atlanta * Atlanta University Center – Atlanta **

Clark Atlanta University Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Found ...

Morehouse College , mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made") , type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college , academic_affiliations ...

** Morehouse School of Medicine ** Spelman College *

Brenau University Brenau University is a private university with its historic campus in Gainesville, Georgia. Founded in 1878, the university enrolls more than 2,800 students from approximately 48 states and 17 foreign countries who seek degrees ranging from asso ...

– Gainesville * Chattahoochee Technical College – Acworth and

* Clayton State University – Morrow * Columbia Theological Seminary – Decatur * Emory University – Atlanta *

Georgia College Georgia College & State University (Georgia College or GC) is a public liberal arts university in Milledgeville, Georgia. The university enrolls approximately 7,000 students and is a member of the University System of Georgia and the Council ...

– Milledgeville * Georgia Gwinnett College – Lawrenceville *

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

– Atlanta * Georgia Piedmont Technical College – Clarkston * Georgia State University – Atlanta ** Perimeter College – Alpharetta, Clarkston,

, Decatur and

Gwinnett Technical College Gwinnett Technical College is a public technical school in the U.S. state of Georgia with campuses in Lawrenceville and Alpharetta. It is a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleg ...

– Lawrenceville * Interdenominational Theological Center – Atlanta * John Marshall Law School – Atlanta * Kennesaw State University – Kennesaw and Marietta *

Lanier Technical College Lanier Technical College (LTC or Lanier Tech) is a public technical college with multiple locations in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is part of the Technical College System of Georgia and provides education services for a seven-county service ar ...

– Gainesville, Cumming, Winder, Dawsonville and Commerce *

Life University Life University is a private university focused on training chiropractors and located in Marietta, Georgia, USA. It was established in 1974 by a chiropractor, Sid E. Williams. History The university was founded in 1974 by Williams as "Life C ...

– Marietta * Mercer University – Atlanta *

Morris Brown College Morris Brown College (MBC) is a private Methodist historically black liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded January 5, 1881, Morris Brown is the first educational institution in Georgia to be owned and operated entirely by African Ame ...

– Atlanta * Oglethorpe University – Brookhaven * Oxford College – Oxford * Reinhardt University –

Waleska Waleska ( ) is a city in Cherokee County, Georgia, United States. The population was 644 at the 2010 census. History The first white settlement in the Waleska area began in the early 1830s. Among these first pioneer settlers were the Reinhardt, ...

* Savannah College of Art and Design – Atlanta * Southern Crescent Technical College –

* University of North Georgia – Gainesville * University of West Georgia – Carrollton and

* West Georgia Technical College – Carrollton,

, Newnan and Waco

School districts

Atlanta Public Schools Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is a school district based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is run by the Atlanta Board of Education with superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring. The system has an active enrollment of 54,956 students, attending a t ...

Barrow County Schools Barrow County Schools is a public school district based in Winder, Georgia, United States, serving Barrow County Barrow County is a county located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 Census, the populati ...

Bartow County School District The Bartow County School District is a public school district in Bartow County, Georgia, United States, based in Cartersville.

Buford City School District The Buford City School District is a school district in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. The Georgia Department of Education announced Buford Academy as a 2014 Highest-Performing School. Buford City Schools (BCSS) serves approximately 5,0 ...

* Butts County School District * Carroll County School District * Carrollton City School District * Cartersville City School District * Cherokee County School District * Clayton County Public Schools *

Cobb County Public Schools The Cobb County School District (CCSD) is the county government agency which operates public schools in Cobb County, Georgia, United States. The school district includes all of Cobb County except for the Marietta City Schools, though a number ...

Coweta County School System The Coweta County School District is the primary education system in Coweta County, Georgia, United States. Its headquarters are an antebellum building on Jackson Street (US 29) at Sprayberry Road in Newnan, Georgia. Coweta County is the 9th-fast ...

Dawson County School District The Dawson County School District is a public school district in Dawson County, Georgia, United States, based in Dawsonville. It serves the communities of Dawsonville and Juno, and parts of Big Canoe ''Big Canoe'' is the second studio albu ...

Decatur City School District The City Schools of Decatur is a public charter school district in DeKalb County, 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 Uni ...

