Tennessee

This article is about the State of Tennessee. For the river, see Tennessee River. For other uses, see Tennessee (disambiguation).

"Tenn" redirects here. For the Japanese MC, see Tenn (MC).

Tennessee
State
State of Tennessee
Flag Seal
Nickname:  The Volunteer State
Motto(s):  Agriculture and Commerce
Anthem: Nine songs
Map of the United States with Tennessee highlighted
Country	United States
Before statehood	Southwest Territory
Admitted to the Union	June 1, 1796 (16th)
Capital (and largest city)	Nashville
Largest metro and urban areas	Greater Nashville
Government
• Governor	Bill Lee (R)
• Lieutenant Governor	Randy McNally (R)
Legislature	General Assembly
• Upper house	Senate
• Lower house	House of Representatives
Judiciary	Tennessee Supreme Court
U.S. senators	Marsha Blackburn (R) Bill Hagerty (R)
U.S. House delegation	7 Republicans 2 Democrats (list)
Area
• Total	42,143 sq mi (109,247 km2)
• Land	41,217 sq mi (106,846 km2)
• Water	926 sq mi (2,401 km2)  2.2%
• Rank	36th
Dimensions
• Length	440 mi (710 km)
• Width	120 mi (195 km)
Elevation	900 ft (270 m)
Highest elevation (Clingmans Dome)	6,643 ft (2,025 m)
Lowest elevation (Mississippi River at Mississippi border)	178 ft (54 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	6,916,897
• Rank	16th
• Density	167.8/sq mi (64.8/km2)
• Rank	20th
• Median household income	$53,320
• Income rank	42nd
Demonyms	Tennessean Big Bender (archaic) Volunteer (historical significance)
Language
• Official language	English
• Spoken language	Language spoken at home English: 94.6% Spanish: 3.9% Other: 1.5%
Time zones
East Tennessee	UTC−05:00 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−04:00 (EDT)
Middle and West	UTC−06:00 (Central)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−05:00 (CDT)
USPS abbreviation	TN
ISO 3166 code	US-TN
Traditional abbreviation	Tenn.
Latitude	34°59′ N to 36°41′ N
Longitude	81°39′ W to 90°19′ W
Website	www.tn.gov

Tennessee (/ˌtɛnəˈsiː/ , locally /ˈtɛnəsi/), officially the State of Tennessee, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest by area and the 16th most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by eight states, with Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors the state's largest metropolitan area. Shelby County is its most populous administrative division, and contains its second-largest city, Memphis. The state's population as of the 2020 United States census is approximately 6.9 million.

Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachian Mountains. The state's name is derived from "Tanasi", a Cherokee town in the eastern part of the state that existed before the first European American settlement. Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory, before its admission to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. It earned the nickname "The Volunteer State" early in its history due to a strong tradition of military service. A slave state until the American Civil War, Tennessee was politically divided, with its western and middle parts supporting the Confederacy and the eastern parts harboring pro-Union sentiment. As a result, Tennessee was the last state to formally join the Confederacy and the first readmitted to the Union after the war.

During the 20th century, Tennessee transitioned from a predominantly agrarian society to a more diversified economy. This was aided in part by massive federal investment in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the city of Oak Ridge, which was established just outside of Knoxville to house the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities. Oak Ridge was used to construct the world's first atomic bombs, two of which were dropped on Imperial Japan near the end of World War II. After the war, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory became a key center of scientific research. In 2016, the element tennessine was named for the state, largely in recognition of the roles played by Oak Ridge, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Tennessee in its discovery. The state has also played a major role in the development of many forms of popular music, including country, blues, rock and roll, soul, and gospel.

Tennessee has diverse terrain and landforms, and from east to west, contains a mix of topographic features characteristic of Appalachia, the Upland South, and the Deep South. The Blue Ridge Mountains along the eastern border reach elevations above 6,000 feet (1,800 m), and the Cumberland Plateau contains many scenic valleys and waterfalls. The central part of the state is marked by cavernous bedrock and irregular rolling hills, and level, fertile plains define western Tennessee. The state is twice bisected by the Tennessee River, and the Mississippi River forms its western border. Its economy is dominated by the health care, music, automotive, chemical, electronics, banking, food, and tourism industries, and cattle, soybeans, corn, poultry, and cotton are its primary agricultural products. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation's most visited national park, is in eastern Tennessee.

Etymology

Main article: Name of Tennessee

The name Tennessee derives from the Cherokee settlement of Tanasi (ᏔᎾᏏ), whose etymology is uncertain. According to ethnographer James Mooney, the name "can not be analyzed", and its meaning is lost.

History

Main article: History of Tennessee

Pre-European era

Mississippian-period shell gorget from the Castalian Springs Mound Site in Sumner County

The area now known as Tennessee was first inhabited by Paleo-Indians about 12,000 years ago at the end of the Last Glacial Period. Archaeological excavations have indicated that the lower Tennessee Valley was heavily populated with Ice Age hunter-gatherers, and what is now Middle Tennessee is believed to have been rich with game animals such as mastodons. The names of the cultural groups who inhabited the area between first settlements and the time of European contact are unknown, but archaeologists have named several distinct cultural phases, including the Archaic (8000–1000 BC), Woodland (1000 BC–1000 AD), and Mississippian (1000–1600 AD) periods.

The Archaic peoples first domesticated dogs and created the first villages in the state, but were largely hunter-gatherers confined to smaller territories than their predecessors. During the Woodland period, Natives first grew such plants as squash, corn, gourds, and sunflowers, sculpted pottery, and established the first organized agricultural civilizations. Later generations of Woodland peoples constructed the first mounds in the state. The most rapid civilizational development occurred during the Mississippian period, when Indigenous peoples developed more complex organized chiefdoms such as Mound Bottom near Nashville and Toqua and Citico in East Tennessee, and constructed numerous mounds and other ceremonial structures throughout the state. Spanish conquistadors who explored the state in the 16th century encountered some of these Native peoples, including the Muscogee Creek, Yuchi, and Shawnee.

By the early 18th century, most Natives in Tennessee had disappeared, most likely wiped out by diseases introduced by the Spaniards, leaving a population vacuum. The Cherokee began migrating into what is now eastern Tennessee from what is now Virginia in the latter 17th century, possibly to escape expanding European settlement and diseases in the north. They forced the Creek, Yuchi, and Shawnee out of the state in the early 18th century. The Chickasaw remained confined to West Tennessee, and the middle part of the state contained few Native Americans, although both the Cherokee and the Shawnee claimed the region as their hunting ground. Cherokee peoples in Tennessee were known by European settlers as the Overhill Cherokee because they lived west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Overhill settlements grew along the rivers in East Tennessee in the early 18th century.

