769 Area Code 🌍☎️

Jackson is the capital and most populous city of Mississippi, located on the Pearl River in the Deep South halfway between Memphis and New Orleans on Interstate 55, with a 2020 population of 153,701 and a metropolitan area of 592,000 residents. Founded in 1821 as the state's centrally located capital and named after General Andrew Jackson, a War of 1812 hero and seventh U.S. president, the city was destroyed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's forces during the 1863 siege following the Battle of Vicksburg. Jackson became Mississippi's most populous city during the 1920s natural gas boom, surpassing Meridian, and serves as a major cultural hub known as "The City with Soul" for its prominent blues, gospel, jazz, and folk music heritage. The city hosts numerous museums and cultural institutions including the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, and Mississippi Children's Museum, along with the Mississippi Coliseum and home of the Jackson State Tigers football team. As of 2020, the Jackson metropolitan area generated $30 billion in GDP, representing 29 percent of Mississippi's total economic output. Meridian is Mississippi's eighth most populous city with 35,052 residents as of the 2020 census, located 93 miles east of Jackson and serving as the county seat of Lauderdale County. Established in 1860 at the junction of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and Southern Railway of Mississippi, the city became a major trading and manufacturing hub until General William Tecumseh Sherman destroyed much of it during the February 1864 Battle of Meridian. Rebuilt after the Civil War, Meridian entered a "Golden Age" and was the largest city in Mississippi from 1890 to 1930, with its historic 1906 Union Station now serving approximately 242,360 passengers annually through Amtrak and Greyhound. The economy is currently sustained by military installations Naval Air Station Meridian and Key Field, which employ over 4,000 people, along with healthcare provider Ochsner Rush Health employing 2,610, despite the decline of the railroad industry. Meridian is known as the birthplace of Jimmie Rodgers, the "Father of Country Music," and features notable landmarks including the Highland Park Dentzel Carousel - a National Historic Landmark and the world's only two-row stationary Dentzel menagerie - along with the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience in its downtown. Vicksburg is the county seat of Warren County, Mississippi, located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, with a population of 21,573 in 2020 and an estimated 20,032 in 2024. French colonists founded the settlement in 1719 as Fort Saint Pierre for fur trading, and the city was incorporated as Vicksburg in 1825 after Methodist missionary Newitt Vick. During the American Civil War, Vicksburg served as a key Confederate river port until its surrender to Ulysses S. Grant in July 1863, a turning point in the war alongside the concurrent Battle of Gettysburg. The city experienced violent white supremacist control during Reconstruction, including the Vicksburg massacre of 1874-1875, and today has a majority African American population. Vicksburg is home to three large installations of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which has historically managed local flood control efforts.