DeKalb County School System The DeKalb County School District (DCSD) is a school district headquartered at 1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States, near Stone Mountain and in the Atlanta metropolitan area. DCSD operates ...

Douglas County School District Douglas County School District is a public school district in Douglas County, Georgia, U.S., based in Douglasville. It serves the communities of Austell, Douglasville, Lithia Springs, Villa Rica, and Winston, Georgia. The Douglas County Sch ...

* Fayette County School System * Forsyth County Schools * *

Fulton County Public Schools The Fulton County School System is a school district headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States. The system serves the area of Fulton County outside the Atlanta city limits (which are served by Atlanta Public Schools). Fulton County ...

Gainesville City School District The Gainesville City School District is a public school district in Hall County, Georgia, Hall County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States, based in Gainesville, Georgia, Gainesville. It serves most of the city of Gainesville, along with ...

* Griffin-Spalding County School District * Gwinnett County Public Schools *

Hall County School District The Hall County School District is a public school district in Hall County, Georgia, United States, based in Gainesville. Most of the county is in the Hall County School District; however, Portions in the city limits of Buford and Gainesvill ...

Haralson County School District The Haralson County School District is a public school district in Haralson County, Georgia, United States, based in Tallapoosa. It serves the communities of Buchanan, Tallapoosa, and Waco. Schools The Haralson County School District has fou ...

Heard County School District The Heard County School District is a public school district in Heard County, Georgia, United States, based in Franklin. It serves the communities of Centralhatchee, Corinth, Ephesus, Franklin, Glenn, and Houston Houston (; ) is the most ...

* Henry County School District *

Jasper County School District The Jasper County School District is a public school district in Jasper County, Georgia, United States, based in Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the Unit ...

Lamar County School District The Lamar County School District (LCSD) is a public school district based in Purvis, Mississippi (USA). In addition to Purvis, the district also serves the town of Sumrall; the communities of Arnold Line, Baxterville, Lumberton, Oak Grove, a ...

* Marietta City School District *

Meriwether County School District The Meriwether County School District is a public school district in Meriwether County, Georgia, Meriwether County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States, based in Greenville, Georgia, Greenville. It serves the communities of Gay, Georgia, ...

Morgan County School District The Morgan County School District is a public school district in Morgan County, Georgia, United States, based in Madison. It serves the communities of Bostwick, Buckhead, Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name ...

Newton County School District The Newton County School District is a public school district based in Decatur, Mississippi (USA). In addition to Decatur, the district also serves the towns of Hickory, Chunky, Text list/ref> Little Rock, the community of Conehatta, and muc ...

Paulding County School District The Paulding County School District is a public school district in Paulding County, Georgia, United States, based in Dallas. It serves the communities of Braswell, Dallas, and Hiram. Schools The Paulding County school district is composed of t ...

Pickens County School District The Pickens County School District is a public school district in Pickens County, Georgia, United States, based in Jasper. It serves the communities of Jasper, Nelson, Talking Rock, and Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a net ...

* Pike County School District *

Rockdale County School District The Rockdale County School District (also referred to as ''Rockdale County Public Schools'' or ''RCPS'' for short) is a public school district in Rockdale County, Georgia, United States, based in Conyers. It serves the communities of Conyers and ...

Social Circle City School District The Social Circle City School District is a public school district in Walton County, Georgia, Walton County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States, based in Social Circle, Georgia, Social Circle. It serves the city of Social Circle, whic ...

Walton County School District Walton County School District may refer to: * Walton County School District (Florida) * Walton County School District (Georgia) The Walton County School District is a public school district in Walton County, Georgia, United States, based in M ...

Healthcare

The area is served by a network of healthcare facilities including private practice, urgent care, hospital systems, and specialty care facilities. There are approximately 37 hospitals serving the metro. There are both private for profit systems and community not-for-profit systems.

Hospitals with # beds

''Trauma Centers - Level I * ; Level II **''

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) sometimes simply referred to as ''Children's'', is a not-for-profit children's healthcare system, located in the Atlanta area dedicated to caring for infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–2 ...

* Egleston Hospital - Atlanta - 235 * Hughes Spalding Hospital - Atlanta - 82 * Scottish Rite Hospital - Sandy Springs - 319 Emory Healthcare *

Emory University Hospital Emory University Hospital is a 733-bed facility in Atlanta, Georgia, specializing in the care of acutely ill adults. Emory University Hospital is staffed exclusively by Emory University School of Medicine faculty who also are members of The Emor ...

