678 Area Code 🌍☎️

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city of Georgia, serving as the county seat of Fulton County with a population of 498,715 as of the 2020 census and an estimated 529,110 in 2025, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Southeast and 36th in the United States, while its metropolitan area of over 6.4 million ranks as the sixth-largest in the nation. Founded in 1836 as the terminus of the Western and Atlantic Railroad - from which its name derives - Atlanta rapidly became a major transportation hub and convergence point for multiple railroad lines, though it was nearly destroyed during the American Civil War when Union General William T. Sherman burned the city in 1864 during his March to the Sea. The city rebounded dramatically in the post-Civil War period to become the unofficial capital of the "New South" and a national industrial center, while also serving as a major organizing center of the American civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s under leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has been the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998, handling an estimated 93.7 million passengers in 2022, and the city's diverse economy with a nominal GDP of $473 billion in 2021 ranks 11th among U.S. cities and 22nd globally, with dominant sectors including transportation, aerospace, logistics, healthcare, media, film and television production, and biotechnology. The 1996 Summer Olympics catalyzed significant development in the city's universities, parks, and tourism infrastructure, while the modern Atlanta Beltline rail trail project has driven gentrification and demographic change throughout neighborhoods in the 21st century. Marietta is a city in and the county seat of Cobb County, Georgia, located in the Atlanta metropolitan area where it ranks as the fourth largest principal city by population with 60,972 residents according to the 2020 census. The city was named in 1833-1834 (officially recognized December 19, 1834) for Mary Cobb, wife of U.S. Senator Thomas Willis Cobb, and developed around an 1838-built courthouse square after settlers established homes near the Cherokee town of Big Shanty beginning before 1824. Early prosperity came from its selection as the hub for the Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1838, though the railroad's management relocated operations to Atlanta in 1842, with the railroad beginning operation in 1850 and bringing renewed economic growth. The city is historically significant for the Great Locomotive Chase on April 12, 1862, when Union soldier James Andrews and his Raiders stole the locomotive General from Big Shanty in a failed attempt to disrupt Confederate supply lines, leading to their capture and execution as spies. During the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman invaded Marietta in summer 1864, and General Hugh Kilpatrick burned the town in November 1864 as the opening strike of Sherman's March to the Sea, with the Kennesaw House (formerly Fletcher House hotel) now serving as the Marietta Museum of History. Jonesboro is the county seat of Clayton County, Georgia, with a 2020 population of 4,235. Originally settled in 1821 and founded as Leaksville in 1823, the city was renamed Jonesboro in 1846 after the Macon and Western Railroad arrived, honoring railroad official Samuel Goode Jones. The city is historically significant as the site of the final Battle of Jonesborough in September 1864, which ended the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War and contributed to Abraham Lincoln's reelection two months later. Jonesboro hosted beach volleyball at the 1996 Summer Olympics and inspired Margaret Mitchell's fictional plantation Tara in *Gone with the Wind*, and scenes from the 1977 film *Smokey and the Bandit* were filmed there. In March 2023, the city elected Dr. Sonya Sartor as its first Black mayor.