Exploration and colonization

Further information: Province of North Carolina; Watauga Association; Washington District, North Carolina; State of Franklin; and Southwest Territory

The first recorded European excursions into what is now called Tennessee were three expeditions led by Spanish explorers: Hernando de Soto in 1540–1541, Tristan de Luna in 1559, and Juan Pardo in 1566–1567. Pardo recorded the name "Tanasqui" from a local Native American village, which evolved into the state's current name. In 1673, Abraham Wood, a British fur trader, sent an expedition led by James Needham and Gabriel Arthur from Fort Henry in the Colony of Virginia into Overhill Cherokee territory in modern-day northeastern Tennessee. Needham was killed during the expedition and Arthur was taken prisoner for more than a year. That same year, a French expedition led by missionary Jacques Marquette and trader Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi River and became the first Europeans to map the Mississippi Valley. In 1682, an expedition led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle constructed Fort Prudhomme on the Chickasaw Bluffs in West Tennessee. By the late 17th century, French traders also began to explore the Cumberland River valley. In 1714, a group of French traders under Charles Charleville's command established a settlement at the present location of downtown Nashville near the Cumberland River, which became known as French Lick. These settlers quickly established an extensive fur trading network with the local Native Americans. In 1739, the French constructed Fort Assumption under Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville on the Mississippi River at the present-day location of Memphis, which they used as a base against the Chickasaw during the 1739 Campaign of the Chickasaw Wars, but abandoned the fort the next year.

Reconstruction of Fort Loudoun, the first British settlement in Tennessee

In the 1750s and 1760s, longhunters from Virginia explored much of East and Middle Tennessee. In 1756, settlers from the Colony of South Carolina built Fort Loudoun near present-day Vonore, the first British settlement in what is now Tennessee, and the westernmost British outpost to that date. Hostilities erupted between the British and the Overhill Cherokees into an armed conflict, and a siege of the fort ended with its surrender in 1760. After the end of the French and Indian War, Britain issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains in an effort to mitigate conflicts with the Natives. Despite this proclamation, migration across the mountains continued, and the first permanent European settlers began arriving in the northeastern part of the state in the late 1760s. Most 18th-century settlers were English or of primarily English descent, but nearly 20% of them were Scotch-Irish. These settlers formed the Watauga Association in 1772, a semi-autonomous representative government built on lands leased from the Cherokee. Three years later, the settlers reorganized themselves into the Washington District to support the cause of the American Revolutionary War, which had begun months before. The following year, after an unsuccessful petition for annexation from Virginia, the settlers petitioned the government of North Carolina to annex the Washington District in order to provide protection from Native American attacks, which was granted in November 1776.

In 1775, Richard Henderson negotiated a series of treaties with the Cherokee to sell the lands of the Watauga settlements at Sycamore Shoals on the banks of the Watauga River in present-day Elizabethton. An agreement to sell land for the Transylvania Colony, which included the territory in modern-day Tennessee north of the Cumberland River, was also signed. Later that year, Daniel Boone, under Henderson's employment, blazed a trail from Fort Chiswell in Virginia through the Cumberland Gap, which became part of the Wilderness Road, a major thoroughfare for settlers into Tennessee and Kentucky. In 1776, Dragging Canoe and his warring Cherokee faction aligned with British loyalists, known as the Chickamauga, attacked Fort Watauga at Sycamore Shoals. They opposed the settling of the Washington District and Transylvania Colony. The warnings of Dragging Canoe's cousin Nancy Ward spared many settlers' lives from the initial attacks. The frontier fort later served as a staging area for the Overmountain Men in preparation for their trek over the Appalachian Mountains to engage and defeat the British Army at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina in 1780.

In 1779, James Robertson and John Donelson led two groups of settlers from the Washington District to the French Lick along the Cumberland River. These settlers constructed Fort Nashborough, which they named for Francis Nash, a brigadier general of the Continental Army. The next year, the settlers signed the Cumberland Compact, which established a representative government known as the Cumberland Association for the colony. This settlement later grew into the city of Nashville. In an effort to encourage settlers to move west into the new territory, North Carolina ordered a road called Avery's Trace to be cut in 1787 from the south end of Clinch Mountain in East Tennessee to French Lick, which was completed the following year.

The Southwest Territory in 1790

Three counties of the Washington District broke off from North Carolina in 1784 and formed the State of Franklin. Efforts to obtain admission to the Union failed, and the counties, now numbering eight, rejoined North Carolina by 1788. North Carolina ceded the area to the federal government in 1790, after which it was organized into the Southwest Territory on May 26 of that year. The act allowed for the establishment of a government when the population reached 5,000, and allowed the territory to petition for statehood once the population was 60,000. Administration of the territory was divided between the Washington District and the Mero District, the latter of which consisted of the Cumberland Association and was named for Spanish territorial governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró. President George Washington appointed William Blount as territorial governor. The Southwest Territory recorded a population of 35,691 in the first United States census that year, including 3,417 slaves.

Statehood and antebellum era

Surveyor Daniel Smith's "Map of the Tennassee State" (1796)

As support for statehood grew among the settlers, Governor Blount called for elections, which were held in December 1793. The territorial House of Representatives, which consisted of 13 members, first convened in Knoxville on February 24, 1794 to select ten members for the legislature's upper house, known as the Council. The full legislature convened on August 25, 1794, enacting the territory's first laws. In June 1795, the legislature conducted a census of the territory and a poll of the settlers on the question of statehood. The census recorded a population of 77,263, including 10,613 slaves, and the poll showed 6,504 in favor of statehood and 2,562 opposed, with most the inhabitants of the Cumberland Association against statehood. Elections for a constitutional convention were held in December 1795, and the delegates convened in Knoxville on January 17, 1796 to begin drafting a state constitution. During this convention, the delegates chose the name Tennessee for the new state. The constitution was completed on February 6, which authorized elections for the proposed state's new legislature, the Tennessee General Assembly. The legislature convened on March 28, 1796, and the next day, John Sevier was announced as the state's first governor. After months of debate in Congress, Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state. It was the first state created from territory under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

Tennessee reportedly earned the nickname "The Volunteer State" during the War of 1812, when 3,500 men enthusiastically answered a recruitment call by the General Assembly for the war effort. These soldiers, under Andrew Jackson's command, played a major role in the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, the last major battle of the war. A number of Tennesseans took part in the Texas Revolution of 1835–36, including Governor Sam Houston and Congressman and frontiersman Davy Crockett, who was killed at the Battle of the Alamo. The state's nickname was solidified during the Mexican–American War when President James K. Polk of Tennessee issued a call for 2,800 soldiers from the state, and more than 30,000 volunteered.

The Hermitage, plantation home of President Andrew Jackson in Nashville

As more white settlers moved into Tennessee, they came into increasing conflict with the Native tribes. Several additional land cessions were negotiated with the Cherokee, who had established a national government modeled on the U.S. Constitution, between the 1790s and 1820s. In 1818, Jackson and Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby reached an agreement with the Chickasaw to sell the land between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers to the United States, which included all of West Tennessee and western Kentucky, and became known as the "Jackson Purchase".