- Atlanta - 733 * Emory University Hospital-Midtown - Atlanta - 511 * Emory University Hospital-Wesley Woods - Atlanta - 71 *Emory University Orthopedic and Spine Hospital - Tucker - 75 *Emory Decatur Hospital - Decatur - 422 *Emory Hillandale Hospital - Lithonia - 90 *Emory Johns Creek Hospital - Johns Creek - 118 *

Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital Saint Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta is an acute care hospital located in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It was a sole part of the Catholic Health East until a partnership with Emory Healthcare and Catholic Health East became effective in January 2012. ...

- Sandy Springs - 356 Grady Memorial Hospital - Atlanta - 974 * Northeast Georgia Medical Center - Gainesville - 872 ** Northside Hospital * Northside Hospital Atlanta - Sandy Springs - 621 *Northside Hospital Cherokee - Canton - 126 *Northside Hospital Duluth - Duluth - 81 *Northside Hospital Forsyth - Cumming - 304 *

Northside Hospital Gwinnett Northside Hospital Gwinnett (formerly Gwinnett Medical Center-Lawrenceville) is a hospital with 353 acute care beds in Lawrenceville, Georgia, United States. The hospital was previously the main operation of the overall Gwinnett Medical Center syst ...

- Lawrenceville - 353 ** Piedmont Hospital * Piedmont Atlanta Hospital - Atlanta - 512 *Piedmont Eastside Hospital - Snellville - 287 *Piedmont Fayette Hospital - Fayetteville - 290 *Piedmont Henry Hospital - Stockbridge - 341 *Piedmont Mountainside Hospital - Jasper - 52 *Piedmont Newnan Hospital - Newnan - 154 *Piedmont Newton Hospital - Covington - 94 *Piedmont Rockdale Hospital - Conyers - 138 *Piedmont Walton Hospital - Monroe - 77 Shepherd Center - Atlanta - 152

Wellstar Health System Wellstar Health System (formerly WellStar) is a non-profit system founded in 1993 providing comprehensive care in Metro Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It includes: * Center for Health Transformation * Spalding Regional Hospital * Sylvan Grove Hos ...

* Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center - Atlanta - 528 * *Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center-South - East Point - 198 *Wellstar Cobb Hospital - Austell - 387 * Wellstar Douglas Hospital - Douglasville - 102 *

Wellstar Kennestone Hospital Wellstar Kennestone Hospital (formerly WellStar Kennestone Regional Medical Center) is a major hospital located in Marietta, Georgia, serving most of northern and central Cobb County, Georgia. Kennestone Hospital opened in June 1950 as a 105-bed ...

- Marietta - 662 ** *Wellstar North Fulton Hospital - Roswell - 202 ** *Wellstar Paulding Hospital - Hiram - 294 *Wellstar Spalding Regional Hospital - Griffin - 160 Veterans Administration Health Care *

Veterans Administration Medical Center Veterans' health care in the United States is separated geographically into 19 regions (numbered 1, 2, 4-10, 12 and 15–23) In January 2002, the Veterans Health Administration announced the merger of VISNs 13 and 14 to create a new, combined netw ...

- Decatur

Media

Radio

* Q99.7, 99.7 Atlanta's Hit Music * Star 94, 94.1 * The River, 97.1 * V-103, 103.3 – Contemporary and Classic R&B and Hip-Hop * El Patron 105.3 – Atlanta's #1 Hit Regional Mexican Station * Radio 105.7 * Power 96.1 – Atlanta's New Hit Music Station * praise 102.5 * Bull 94.9 * Rock 100.5 * hot 107.9 – Atlantas #1 hip hop station * 104.7 The Fish * WSB Radio 95.5FM and 750AM * WREK 91.1 - Georgia Tech's Student Radio

TV

* CNN * Turner Broadcasting * The Weather Channel * Georgia Public Broadcasting (PBS), 9 stations *

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

Print

* ''

Atlanta Business Chronicle The ''Atlanta Business Chronicle'' is a weekly newspaper covering business news in Atlanta, Georgia, published by American City Business Journals. The paper has both a weekly print edition and an online edition. History The ''Atlanta Business ...

