page_title: Georgia (U.S. state)
section_title: Major cities
hierarchical_section_title: Georgia (U.S. state) / Demographics / Major cities
caption_attribution_description: English: Atlanta, Georgia Cityscape View
context_page_description: Georgia is a state in the Southeastern Region of the United States. Georgia is the 24th-largest in area and 8th-most populous of the 50 United States. Georgia is bordered to the north by Tennessee and North Carolina, to the northeast by South Carolina, to the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by Florida, and to the west by Alabama. Its 2019 estimated population was 10,617,423, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Atlanta, a "beta" global city, is both the state's capital and its largest city. The Atlanta metropolitan area, with an estimated population of more than 6 million people in 2019, is the 9th most populous metropolitan area in the United States and contains about 57% of Georgia's entire population.
  Founded in 1733 as a British colony, Georgia was the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. Named after King George II of Great Britain, the Colony of Georgia covered the area from South Carolina south to Spanish Florida and west to French Louisiana at the Mississippi River. On January 2, 1788, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
context_section_description: Atlanta, located in north-central Georgia at the Eastern Continental Divide, has been Georgia's capital city since 1868. It is the most populous city in Georgia, with an estimated 2019 population of just over 506,000.
  The Atlanta metropolitan area is the cultural and economic center of the Southeast; its estimated population in 2019 was over 6 million, or 57% of Georgia's total. Atlanta is the nation's ninth largest metropolitan area.
  The state has seventeen cities with populations above 50,000, based on 2019 U.S. Census estimates.
  * In 2014, the City of Macon and most of unincorporated Bibb County officially merged. Macon joined Columbus, Augusta, Athens, Cusseta and Georgetown as consolidated city-county governments in Georgia.
  The U.S. Census Bureau lists fourteen metropolitan areas in Georgia.
  Along with the rest of the Southeast, Georgia's population continues to grow rapidly, with primary gains concentrated in urban areas. The population of the Atlanta metropolitan area added 1.23 million people (24 percent) between 2000 and 2010, and Atlanta rose in rank from the eleventh-largest metropolitan area in the United States to the ninth-largest.
caption: Downtown Atlanta
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