In 1832, the Cherokee moved their capital from Georgia to the Red Clay Council Grounds in southeastern Tennessee, due to new state laws forcing them from their previous capital at New Echota. In 1838 and 1839, U.S. troops forcibly removed nearly 17,000 Cherokees and about 2,000 Black people the Cherokees enslaved from their homes in southeastern Tennessee, and forced them to march to Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma. An estimated 4,000 died along the way. The operation was orchestrated from Fort Cass in Charleston, which was constructed on the site of the Indian agency. In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Isunyi, meaning "the Trail Where We Cried", and removal route is commonly known as the Trail of Tears.

As settlers pushed west of the Cumberland Plateau, a slavery-based agrarian economy took hold in these regions. Cotton planters extensively utilized slave labor on large plantation complexes in the fertile and flat terrains of West Tennessee after the Jackson Purchase. Cotton also took hold in the Nashville Basin during this time. Entrepreneurs such as Montgomery Bell used slaves in the production of iron in the Western Highland Rim, and slaves also cultivated such crops as tobacco and corn throughout the Highland Rim. East Tennessee's geography did not allow for large plantations as in the middle and western parts of the state, and as a result, slavery became increasingly rare in the region. A strong abolition movement developed in East Tennessee, beginning as early as 1797, and in 1819, Elihu Embree of Jonesborough began publishing the Manumission Intelligencier (later The Emancipator), the nation's first exclusively anti-slavery newspaper.

Civil War

Main article: Tennessee in the American Civil War

At the onset of the American Civil War, Tennesseans were divided in their allegiances between the North and the South. This was primarily due to the distribution of slavery throughout the state; most Middle and West Tennesseans favored secession in order to preserve the slavery-based economy in those regions, while in East Tennessee, where slavery was rare, most favored remaining in the Union. In 1860, slaves composed about 25% of the population of Tennessee, the lowest share of the states that joined the Confederacy. The state provided more Union troops than any other Confederate state; more than 51,000 soldiers, more than 20,000 of whom were Black. The state provided about 135,000 Confederate troops, the second-highest number after Virginia. Due to its central location, Tennessee was a crucial state during the war, and saw more military engagements than any other except Virginia.

After Abraham Lincoln's election as president in 1860, secessionists in the state government, led by Governor Isham Harris, sought voter approval for a convention to sever ties with the United States, which was rejected in a referendum by a 54–46% margin in February 1861. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln's call for troops from Tennessee and other states in response, Harris began military mobilization, submitted an ordinance of secession to the General Assembly, and made direct overtures to the Confederate government. The Tennessee legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederate States on May 7, 1861. On June 8, with Middle Tennesseeans having significantly changed their position, voters approved a second referendum on secession by a 69–31% margin, becoming the last state to secede. In response, East Tennessee Unionists organized a convention in Knoxville with the goal of splitting East Tennessee from the state to form a separate state loyal to the Union. The Union-backing State of Scott was also established at this time and remained a de facto enclave of the United States throughout the war. In the fall of 1861, Unionist guerrillas in East Tennessee burned bridges and attacked Confederate sympathizers, causing the Confederacy to invoke martial law in parts of the region. In March 1862, Lincoln appointed native Tennessean and War Democrat Andrew Johnson as military governor of the state.

General Ulysses S. Grant and the U.S. Navy captured the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers in February 1862 at the battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, giving the Union control of Middle Tennessee. Grant then proceeded south to Pittsburg Landing and held off a Confederate counterattack at Shiloh in April in what was at the time the bloodiest battle of the war. Memphis fell to the Union in June after a naval battle on the Mississippi River in front of the city, giving the Union control of West Tennessee. Union strength in Middle Tennessee was tested in a series of Confederate offensives beginning in the summer of 1862, which culminated in General William Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland routing General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Stones River, another one of the war's costliest engagements. The next summer, Rosecrans's Tullahoma campaign forced Bragg's remaining troops in Middle Tennessee to retreat to Chattanooga with little fighting.

The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864

Rosecrans lured Bragg's troops out of Chattanooga in August 1863, but was defeated one month later at Chickamauga a few miles to the south in Georgia, and subsequently retreated to Chattanooga. During the Chattanooga campaign, Confederates attempted to besiege the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga into surrendering, but reinforcements from the Army of the Tennessee under the command of Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Joseph Hooker arrived. The Confederates were driven from the city at the battles of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain in November 1863.

Despite the strength of Unionist sentiment in East Tennessee, Confederates held the area for most of the war. A few days after the fall of Chattanooga, Confederates led by General James Longstreet would campaign to take control of Knoxville, and attacked Union General Ambrose Burnside's Fort Sanders at Knoxville and lost. It was a major blow to East Tennessee Confederate momentum, but Longstreet won the Battle of Bean's Station a few weeks later. Union forces that retreated following the battle would gather into a major defense block at Blaine's Crossroads as the last resort to defend Knoxville from Confederate capture. Unmatched by this block, the Confederates would retreat near Russellville, ending the Knoxville campaign.

The capture of Chattanooga allowed Sherman to launch the Atlanta campaign from the city in May 1864. The last major battles in the state came when Army of Tennessee regiments under General John Bell Hood invaded Middle Tennessee in the fall of 1864 in the Franklin–Nashville campaign in an effort to draw Sherman back. They were checked at Franklin in November, then completely dispersed by George Thomas at Nashville in December.

On April 27, 1865, the worst maritime disaster in American history occurred when the overloaded Sultana steamboat exploded in the Mississippi River north of Memphis, killing 1,168 people. The disaster occurred weeks after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, and most of the ship's passengers were recently freed Union prisoners of war.

When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, Tennessee was largely held by Union forces and thus not among the states enumerated in the proclamation, so it freed no slaves in the state. Nonetheless, enslaved African Americans escaped to Union lines to gain freedom without waiting for official action. Andrew Johnson declared all slaves in Tennessee free on October 24, 1864. On February 22, 1865, Tennessee's legislature approved an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting slavery, which was approved by voters the following month, making Tennessee the only Southern state abolish slavery. Tennessee ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in every state, on April 7, 1865. The state ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to former slaves, on July 18, 1866. Johnson became vice president when Lincoln was reelected, and president after Lincoln's assassination in May 1865. Under Johnson's lenient readmission policy, Tennessee became the first Confederate state to have its elected members readmitted to Congress on July 24, 1866.

Reconstruction and late 19th century

The years following the Civil War were characterized by tension and unrest between former Confederates and Blacks and their White allies, the worst of which occurred in Memphis in 1866. Because Tennessee had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment before its readmission to the Union, it was the only former secessionist state that did not have a military governor during Reconstruction. The Radical Republicans gained control of the state government toward the end of the war, and appointed William G. "Parson" Brownlow governor, who served from 1865 to 1869. Under Brownlow's administration, the state enacted legislation allowing African American men to vote, disenfranchised former Confederates, and took action against the Ku Klux Klan, which was founded in December 1865 in Pulaski as a vigilante group to advance former Confederates' interests.