'' * '' The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' * ''

Atlanta Magazine ''Atlanta'' is a monthly general-interest magazine based in Atlanta, Georgia, and owned by Hour Media Group, LLC. Its staff has featured notable writers such as Hollis Gillespie, Anne Rivers Siddons, and William Diehl, and it has included contri ...

'' * ''

Atlanta Parent Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 li ...

'' * ''

The Atlantan ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

'' * '' Gwinnett Daily Post'' * ''Jezebel'' * '' Marietta Daily Journal''

Culture and attractions

Professional sports teams

Former teams include the Atlanta Flames (now Calgary Flames) and

Atlanta Thrashers The Atlanta Thrashers were a professional ice hockey team based in Atlanta. Atlanta was granted a franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL) on June 25, 1997, and became the League's 28th franchise when it began play in the 1999–2000 seaso ...

(now Winnipeg Jets), both of the National Hockey League. Atlanta also plays host to one

NASCAR Cup Series The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971, ...

race each year at

Atlanta Motor Speedway Atlanta Motor Speedway (formerly known Atlanta International Raceway from 1960 to 1990) is a 1.54-mile entertainment facility in Hampton, Georgia, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of Atlanta. It has annually hosted NASCAR Cup Series ...

. The Atlanta metropolitan area is also home to three NCAA Division I programs, with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Georgia State Panthers in Atlanta proper and the Kennesaw State Owls in Kennesaw. Both Georgia Tech and Georgia State are members of the Football Bowl Subdivision in the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

and

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

, respectively, while Kennesaw State is a member of the

ASUN Conference The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Divisio ...

in the

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

; however, Kennesaw State accepted an invitation to move up to the FBS level from

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

starting in 2024.

Performing arts venues

Atlanta Symphony Hall Atlanta Symphony Hall is the home venue of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It is located within the Woodruff Arts Center at 1280 Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The venue has a total capacity of 1,762 seats on three levels: 1,074 in t ...

Alliance Theater The Alliance Theatre is a theater company in Atlanta, Georgia, based at the Alliance Theatre, part of the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, and is the winner of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award. The company, originally the Atlanta Municipal T ...

* Cobb Energy Centre * Fox Theatre * Infinite Energy Arena *

Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center Sandy may refer to: People and fictional characters *Sandy (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Sandy (surname), a list of people *Sandy (singer), Brazilian singer and actress Sandy Leah Lima (born 1983) * (Sandy) ...

Spivey Hall Spivey Hall was built in 1991 on the campus of Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, near Atlanta, Georgia. Its seating capacity is 492 (476 in the orchestra and 16 box seats). It presents jazz and classical music to the metro Atlanta area ...

Museums

Center for Puppetry Arts The Center for Puppetry Arts, located in Atlanta, is the United States' largest organization dedicated to the art form of puppetry. The center focuses on three areas: performance, education and museum. It is one of the few puppet museums in the ...

Children's Museum of Atlanta The Children's Museum of Atlanta (known as "Imagine It! The Children's Museum of Atlanta" from 2003 to 2011) is a children's museum located in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1988 as a "Museum Without Walls," the museum opened to the public in 2003. ...

Delta Flight Museum The Delta Flight Museum is an aviation and corporate museum located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, near the airline's main hub, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The museum is housed in two 1940s-era Delta Air Lines aircraft ...

* Fernbank Museum of Natural History * Fernbank Science Center * High Museum of Art * Jimmy Carter Library and Museum

Amusement

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

* Georgia Aquarium * Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament *

National Center for Civil and Human Rights The National Center for Civil and Human Rights is a museum dedicated to the achievements of the civil rights movement in the United States and the broader worldwide human rights movement. Located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, the museum opened t ...

* Six Flags Over Georgia *

Six Flags White Water Six Flags White Water is a water park located northwest of Atlanta, in East Cobb, Georgia. Originally opening in 1984 as White Water Atlanta, the park became part of the Six Flags family of parks in 1999. Today, it is marketed as a second gate ...

* World of Coca-Cola * Zoo Atlanta

Parks

* Atlanta Botanical Garden * The Beltline *

Centennial Olympic Park Centennial Olympic Park is a public park located in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, owned and operated by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. It was built by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) as part of the infrastructu ...

