Welcome to Nashville, Tennessee

​Nashville is the capital of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is the second most populous city in the state after Memphis. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a major hub for the health care, music, publishing, banking and transportation industries.

Nashville has a consolidated city-county government which includes seven smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The 2008 population of the entire 13-county Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area makes it the largest metropolitan area in the state.

Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, and a party of Wataugans in 1779, and was originally called Fort Nashborough, after the American Revolutionary War hero Francis Nash. Nashville quickly grew because of its prime location, accessibility as a river port, and its later status as a major railroad center. In 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee.

It was the advent of the Grand Ole Opry in 1925, combined with an already thriving publishing industry, that positioned it to become "Music City USA". and in the early 1960s the city was home to the main activity of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
 
In 1963, Nashville consolidated its government with Davidson County and thus became the first major city in the United States to form a metropolitan government. Since the 1970s, the city has experienced tremendous growth, particularly during the economic boom of the 1990s under the leadership of Mayor and now-Tennessee Governor, Phil Bredesen, who made urban renewal a priority, and fostered the construction or renovation of several city landmarks, including the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Public Library downtown, the Sommet Center, and LP Field.

Nashville has several professional sports teams, most notably the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League and the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League. Several other pro sports teams also call Nashville home, as does the NCAA college football Music City Bowl. The Vanderbilt Commodores are members of the Southeastern Conference. The football team of Tennessee State University plays its home games at LP Field.

The Sommet Center, formerly Nashville Arena and Gaylord Entertainment Center, was built as both a large concert facility and as an enticement to lure either a National Basketball Association or National Hockey League (NHL) sports franchise.[citation needed] This was accomplished in 1997 when Nashville was awarded an NHL expansion team which was subsequently named the Nashville Predators. LP Field  was built after the National Football League's (NFL) Houston Oilers agreed to move to the city in 1995. The NFL debuted in Nashville in 1998 at Vanderbilt Stadium, and LP Field opened in the summer of 1999. The Oilers changed their name to the Tennessee Titans and saw a season culminate in the Music City Miracle and a close Super Bowl game.

Today the city along the Cumberland River is a crossroads of American culture, and one of the fastest-growing areas of the Upper South.

The downtown area of Nashville features a diverse assortment of entertainment, dining, cultural and architectural attractions. The Broadway and 2nd Avenue areas feature entertainment venues, night clubs and an assortment of restaurants. North of Broadway lies Nashville's central business district, Legislative Plaza, Capitol Hill and the Tennessee Bicentennial Mall. Cultural and architectural attractions can be found throughout the city.

Ryman Auditorium, the "Mother Church of Country Music"The Tennessee Performing Arts Center is the major performing arts center of the city. It is the home of the Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Nashville Children's Theatre, the Nashville Opera, and Nashville Ballet. In September 2006, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center opened as the home of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Nashville facilitates a variety of music genres and entertainment.

As the city's name itself is a metonym for the country music industry, many popular tourist sites involve country music, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Belcourt Theatre and Ryman Auditorium. Ryman was home to the Grand Ole Opry until 1974 when the show moved to the Grand Ole Opry House nine miles east of downtown. The Opry plays there several times a week, except for an annual winter run at Ryman.

Each year, the CMA Music Festival brings thousands of country fans to the city.

Lower Broadway and Printer's Alley are home to many honky tonk bars and clubs.
The Christian pop and rock music industry is based along Nashville's Music Row, with a great influence in neighboring Williamson County. The Christian record companies include EMI (formally Sparrow Records), Rocketown Records, Gotee Records, Beach Street and Reunion Records.

Although Nashville was never known as a jazz town, it did have many great jazz bands including The Nashville Jazz Machine led by Dave Converse and its current version, the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, led by Jim Williamson, as well as The Establishment, led by Billy Adair. The Francis Craig Orchestra entertained Nashvillians from 1929 to 1945 from the Oak Bar and Grille Room in the Hermitage Hotel. Craig's orchestra was also the first to broadcast over local radio station WSM-AM and enjoyed phenomenal success with a 12-year show on the NBC Radio Network. In the late 1930s, he introduced a newcomer, Dinah Shore, a local graduate of Hume Fogg High School and Vanderbilt University.

Civil War history is important to the city's tourism industry. Sites pertaining to the Battle of Nashville and the nearby Battle of Franklin and Battle of Stones River can be seen, along with several well-preserved antebellum plantation houses such as Belle Meade Plantation, Carnton plantation in Franklin and Belmont Mansion.

Nashville has several arts centers and museums, including the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located in the former post office building; Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art; the Tennessee State Museum; Fisk University's Van Vechten and Aaron Douglas Galleries; Vanderbilt University's Fine Art Gallery and Sarratt Gallery; and the Parthenon. The Nashville Zoo is one of the city's newer attractions.

Nashville is considered a gateway city for rail and air traffic for the Piedmont Atlantic MegaRegion. The city is served by Nashville International Airport, which was a hub for American Airlines between 1986 and 1995 and is now a mini-hub for Southwest Airlines. Although it is a major rail hub, with a large CSX Transportation freight rail yard, Nashville is one of the largest cities in the U.S. not served by Amtrak.