In 1870, Southern Democrats regained control of the state legislature. They quickly amended the constitution to allow the General Assembly to institute a poll tax, and reversed many of the reforms of the Brownlow administration. Over the next two decades, the General Assembly passed a series of Jim Crow laws to control African Americans and enforce racial segregation. Four laws passed in 1889 were described as electoral reform, but had the cumulative effect of essentially disfranchising most African Americans in rural areas and small towns, as well as many poor Whites. These laws instituted a poll tax, required early voter registration, allowed secret ballots, and required separate ballot boxes for state and federal elections.

After the Civil War, a number of reformers worked to transform Tennessee into a "New South" economy dominated by industry. With the help of Northern investors, Chattanooga grew into one of the first industrialized cities in the South, and several other Tennessee cities saw modest growth in the mining and manufacturing sectors. Memphis became known as the "Cotton Capital of the World" during the late 19th century, and Nashville, Knoxville, and several other smaller cities received new factories. A number of epidemics swept through the state during this time, including cholera in 1873, which devastated Nashville and several nearby communities, and yellow fever in 1878, which killed more than one-tenth of the population of Memphis and resulted in the city temporarily losing its charter. Despite the efforts of New South promoters, agriculture continued to dominate Tennessee's economy. The majority of freed slaves were forced into sharecropping during this time, and many others worked as agricultural wage laborers. Many Blacks in rural areas relocated to the larger cities, and a small number migrated to Kansas as part of the Exodusters.

Mining also increased rapidly in the years after the Civil War when a number of Northern investors began exploiting the coalfields and other mineral resources in the Cumberland Plateau and Blue Ridge Mountains. In an effort to pay off debts and alleviate overcrowded prisons, the state turned to convict leasing during Reconstruction. Many of these convicts were leased to mining companies, and were used as strikebreakers. This resulted in the suppression of wages in the open market, and was protested by many miners who were forced to compete with the system. In 1891 and 1892, an armed uprising known as the Coal Creek War occurred at coal mines in Anderson and Grundy counties when striking miners attacked prison stockades and mine properties, and released convict laborers. Governor John P. Buchanan sent state militia to quell the insurrection, who ended up fighting a series of battles with the miners. The Coal Creek War resulted in the state ending convict leasing and the downfall of Buchanan.

In 1897, Tennessee celebrated its centennial of statehood one year late with the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in Nashville. A full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens was designed by architect William Crawford Smith and constructed for the celebration, owing to the city's reputation as the "Athens of the South."

Earlier 20th century

Workers at the Norris Dam construction camp site in 1933

Due to increasing racial segregation and poor standards of living, many African American Tennesseans fled to industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest as part of the first wave of the Great Migration between 1915 and 1930. Many residents of rural parts of Tennessee relocated to larger cities during this time, due to decreasing demand for farm labor and more lucrative employment opportunities.

As part of the Temperance movement, Tennessee became the first state in the nation to effectively ban the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol through a series of laws passed between 1907 and 1917. During Prohibition, illicit production of moonshine became extremely common in East Tennessee, particularly in the mountains, and continued for many decades afterwards.

Sgt. Alvin C. York of Fentress County became one of the most famous and honored American soldiers of World War I. York received the Congressional Medal of Honor for single-handedly capturing an entire German machinge gun regiment during the Meuse–Argonne offensive.

On July 9, 1918, Tennessee suffered the worst rail accident in U.S. history when two passenger trains collided head on in Nashville, killing 101 and injuring 171. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–1919 is believed to have killed more than 7,700 Tennesseans.

On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and final state necessary to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. Disenfranchising voter registration requirements continued to keep most African Americans and many poor whites, both men and women, off the voter rolls.

In 1925, the Grand Ole Opry began broadcasting on WSM-AM in Nashville as a weekly live music program. In 1927 and 1928, Ralph Peer of Victor Records held a series of landmark recording sessions in Bristol in an effort to capture the Appalachian folk music of the region. These sessions are widely considered to be the birth of country music, and the genre was quickly popularized by the Grand Ole Opry, which remains the longest running radio program in the nation. At the same time, Beale Street in Memphis became the center of the blues, and a subgenre known as the Memphis blues emerged.

In 1925, John T. Scopes, a high school teacher in Dayton, was tried and convicted for teaching evolution in violation of the state's recently passed Butler Act. Scopes was prosecuted by former Secretary of State and former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and defended by attorney Clarence Darrow. The case was intentionally publicized, and highlighted the creationism-evolution controversy among religious groups.

By the early 20th century, decades of logging and clearcutting had devastated the environment of the Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee. An effort to preserve the land ensued, and in 1926, Congress authorized the establishment of a national park. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was officially established in 1934 and dedicated in 1940.

When the Great Depression struck in 1929, much of Tennessee was severely impoverished even by national standards. As part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created by Congress in 1933 to provide electricity, jobs, flood control, improved navigation on the Tennessee River, higher crop yields, and economic modernization to the Tennessee River Valley. The TVA built several hydroelectric dams throughout the state in the 1930s and 1940s, which innundated communities and thousands of farmland acreage, and forcibly displaced families via eminent domain. The agency quickly grew into the largest electric utility in the country. These massive investments initiated a period of dramatic economic growth and transformation that brought many new industries and employment opportunities to the state.

Calutron operators at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project

During World War II, East Tennessee was chosen for the production of weapons-grade fissile enriched uranium as part of the Manhattan Project, a research and development undertaking led by the United States to produce the world's first atomic bombs. The planned community of Oak Ridge was built from scratch to provide accommodations for the facilities and workers, and the site was chosen due to the abundancy of electrical power generated by TVA, its low population density, and its inland geography and topography, which allowed for natural separation of the facilities and made it less vulnerable to enemy attack. The Clinton Engineer Works was established as the production arm of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, which enriched uranium at three major sites. This was used in the world's first three atomic bombs. The first of these bombs was detonated in Los Alamos, New Mexico in a test code-named Trinity, and the others, nicknamed "Little Boy" and "Fat Man", were dropped on Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. After the war, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory became an institution for scientific and technological research.

Mid-20th century to present

Monument of the twelve black students who integrated Clinton High School in 1956 outside the former Green McAdoo School in Clinton.

In 1953, voters approved eight amendments to the state constitution, which extended the governor's term from two to four years, prohibiting two successive terms, and outlawed the poll tax. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, Oak Ridge High School in 1955 became the first school in the state to be integrated. The next year, public schools in nearby Clinton High School were integrated, and Tennessee National Guard troops were sent in after pro-segregationists threatened violence. Between February and May 1960, a series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville organized by the Nashville Student Movement resulted in the desegregation of facilities in the city. On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. King had traveled there to support striking African American sanitation workers.