Chastain Park Chastain Memorial Park (originally known as the North Fulton Park, commonly known as Chastain Park) is the largest city park in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a park near the northern edge of the city. Included in the park are jogging paths, playgrou ...

* Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area * Clayton County International Park/The Beach *

Freedom Park In the Philippines, a freedom park is a centrally located public space where political gatherings, rallies and demonstrations may be held without the need of prior permission from government authorities. Similar to free speech zones in the United S ...

* Grant Park *

Historic Fourth Ward Park Historic Fourth Ward Park is a park built on the site of the old Ponce de Leon amusement park, in the Old Fourth Ward of Atlanta, just south of Ponce City Market and just west of the BeltLine Eastside Trail. Currently the park covers in two sepa ...

* Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park *

Piedmont Park Piedmont Park is an urban park in Atlanta, Georgia, located about northeast of Downtown, between the Midtown and Virginia Highland neighborhoods. Originally the land was owned by Dr. Benjamin Walker, who used it as his out-of-town gentleman's ...

* Stone Mountain *

Woodruff Park Woodruff Park, named for Robert W. Woodruff, is located in the heart of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The park's are north of Edgewood Ave, between Peachtree Street NE and Park Place NE. The park includes a fountain, a performance pavilion, an ...

Festivals

* Music Midtown

Other

* CNN Center

Military presence

* Dobbins Air Reserve Base * Fort Gillem, closed *

Fort McPherson Fort McPherson was a U.S. Army military base located in Atlanta, Georgia, bordering the northern edge of the city of East Point, Georgia. It was the headquarters for the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Southeast Region; the U.S. Ar ...

, closed

Transportation

The U.S. Census Bureau has defined a metropolitan area for Atlanta which includes, but is not limited to,

Roswell, Georgia Roswell is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States. At the official 2010 census, the city had a population of 88,346. The 2020 estimated population was 94,884, making Roswell the state's ninth largest city. A close suburb of Atla ...

and Sandy Springs, Georgia. According to the 2016

American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...

, about 78% of working metropolitan residents commuted by driving alone, 9% carpooled, 3% used public transportation, and 1% walked. Less than 1% of working residents commuted by bicycle, while about 2% of commuters travelled by all other means. About 7% of residents worked at home.

Transit systems

Atlanta has always been a rail town, and the city once had an extensive streetcar system, which also provided interurban service as far out as Marietta, to the northwest. The streetcars were replaced by an extensive trolleybus system, supplemented by buses, in the 1940s and 1950–52, and then converted to all buses in the 1950s and 1960–62. However, building a modern rapid transit system proved a difficult and drawn-out process and, compared to the original plans for a regional system, has only partially been accomplished.

MARTA Marta may refer to: People * Marta (given name), a feminine given name * Märta, a feminine given name * Marta (surname) :István Márta composer * Marta (footballer) (born 1986), Brazilian professional footballer Places * Marta (river), an ...

operates buses and a

subway system Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...

in the city of Atlanta, Fulton, Clayton and Dekalb counties, while

and

counties operate their own independent Suburban Transit Systems that feed into MARTA. This is a result of those counties' refusal to join the MARTA system (although Gwinnett voted in March 2019 to join MARTA again), a situation which was originally closely related to white flight from the city. It is the only US system in which the state does not provide any funds for operation or expansion, instead relying entirely on a 1%

in its three counties. Due to the passage of a 1% sales tax in Clayton County on November 4, 2014, MARTA replaced the defunct C-Tran system bringing buses and commuter rail to the county beginning March 2015, with full bus service in 2016. The

Atlanta Streetcar Atlanta Streetcar or Downtown Loop is a streetcar line in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Testing on the line began in summer 2014 with passenger service beginning as scheduled on December 30, 2014. In , the line had rides, or about per wee ...

, a light rail loop, connects

and MARTA heavy rail subway to the Sweet Auburn district and points in between.

Xpress GA Xpress may refer to: *Xpress (TV series), an award-winning multi cultural entertainment series *Xpress, a regional passenger bus service provided by the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority in metropolitan Atlanta * X*Press X*Change, an obsol ...

, a suburban commuter bus service operated by the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority or GRTA, has over 32 routes running from the suburbs and exurbs to downtown Atlanta in 12 metropolitan counties. Plans are underway for commuter rail and

bus rapid transit Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...

