About Atlanta
Atlanta is the capital of Georgia (one of the original thirteen colonies that helped form the United States of America) and the major city of the southeastern United States. The city is young, dynamic, and progressive, with a metropolitan population of over 5.1 million people. The first human settlement in the metro Atlanta area was a village called Standing Peachtree, inhabited by members of the Creek Native American tribe. Europeans came to the area in the early 1830s, and in 1837 the Western and Atlantic Railroad built the end point of its rail line near what is now the corner of Piedmont Avenue and International Boulevard. The town that arose near that rail line was first called Terminus, then Marthasville, and then renamed Atlanta. First incorporated in 1847, the city was conquered and burned by the Union army of General William Tecumseh Sherman in September 1864, during the Civil War that split the young United States into northern (Union) and southern (Confederate) sections. After the Confederate army's surrender in 1865, the men and women of Atlanta vowed to rebuild their city. The seal of the city, adopted in 1887, shows a phoenix (a mythical bird) rising from the ashes of its funeral pyre to live again, with the Latin motto Resurgens (meaning "rising again").
In addition to being the southeastern center for business, banking, government, and transportation, Atlanta is important to the educational and cultural life of the South. Atlanta is the home of thirty colleges and universities, including Emory, Agnes Scott College, the Atlanta College of Art, Clark Atlanta University, the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Georgia State University, Mercer University Atlanta, Morris Brown College, Morehouse College, Oglethorpe University, and Spelman College.
Several professional sports teams are based in Atlanta, including the Braves baseball team, the Falcons football team, the Hawks basketball team, and the Thrashers hockey team. Opera and theater have been strong since the opening of DeGive's Opera House in 1893, and now the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center houses the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Alliance Theatre, and the High Museum of Art. Atlanta was privileged to be the host for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, and is the home of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
Located more than 1,000 feet above sea level, Atlanta has four distinct seasons. A few hours north of the city are the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Trail. East and south of Atlanta are the beaches of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. The historic cities of Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, are easily accessible.