The 1962 U.S. Supreme Court case of Baker v. Carr arose out of a challenge to the longstanding rural bias of apportionment of seats in the Tennessee legislature, and established the principle of "one man, one vote". This principle required state legislatures to redistrict to bring Congressional apportionment in line with decennial censuses, and required both houses of state legislatures to be based on population for representation, and not geographic districts such as counties. After decades in which urban populations had been underrepresented in many state legislatures, this significant ruling led to an increased and proportional prominence in state politics by urban and, eventually, suburban, legislators and statewide officeholders relative to their population within the state.

By the 1960s and onward, the state experienced economic growth due to the construction of the Interstate Highway System. The construction of Interstate 40 through Memphis became a national talking point on the issue of eminent domain and grassroots lobbying, when the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) attempted to acquire Overton Park from the city of Memphis for the highway's right-of-way. A local activist group spent many years contesting the project and filed a series of lawsuits to stop the construction through the park. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1971 landmark case Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe. The court sided in favor of the activist group, and established the framework for judicial review of government agencies.

In 1977, a state constitutional convention was held that recommended 13 amendments to the state's constitution, 12 of which votes approved the next year. The changes allowed governors to serve two consecutive terms, required the General Assembly to balance the state's annual budget, reformed county legislative bodies, and removed provisions that had been invalidated by federal legislation and court cases during the Civil Rights Movement.

TVA's construction of the Tellico Dam in Loudon County became the subject of national controversy in the 1970s when the endangered snail darter fish was reported to be affected by the project. After lawsuits by environmental groups, the debate was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill in 1978, leading to amendments of the Endangered Species Act that same year.

The 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville

The 1982 World's Fair was held in Knoxville. Also known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, the fair's theme was "Energy Turns the World". The exposition was one of the most successful, and the last world's fair to be held in the United States as of 2021. In 1986, Tennessee held a yearlong celebration of the state's heritage and culture called "Homecoming '86". As part of the celebration, citizens of individual communities throughout the state researched their history, set future goals, conducted projects to preserve, promote, or enhance the quality of their respective communities, and organized other celebratory events.

Tennessee celebrated its bicentennial in 1996. With a yearlong statewide celebration called "Tennessee 200", a new state park, Bicentennial Mall, opened at the foot of Capitol Hill in Nashville that traces the state's history. That same year, the whitewater slalom events for the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta were held on the Ocoee River in Polk County.

The Ocoee River in Polk County was home to the 1996 Summer Olympics whitewater slalom events, the only time an Olympic Games sporting event was held in the state.

With the exception of a slump in the 1980s, Tennessee has been one of the fastest growing states in the nation since 1970, benefiting from the larger Sun Belt phenomenon. The state has been a top destination for people relocating from Northeastern and Midwestern states. This time period has seen the birth of new economic sectors in the state and has positioned the Nashville and Clarksville metropolitan areas as two of the fastest growing regions in the country. In response to this rapid growth, the Tennessee General Assembly passed the Tennessee Growth Policy Act in 1998, in an effort to address urban sprawl and local conflicts regarding municipal annexation and incorporation. The act, which requires counties and municipalities to establish urban growth boundary plans, placed Tennessee among the first states in the nation to install urban planning protocol.

In 2002, Tennessee amended its constitution to establish a lottery. In 2006, the state constitution was amended to outlaw same-sex marriage. This amendment was invalidated by the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges. On December 23, 2008, the largest industrial waste spill in United States history occurred at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant when more than 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry was accidentally released into the Emory and Clinch Rivers. The cleanup cost more than $1 billion, and was not completed until 2015.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Tennessee transitioned from a strong two-party state to a solidly Republican state, primarily due to rural white Democrats, who rejected the Democratic Party's increasing social and economic liberalism. In 2007, Ron Ramsey became the first Republican elected Speaker of the State Senate since Reconstruction, and the next year, Republicans gained control of both houses of the legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Republicans have since gained supermajorities in both chambers. The state, however, cotinued to elect moderate Republicans, such as centrists Bill Haslam and Lamar Alexander, until the late 2010s with the rise of Trumpism in the GOP at a nationwide scale.

In April and May 2010, flooding in Middle Tennessee devastated Nashville and other parts of Middle Tennessee. In April 2011, parts of East Tennessee, including Hamilton and Bradley counties, were devastated by the 2011 Super Outbreak, the largest and costliest tornado outbreak in history.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Tennessee recorded its first case on March 5, 2020, in Williamson County. The first death was reported 15 days later in Nashville. As of May 2021, the state has had more than 840,000 cases and more than 12,000 deaths, with 38% of the eligible population receiving at least one vaccination and 31% fully vaccinated.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Tennessee

See also: List of counties in Tennessee

Maps of the Grand Divisions of Tennessee, with East Tennessee at the top, Middle Tennessee in the center, and West Tennessee at the bottom.

Tennessee is in the Southeastern United States. Most of the state is considered part of the Upland South, and the eastern third is part of Appalachia. Tennessee covers roughly 42,143 square miles (109,150 km²), of which 926 square miles (2,400 km²), or 2.2%, is water. It is the 16th smallest state in terms of land area. The state is about 440 miles (710 km) long from east to west and 112 miles (180 km) wide from north to south. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, economically, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions: East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee. As culturally and historically distinct regions, the Grand Divisions are sometimes called "The Three Tennessees". Tennessee borders eight other states: Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi on the south, and Arkansas and Missouri on the west. It is tied with Missouri as the state bordering the most other states. It is trisected by the Tennessee River, and its geographical center is in Murfreesboro, the state's sixth-largest city. The boundary between Eastern and Central Time passes across the Cumberland Plateau through the state.

Tennessee's eastern boundary roughly follows the highest crests of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Mississippi River forms its western boundary. Due to flooding of the Mississippi River that has changed its path, the state's western boundary deviates from the river in some places. The northern border was originally defined as the parallel 36°30′ north and the Royal Colonial Boundary of 1665, but due to faulty surveys, the border begins north of this line in the east, and to the west, gradually veers north with multiple minute shifts. Once at the Tennessee River in the western part of the state, the border shifts south onto the actual 36°30′ parallel. An 1818 survey erroneously placed the state's southern border 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the 35th parallel; Georgia legislators continue to dispute this placement, as it prevents Georgia from accessing the Tennessee River.

Marked by a diversity of landforms and topographies, Tennessee features six principal physiographic provinces, from east to west, which are part of three larger regions: the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, and the Cumberland Plateau, part of the Appalachian Mountains; the Highland Rim and Nashville Basin, part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the Interior Plains; and the East Gulf Coastal Plain, part of the Atlantic Plains. Minor regions include the southern tip of the Cumberland Mountains, the Western Tennessee Valley, and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The state's highest point is Clingmans Dome, at 6,643 feet (2,025 m) above sea level. Clingmans Dome is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail and the third-highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River. The state's lowest point, 178 feet (54 m), is on the Mississippi River at the Mississippi state line in Memphis. Tennessee is home to the most caves in the United States, with more than 10,000 documented.