(BRT), though these are some years away. The $20 billion Northwest Corridor HOV/BRT project appears to conflict with other plans, such as the metro-wide

Concept 3 Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by sev ...

approved by the

Transit Planning Board The Transit Planning Board was a joint commission of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), and Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA). The TPB partnership was founded in 2006, holding ...

, and the no- barrier HOT lanes on I‑85 in Gwinnett. MARTA is also considering a BRT line of its own to the east. The first commuter rail line would run south of the city, eventually extended to

and possibly Hampton near

. The "

Brain Train The Georgia Rail Passenger Program (GRPP) was a set of plans, as yet unbuilt, for intercity and commuter rail in the U.S. state of Georgia. Commuter Routes Seven commuter routes were proposed to serve the Atlanta suburbs and nearby cities. Athens ...

" would likely be the second route, connecting the University of Georgia in Athens to Emory University and Georgia Tech in Atlanta. As planned, all commuter trains would arrive at the

(MMPT), the long-delayed facility just across Peachtree Street from the Five Points MARTA station, where all of its lines meet. Planning for the system and its extension as intercity rail across the state are the responsibility of the

. Another proposed plan that has received very strong

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

support in recent years is the BeltLine, a

greenbelt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which hav ...

and transit system that takes advantage of existing and unused rail tracks to set up a light rail or streetcar circuit around the core of Atlanta, as well as establishing more green space and footpaths for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Commercial railways

Before Atlanta was even a city, it was a railroad hub. From this came the joke, popular among other Southerners, that "regardless of whether one goes to

heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

, everyone must go through Atlanta first". Many of its suburbs pre-date it as depots or train stations along the major lines in and out of town. Many of these historic stations, including Atlanta's Union Station and Terminal Station, were

demolished Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...

like many county

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

s and other historic buildings. Many have been saved however, including the L&N station in Woodstock, and the stations along the main W&A line in Marietta and Smyrna. Through

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

s, the main railroads in the area are now Norfolk Southern and

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

. The

Georgia Northeastern Railroad The Georgia Northeastern Railroad is a short line freight railroad which runs from the town of Elizabeth, Georgia (now within Marietta, northwest of Atlanta) to the city of Blue Ridge, Georgia. Goods hauled are mostly timber, grain, poultry, an ...

is a short line that also services part of the area. There are also several railyards of Atlanta and vicinity, as well as the Southeastern Railway Museum and the

Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History is a museum in Kennesaw, Georgia, that contains a collection of artifacts and relics from the American Civil War, as well as from railroads of the state of Georgia and surrounding regions. Th ...

. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, more commonly known as Amtrak, runs the intercity rail line Crescent through metro Atlanta twice daily, with one train heading towards New Orleans and the other headed towards

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. All trains make a scheduled stop at Peachtree Station in northern Midtown Atlanta, but it is also possible for arrange for trains to stop in Gainesville, Georgia as well.

Air

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport and is the only

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

for the region (and only major international airport for the state), and as with rail travel, it became the

ubiquitous Omnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present anywhere and everywhere. The term omnipresence is most often used in a religious context as an attribute of a deity or supreme being, while the term ubiquity is generally used to describe ...

place through which everyone must travel at some point.

Atlanta's second airport Atlanta's second airport was an idea being studied by the city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Studies In May 2007, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released the report, ''Capacity Needs in the National Airspace System, 2007–2025'' ...

is in the very preliminary discussion and study phase. Domestic-only carriers from Atlanta: * Alaska Airlines * American Airlines * Frontier Airlines * JetBlue Airways * Spirit Airlines * United Airlines Domestic and international from Atlanta: * Delta Air Lines * Southwest Airlines Foreign-based international carriers: * Aeromexico * Air Canada * Air France (Joint venture with Delta Air Lines) * British Airways * KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Joint venture with Delta Air Lines) * Korean Air * Lufthansa German Airlines * Qatar Airways * Turkish Airlines * Virgin Atlantic * WestJet Other airports (maintained by local counties) include

Charlie Brown Field Fulton County Airport , also known as Charlie Brown Field or Brown’s Field, is a county-owned, public-use airport in Fulton County, Georgia, United States. It is located six nautical miles (7 mi, 11 km) west of the central bus ...

