Atlanta, Georgia. City and Business guide.

Welcome to Atlanta, Georgia.

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city of the state of Georgia in the US. According to the July 2005 census estimate, the city has a population of 470,688 and a metropolitan population of 4,917,717.

Common colloquialisms for the city include A Town, The A-T-L (derived from its IATA airport code), Hotlanta, and The A'. It is common for those unfamiliar with Atlanta to associate it with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta, Georgia. The dome is covered with gold leaf mined from the north Georgia city of Dahlonega. Photo taken Jan. 16 by J. Glover.
According to folklore, its central avenue, Peachtree Street, runs through the center of the city on the Eastern Continental Divide. In actuality, the divide line enters Atlanta from the southwest, proceeding to downtown. From downtown, the divide line runs eastward along DeKalb Avenue and the CSX rail lines through Decatur. Rainwater that falls on the south and east side runs eventually into the Atlantic Ocean while rainwater on the north and west side of the divide runs into the Gulf of Mexico.

Atlanta boasts a variety of museums on subjects ranging from history to fine arts, natural history, and beverages. Prominent among them are sites honoring Atlanta's participation in the civil rights movement. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in the city, and his boyhood home on Auburn Avenue in the Sweet Auburn district is preserved as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. Meetings with other civil rights leaders, including Hosea Williams and current Congressman John Lewis, often happened at Paschal's, a diner and motor inn which was a favorite for "colored" people, banned from "white" restaurants in an era of racial segregation and intolerance. King's final resting place is in the tomb at the center of the reflecting pool at the King Center.

Other history museums and attractions include the Atlanta History Center; the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum (a huge painting and diorama in-the-round, with a rotating central audience platform, that depicts the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War); the Carter Center and Presidential Library; historic house museum Rhodes Hall; and the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.

Atlanta features the world's largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, which officially opened to the public on November 23, 2005. The aquarium features over 100,000 specimens in tanks holding approximately eight million gallons of water. One unique museum is the World of Coca-Cola featuring the history of the world famous soft drink brand and its well-known advertising. Adjacent is Underground Atlanta, a historic shopping and entertainment complex situated under the streets of downtown Atlanta. In addition the Atlantic Station, a huge new urban renewal project on the northwestern edge of Midtown Atlanta, officially opened in October of 2005. While not a museum per se, The Varsity is the main branch of the long-lived fast food chain, featured as the world's largest drive-in restaurant.

Just east of the city, Stone Mountain is the largest piece of exposed granite in the world. On its face are giant carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. It is also the site of impressive laser shows in the summer.

Atlanta has a reputation as a highly musical city, especially well-known for hip-hop and R&B musicians. Jermaine Dupri's 2001 hip hop single "Welcome to Atlanta" (feat. Ludacris) declares Atlanta the "new Motown", referencing the city of Detroit, Michigan, which was known for its contributions to popular music, fertile job market and affordable urban housing in the 1950's to 1980's. Atlanta has also produced rock and pop music singers, such as The Black Crowes, alternative metal band Sevendust, rock bands Collective Soul and Third Day, the folk-pop Indigo Girls, Butch Walker, and was a proving ground for Connecticut-born pop-rock-blues musician John Mayer.

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