Topography

View from atop Mount Le Conte in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, one of the highest mountains east of the Mississippi River, at 6,593 feet (2,010 m)

The western Blue Ridge Mountains lie within Tennessee's eastern edge. This range is characterized by towering mountains and jumbled terrains, and is divided into several subranges, namely the Great Smoky Mountains, the Bald Mountains, the Unicoi Mountains, the Unaka Mountains, and the Iron Mountains. The average elevation of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tennessee is 5,000 feet (1,500 m) above sea level. The state's border with North Carolina roughly follows the highest peaks of this range, including Clingmans Dome, the state's highest point. The Blue Ridge area was never more than sparsely populated, and today most of it is protected by the Cherokee National Forest, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and several federal wilderness areas and state parks.

Stretching west from the Blue Ridge Mountains for about 55 miles (89 km) are the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also known as the Tennessee Valley or Great Valley of East Tennessee. This area of Tennessee consists of numerous linear parallel ridges and valleys that trend northeast to southwest, the general direction of the entire Appalachian range. Most of these ridges are low, but some of the higher ones are commonly called mountains. Most of this province is coterminous with the Great Appalachian Valley, where the valleys become broader and the ridges lower. In this region are numerous towns and three of the state's urban areas: Knoxville and Chattanooga, the state's third and fourth-largest cities, respectively; and the Tri-Cities: Bristol, Johnson City, and Kingsport. Numerous tributaries join to form the Tennessee River in the Ridge and Valley Region.

Fall Creek Falls, the tallest waterfall in the eastern United States, is located on the Cumberland Plateau

The Cumberland Plateau rises to the west of the Tennessee Valley. This landform is part of the larger Appalachian Plateau, and is mostly covered by flat-topped tablelands. The elevation of the Cumberland Plateau ranges from 1,500 to about 2,000 feet (460 to about 610 m) above sea level. The Cumberland Mountains, with peaks above 3,500 feet (1,100 m), comprise the northeastern part of the Appalachian Plateau in Tennessee, and the southeastern part of the Cumberland Plateau is divided by the largely undeviating Sequatchie Valley. The plateau's eastern edge is relatively distinct, but the western escarpment is irregular, containing several long, crooked stream valleys separated by rocky cliffs that contain numerous waterfalls. The boundary between East and Middle Tennessee straddles the top of the Cumberland Plateau, as does the boundary between Eastern and Central Time.

West of the Cumberland Plateau is the Highland Rim, an elevated plain that surrounds the Nashville Basin. Both of these physiographic provinces are part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the larger Interior Plains. The Highland Rim is Tennessee's largest geographic region, with an average elevation of over 1,000 feet (300 m), and is often divided into the Eastern and Western Highland Rim. The Eastern Highland Rim is characterized by relatively level plains dotted by rolling hills. The Western Highland Rim and western parts of the Nashville Basin are covered by uneven rounded knobs with steep ravines and meandering streams in between. The Nashville Basin has rich, fertile farmland and a great diversity of natural wildlife. Porous limestone bedrock underlies the Nashville Basin and Eastern Highland Rim very close to the surface. These regions contain many caves, sinkholes, depressions, and underground streams. Nashville is in the northwestern corner of the Basin, and most of its suburbs radiate outward to the south, southeast, and east. Clarksville, the state's fifth largest city, sits in the northwestern Highland Rim.

To the west of the Highland Rim is a narrow region known as the Western Tennessee Valley, which consists of about 10 miles (16 km) in width of hilly land that runs along the banks of the Tennessee River. The Tennessee River forms the boundary between Middle and West Tennessee here. West of this is the Gulf Coastal Plain, a broad area that begins at the Gulf of Mexico and extends northward into southern Illinois, gradually losing elevation westward. In Tennessee, this plain consists of two distinct sections. From the east, the plain begins with low rolling hills and wide stream valleys, known as the West Tennessee Highlands, or Uplands, and gradually levels out to the west. The western parts of the plain contain thick and fertile loess, and end at steep bluffs overlooking the Mississippi embayment, the westernmost physiographic division of Tennessee which is part of the larger Mississippi Alluvial Plain. This flat strip, commonly known as the Mississippi Bottoms, ranges from 10 to 14 miles (16 to 23 km) wide, and has an elevation of less than 300 feet (91 m). It consists of lowlands, floodplains, and swamplands, and is sometimes considered part of the Mississippi Delta region. Memphis is in the southwestern corner of the Gulf Coastal Plain, and is West Tennessee's most populous city. All of West Tennessee is part of the Jackson Purchase historical region, and it is the least populated of the state's Grand Divisions.

Geology

Main article: Geology of Tennessee

Further information: Paleontology in Tennessee

Geological formations in Tennessee largely correspond with the state's topographic features, and, in general, decrease in age from east to west. Most of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the east were formed during the Precambrian era, and contain the state's oldest rocks, igneous strata that is more than 1 billion years old. Most of the Blue Ridge Mountains are composed of Precambrian granite and sedimentary rocks, and Cambrian strata that have been altered by metamorphism. Most of the formations in East and Middle Tennessee consist of strata deposited during the Paleozoic era. Shale and carbonate rocks that formed during the Ordovician period are found in the Nashville Basin, Ridge-and-Valley region, and the Sequatchie Valley. The inner part of the Nashville Basin is a geological dome that was uplifted between 300 and 400 million years ago during the Carboniferous and Devonian periods. Devonian and Silurian strata are found in the Western Tennessee Valley and in small patches in the Western Highland Rim. The Highland Rim formed during the Mississippian era, and is underlain by soluble limestone bedrock that has formed karst, with patches of chert, shale, and sandstone. The Cumberland Plateau was formed during the Pennsylvanian period, and consists predominantly of sandstone, silt, and shale, with an abundance of coal. The eastern part of the Gulf Coastal Plain is composed of Mesozoic Cretaceous formations; most of the plain to the west was deposited during the Cenozoic Tertiary era. The youngest geological formations in Tennessee are sands and silts deposited during the current Quaternary period, and are located within the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and the valleys of rivers that drain into the Mississippi River.

Reelfoot Lake in northwestern Tennessee was formed by the 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes

Tennessee is considered seismically active and contains two major seismic zones, although destructive earthquakes rarely occur in the state. The Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone spans the entirety of East Tennessee from northwestern Alabama to southwestern Virginia. The region is considered one of the most seismically active zones in the Southeastern United States, and frequently produces low-magnitude earthquakes. The New Madrid Seismic Zone is located in the northwestern part of the state. This seismic zone produced a series of devastating earthquakes between December 1811 and February 1812 that formed Reelfoot Lake near Tiptonville.