(Fulton), McCollum Field (Cobb),

Cartersville Airport Cartersville Airport , Valley of Pumpkinvine Creek Field, is a public use airport located on a small hill by the Etowah River two nautical miles (4km) west of the headwaters of Pumpkinvine Creek and three nautical miles (6 km) southwest of th ...

(Bartow),

DeKalb Peachtree Airport DeKalb or De Kalb may refer to: People * Baron Johann de Kalb (1721–1780), major general in the American Revolutionary War Places Municipalities in the United States * DeKalb, Illinois, the largest city in the United States named DeKalb **DeKal ...

(DeKalb), Briscoe Field (Gwinnett), Coweta County Airport (Coweta), Cherokee County Airport (Cherokee),

Atlanta Speedway Airport Atlanta Speedway Airport (formerly 4A7), is a public-use airport located three nautical miles (6 km) west of the central business district of Hampton, a city in Henry County, Georgia, United States. It was known as Clayton County Airpor ...

(Henry), and

Paulding County Airport Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport (formerly known as Silver Comet Field, and Paulding County Regional Airport) is a small public-use airport in Paulding County, Georgia, United States. The airport is located in the city of Dallas, Georgia, no ...

(Paulding). Former local airports were Stone Mountain Airport and Parkaire Field, among others.

is the primary business jet airport. This is due to its proximity to Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, and the Perimeter office areas.

Roads and freeways

Atlanta is served by three major interstate highways. Including tributaries, they are the following: (Note: The cities used below are also the control cities used for the Metro Atlanta Bypass/I-285 signs entering from the suburbs.) Interstate 75 passes through from Macon to the south, and from

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

to the north.

Interstate 575 Interstate 575 (I-575) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the United States, which branches off I-75 in Kennesaw and connects the Atlanta metropolitan area with the North Georgia mountains, extending . I-575 is also the unsigned State ...

