Atlanta

Diverse musical heritage

Atlanta is the capital city of the Southeast, a city of the future with strong ties to its past. The old in new Atlanta is the soul of the city, the heritage that enhances the quality of life in a contemporary city. In the turbulent 60s, Atlanta was “the city too busy to hate.” And today, in the 21st century, Atlanta is the “city not too busy to care.”

In the past two decades, Atlanta has experienced unprecedented growth — the official city population remains steady, at about 420,000, but the metro population has grown in the past decade by nearly 40 percent, from 2.9 million to 4.1 million people. A good measure of this growth is the ever-changing downtown skyline, along with skyscrapers constructed in the Midtown, Buckhead, and outer perimeter (fringing I-285) business districts.

source: atlantaga.gov

The location

Learn about Atlanta

About

Atlanta was founded in 1837 as the end of the Western & Atlantic railroad line (it was first named Marthasville in honor of the then-governor's daughter, nicknamed Terminus for its rail location, and then changed soon after to Atlanta, the feminine of Atlantic -- as in the railroad). Today the fast-growing city remains a transportation hub, not just for the country but also for the world: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest in daily passenger flights. Direct flights to Europe, South America, and Asia have made metro Atlanta easily accessible to the more than 1,000 international businesses that operate here and the more than 50 countries that have representation in the city through consulates, trade offices, and chambers of commerce. The city has emerged as a banking center and boasts the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the country.

source: atlantaga.gov