Hydrology

The state is drained by three major rivers, the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi. The Tennessee River begins at the juncture of the Holston and French Broad rivers in Knoxville, flows southwest to Chattanooga, and exits into Alabama before reemerging in the western part of the state and flowing north into Kentucky. Major tributaries of the Tennessee River include the Clinch, Little Tennessee, Hiwassee, Sequatchie, Elk, Beech, Buffalo, Duck, and Big Sandy rivers. The Cumberland River flows through the north-central part of the state, emerging in the northeastern Highland Rim, passing through Nashville and the northern part of the Nashville Basin before turning northwest to Clarksville and entering Kentucky west of the Tennessee River. Its principal branches in Tennessee are the Obey, Caney Fork, Stones, Harpeth, and Red rivers. The Mississippi River forms the state's western boundary, where Memphis lies. Its tributaries are the Obion, Forked Deer, Hatchie, Loosahatchie, and Wolf rivers. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operate many hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers and their tributaries. These dams form many large reservoirs throughout the state.

About half the state's land area is in the Tennessee Valley drainage basin of the Tennessee River. The Cumberland River basin covers the northern half of Middle Tennessee and a small portion of East Tennessee. A small part of north-central Tennessee in Sumner, Macon, and Clay Counties is in the Green River watershed. All three of these basins are tributaries of the Ohio River watershed. Most of West Tennessee is in the Lower Mississippi River watershed. The entirety of the state is in the Mississippi River watershed, except for a small sliver in Bradley and Polk Counties traversed by the Conasauga River, which is part of the Mobile Bay watershed.

Ecology

Cedar glades are an extremely rare type of ecosystem that is found in regions of Middle Tennessee where limestone bedrock is close to the surface

Tennessee is within a temperate deciduous forest biome commonly known as the Eastern Deciduous Forest. It has eight ecoregions: the Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, Central Appalachian, Southwestern Appalachian, Interior Low Plateaus, Southeastern Plains, Mississippi Valley Loess Plains, and Mississippi Alluvial Plain regions. Due to its wide variety of terrains and ecosystems, Tennessee is the most biodiverse inland state. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most biodiverse national park, and the state's Duck River is the most biologically diverse waterway in North America. The state is home to 340 species of birds, 325 freshwater fish species, 89 mammals, 77 amphibians, and 61 reptiles.

Forests cover about 52% of the state's land area, with oak–hickory the dominant type. Appalachian oak–pine and cove hardwood forests are found in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Cumberland Plateau, and bottomland hardwood forests are common throughout the Gulf Coastal Plain. Pine forests are also found throughout the state. Some of the last remaining large American chestnut trees grow in the Nashville Basin. They are being used to help breed blight-resistant trees. Middle Tennessee is home to many unusual and rare ecosystems known as cedar glades, which occur in areas with shallow limestone bedrock that is largely barren of overlying soil and contain many endemic plant species.

Common mammals found throughout Tennessee include white-tailed deer, red and gray foxes, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, wild turkeys, rabbits, and squirrels. Black bears are found in the Blue Ridge Mountains and on the Cumberland Plateau in Eastern Tennessee. Tennessee has the third-highest number of amphibian species, and is especially known for its salamanders, with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park dubbed the "Salamander Capital of the World". The state also ranks second in the nation for the diversity of its freshwater fish species.

Climate

See also: Climate change in Tennessee

A map of Köppen climate types in Tennessee

Most of the state has a humid subtropical climate, with the exception of some of the higher elevations in the Appalachians, which are classified as having a mountain temperate or humid continental climate due to cooler temperatures. The Gulf of Mexico is the dominant factor in the climate of Tennessee, with winds from the south being responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally, the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year, with highest average monthly precipitation generally in the winter and spring months, between December and April. The driest months, on average, are August to October. On average the state receives 50 inches (130 cm) of precipitation annually. Snowfall ranges from 5 inches (13 cm) in West Tennessee to over 80 inches (200 cm) in the highest mountains in East Tennessee.

Summers in the state are generally hot and humid, with most of the state averaging a high of around 90 °F (32 °C) during the summer months. Winters tend to be mild to cool, increasing in coolness at higher elevations. Generally, for areas outside the highest mountains, the average overnight lows are near freezing for most of the state. The highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) at Perryville on August 9, 1930, while the lowest recorded temperature is −32 °F (−36 °C) at Mountain City on December 30, 1917.

While the state is far enough from the coast to avoid any direct impact from a hurricane, the location of the state makes it likely to be hit by the remnants of tropical cyclones which weaken over land and can cause significant rainfall. The state averages about fifty days of thunderstorms per year, some of which can be severe with large hail and damaging winds. Tornadoes are possible throughout the state, with West and Middle Tennessee the most vulnerable. On average, the state has 15 tornadoes per year. Tornadoes in Tennessee can be severe, and Tennessee leads the nation in the percentage of total tornadoes which have fatalities. Winter storms are an occasional problem, such as the infamous Blizzard of 1993, although ice storms are a more likely occurrence. Fog is a persistent problem in parts of the state, especially in East Tennessee.

Monthly Normal High and Low Temperatures For Various Tennessee Cities (F)
City	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Bristol	44/25	49/27	57/34	66/41	74/51	81/60	85/64	84/62	79/56	68/43	58/35	48/27
Chattanooga	50/31	54/33	63/40	72/47	79/56	86/65	90/69	89/68	82/62	72/48	61/40	52/33
Knoxville	47/30	52/33	61/40	71/48	78/57	85/65	88/69	87/68	81/62	71/50	60/41	50/34
Memphis	50/31	55/36	63/44	72/52	80/61	89/69	92/73	92/72	86/65	75/52	62/43	52/34
Nashville	47/28	52/31	61/39	70/47	78/57	85/65	89/70	89/69	82/61	71/49	59/40	49/32

Cities, towns, and counties

See also: List of municipalities in Tennessee and List of counties in Tennessee

Tennessee is divided into 95 counties, each of which has a county seat. The state has 340 municipalities in total. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designates ten metropolitan areas in Tennessee, four of which extend into neighboring states.

Nashville is the state capital and largest city, with about 670,000 residents. Its 13-county metropolitan area has been the state's largest since the early 1990s, and is one of the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, with about 2 million residents. Memphis, with about 650,000 inhabitants, was the largest city in the state until 2016, when Nashville surpassed it. It is in Shelby County, the state's largest county in both population and land area. Knoxville, with about 190,000 inhabitants, and Chattanooga, with about 180,000 residents, are the third- and fourth-largest cities, respectively. Clarksville is a significant population center, with a population of about 160,000. Murfreesboro is the sixth-largest city and Nashville's largest suburb, with about 150,000 residents. In addition to the major cities, the Tri-Cities of Kingsport, Bristol, and Johnson City are considered the sixth major population center.