is a spur which merges with I‑75 near Kennesaw. I‑575 serves northeast portions of Cobb County and a large portion of Cherokee County. It ends in Ball Ground. Interstate 675 (Georgia), Interstate 675 is a route which connects I‑75 in Henry County to I‑285 in southern Dekalb County. Most of the corridor is within Clayton County. Interstate 85 in Georgia, Interstate 85 passes through from Montgomery on the southwest and from Greenville on the northeast. I-75 merges with I-85 to form the Downtown Connector from the Brookwood Interchange, just north of Midtown Atlanta, to just south of the Lakewood Freeway in south Atlanta. Interstate 185 (Georgia), Interstate 185 is a spur which merges with I‑85 in LaGrange and stretches southward to Columbus. Interstate 985 is a spur which merges with I‑85 in Suwanee and serves the northern suburbs of Gwinnett and Hall Counties. It terminates just northeast of Gainesville. Interstate 285 (Georgia), Interstate 285 is the beltway which encircles the city and its immediate eastern suburbs. It is commonly known as the Perimeter. I‑285 passes through Clayton, Cobb, Fulton, and DeKalb Counties. Interstate 20 in Georgia, Interstate 20 passes through from Birmingham to the west and from Augusta to the east. It serves Douglasville, the major suburb west of Atlanta. It serves Lithonia and Conyers to the east. Atlanta is also served by several other freeways, in addition to the interstate highways, including: Georgia 400 is the main corridor serving the north-central suburbs, and was the only toll road in the metropolitan Atlanta area. As of November 23, 2013, the tolls ended and the toll plazas were demolished. It reaches into the northern portion of Fulton County and gradually turns northeast before entering Forsyth County. The controlled-access portion terminates just northeast of the city of Cumming. To the south, it terminates and merges into southbound I‑85 just south of the Buckhead business district. Cumming/Dahlonega is used on I‑285 as the northbound sign, and Atlanta/Buckhead as the southbound. From I‑85 northbound, it uses Buckhead/Cumming. Stone Mountain Freeway, or U.S. 78, is an 8‑mile corridor east of Downtown Atlanta and the neighboring suburb of Decatur. It serves northeast portions of Dekalb County, including the city of Stone Mountain. It continues east as a divided highway into south Gwinnett County, including the suburb of Snellville. U.S. 78 also stretches east to Athens. Lakewood Freeway, or Georgia State Route 166, Georgia 166, extends between Lakewood Park in south Atlanta and Campbellton Road, just west of I‑285. Peachtree Industrial Blvd, or Georgia State Route 141, Georgia 141, is a route north-northeast of Atlanta which begins on the north side of I‑285 and runs parallel to I‑85 for about four miles until it terminates when it splits into GA‑141 and Peachtree Industrial (continuing as a normal divided highway). Georgia State Route 316 is a four-mile-long route that branches from I‑85 and stretches eastward into Gwinnett County. It continues east as a normal divided highway through the suburb of Lawrenceville and on to Athens. There are many historic roads across the area, named after historic mills of the Atlanta area, its mills and historic ferries of the Atlanta area, early ferries, and historic bridges of the Atlanta area, the bridges later built to replace the ferries. Pace's Ferry is perhaps the best known. Owing to the area's long history of settlement and uneven terrain, most arterial roads are not straight but meander instead, which can be confusing as much as the famed proliferation of Atlanta streets with "Peachtree" in the name. It is also often joked that half the streets are named Peachtree, while the other half have several names to make up for it. Partly, confusion is because the region maintains the historic nomenclature of each county naming its roads for the towns they connect with in surrounding counties. Thus, from Dallas to Roswell, Georgia State Route 120, Georgia 120 is Marietta Highway to the Paulding/Cobb county line, is Dallas Highway to the city of Marietta, Whitlock Avenue to the town square, South Park Square for just one city block, Roswell Street to Cobb Parkway (at the Big Chicken), Roswell Road to the Cobb/Fulton county line, and finally Marietta Street to the town square in Roswell. Further confusion is from the arbitrary location of state routes by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), so that they travel an erratic path requiring several turns by drivers instead of traveling the original straight route; and the renaming of roads by state legislators to honor their friends. There are many roads like this throughout the area, leading to duplication of names in different counties. In Fulton, "Roswell Road" refers to Georgia 9 through northern Atlanta and across Sandy Springs, in addition to the above-mentioned use in Cobb, for example. Numeric street addressing is done by county as well, with the origin usually being at one corner of the town square in the county seat. The U.S. Postal Service ignores these actual and logical boundaries however, overlapping ZIP codes and their associated place names across counties. The Cumberland/Galleria area has Cobb's numbers and an "SE" suffix, but is called "Atlanta" by the USPS (despite being Vinings, which the USPS ironically calls "unacceptable"), which can confuse visitors to think it is far away in southeast Atlanta. Where more than one town in the same county has a road to the same place, the smaller towns have their own name prefixed to it, while the county seat does not. The road need not go directly to the other place, but may connect through other roads. Examples include Due West Road west from Marietta, Kennesaw Due West Road southwest from Kennesaw, and Acworth Due West Road south from Acworth. Some are usually hyphenated, like Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, and Chamblee-Tucker Road. There are also several roads named for communities which have been overwhelmed by the urban and suburban sprawl, and so are somewhat odd to newcomers. These include Sandy Plains, Georgia, Sandy Plains, Crabapple, Georgia, Crabapple, Toonigh, Georgia, Toonigh, Luxomni, Georgia, Luxomni, and Due West, Georgia, Due West. Some of these communities are in the middle of the road, while some are at or very near one end. Some areas are renamed, either over time (Sandy Plains gradually became "Sprayberry" when Sprayberry High School moved there and similarly named shopping centers popped up around it); by the USPS (Toonigh is identified as "Lebanon"), or after rapid development. In such cases, the roads usually maintain their historic names even if the neighborhoods do not. There are also a few U.S. highways that cross the area, including U.S. Route 19 in Georgia, 19, U.S. Route 23 in Georgia, 23, U.S. Route 29 in Georgia, 29, U.S. Route 41 in Georgia, 41, and U.S. Route 78 in Georgia, 78. Other arterials are completely new, like much of Barrett Parkway, Sugarloaf Parkway and South Fulton Parkway, constructed by their counties but partly covered with a state route number. Occasionally, roads are realigned or extended to meet each other directly at a cross-road, leading to odd curves and name changes.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Atlanta Metropolitan Area Atlanta metropolitan area, Regions of Georgia (U.S. state) Metropolitan areas of Georgia (U.S. state)