Demographics

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1790	35,691		—
1800	105,602		195.9%
1810	261,727		147.8%
1820	422,823		61.6%
1830	681,904		61.3%
1840	829,210		21.6%
1850	1,002,717		20.9%
1860	1,109,801		10.7%
1870	1,258,520		13.4%
1880	1,542,359		22.6%
1890	1,767,518		14.6%
1900	2,020,616		14.3%
1910	2,184,789		8.1%
1920	2,337,885		7.0%
1930	2,616,556		11.9%
1940	2,915,841		11.4%
1950	3,291,718		12.9%
1960	3,567,089		8.4%
1970	3,923,687		10.0%
1980	4,591,120		17.0%
1990	4,877,185		6.2%
2000	5,689,283		16.7%
2010	6,346,105		11.5%
2020	6,910,840		8.9%
Source: 1910–2020

The 2020 United States census reported Tennessee's population at 6,910,840, an increase of 564,735 since the 2010 United States census, or 8.90%. Between 2010 and 2019, the state received a natural increase of 124,385 (584,236 births minus 459,851 deaths), and an increase from net migration of 244,537 people into the state. Immigration from outside the U.S. resulted in a net increase of 66,412, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 178,125.

According to the 2010 census, 6.4% of Tennessee's population were under age 5, 23.6% under 18, and 13.4% 65 or older. In recent years, Tennessee has been a top source of domestic migration, receiving an influx of people relocating from California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and New England due to the low cost of living and the booming healthcare and automotive industries. Metropolitan Nashville is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country due in part to these factors. In 2010, about 4.4% of Tennessee's population was foreign-born, an increase of about 118.5% since 2000. Of the foreign-born population, approximately 31.0% were naturalized citizens and 69.0% non-citizens. The foreign-born population consisted of approximately 49.9% from Latin America, 27.1% from Asia, 11.9% from Europe, 7.7% from Africa, 2.7% from Northern America, and 0.6% from Oceania.

Tennessee's center of population is in Murfreesboro in Rutherford County.

Ethnicity

See also: African Americans in Tennessee

Racial composition	1940	1970	1990	2000	2010	2019 est.
White	82.5%	83.9%	83.0%	80.2%	77.6%	77.6%
Black	17.4%	15.8%	16.0%	16.4%	16.7%	16.8%
Asian	-	0.1%	0.7%	1.0%	1.4%	1.8%
Native	-	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%
Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander	-	-	–	–	0.1%	0.1%
Other race	-	-	0.2%	1.0%	2.2%	1.4%
Two or more races	-	-	–	1.1%	1.7%	2.2%

In 2010, 4.6% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (they may be of any race), up from 2.2% in 2000. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population in Tennessee grew by 134.2%, the third-highest rate of any state. That same year Non-Hispanic whites were 75.6% of the population, compared to 63.7% of the population nationwide.

Population density as of 2010

In 2010, the five most common self-reported ethnic groups in the state were: American (26.5%), English (8.2%), Irish (6.6%), German (5.5%), and Scotch-Irish (2.7%). Most Tennesseans who self-identify as having American ancestry are of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry. An estimated 21–24% of Tennesseans are of predominantly English ancestry. In the 1980 census 1,435,147 Tennesseans claimed "English" or "mostly English" ancestry out of a state population of 3,221,354 making them 45% of the state at the time.

On June 19, 2010, the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs granted state recognition to six Native American tribes, which was later repealed by the state's Attorney General because the action by the commission was illegal. The tribes were as follows:

• The Cherokee Wolf Clan in western Tennessee, with members in Carroll County, Benton, Decatur, Henderson, Henry, Weakley, Gibson and Madison counties.
• The Chikamaka Band, based historically on the South Cumberland Plateau, said to have members in Franklin, Grundy, Marion, Sequatchie, Warren and Coffee counties.
• Central Band of Cherokee, also known as the Cherokee of Lawrence County.
• United Eastern Lenape Nation of Winfield.
• The Tanasi Council, said to have members in Shelby, Dyer, Gibson, Humphreys and Perry counties; and
• Remnant Yuchi Nation, with members in Sullivan, Carter, Greene, Hawkins, Unicoi, Johnson and Washington counties.

Birth data

Live births by single race/ethnicity of mother

Race	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
White:	59,804 (74.7%)	61,391 (75.2%)	61,814 (75.7%)	...	...	...	...
> Non-Hispanic White	54,377 (68.0%)	55,499 (68.0%)	55,420 (67.8%)	53,866 (66.7%)	53,721 (66.3%)	53,256 (66.0%)	52,187 (64.9%)
Black	17,860 (22.3%)	17,791 (21.8%)	17,507 (21.4%)	15,889 (19.7%)	16,050 (19.8%)	15,921 (19.7%)	15,972 (19.9%)
Asian	2,097 (2.6%)	2,180 (2.7%)	2,153 (2.6%)	1,875 (2.3%)	1,905 (2.4%)	1,877 (2.3%)	1,811 (2.3%)
American Indian	231 (0.3%)	240 (0.3%)	211 (0.2%)	77 (0.1%)	150 (0.2%)	148 (0.2%)	161 (0.2%)
Hispanic (of any race)	6,854 (8.6%)	6,986 (8.6%)	7,264 (8.9%)	7,631 (9.4%)	7,684 (9.5%)	7,824 (9.7%)	8,437 (10.5%)
Total Tennessee	79,992 (100%)	81,602 (100%)	81,685 (100%)	80,807 (100%)	81,016 (100%)	80,751 (100%)	80,450 (100%)

Notes

• Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
• Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one Hispanic group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.

Religion

Religious affiliation (2014)
Evangelical Protestantism			52%
Unaffiliated			14%
Mainline Protestantism			13%
Historically Black Protestantism			8%
Catholic			6%
Other Christianity			3%
Other faiths			3%
Judaism			1%
Islam			1%

Tennessee has always been, and remains, predominantly Christian. About 81% of the population identifies as Christian, with Protestants making up 73% of the population. Of the Protestants in the state, Evangelical Protestants compose 52% of the population, Mainline Protestants 13%, and Historically Black Protestants 8%. Roman Catholics make up 6%, Mormons 1%, and Orthodox Christians less than 1%. The largest denominations by number of adherents are the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Churches of Christ. Muslims and Jews each make up about 1% of the population, and adherents of other religions make up about 3% of the population. About 14% of Tennesseans are non-religious, with 11% identifying as "Nothing in particular", 3% as agnostics, and 1% as atheists.

Tennessee is included in most definitions of the Bible Belt, and is ranked as one of the nation's most religious states. It is home to several Protestant denominations, including the National Baptist Convention (headquartered in Nashville); the Church of God in Christ and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (both headquartered in Memphis); and the Church of God and The Church of God of Prophecy (both headquartered in Cleveland). The Free Will Baptist denomination is headquartered in Antioch; its main Bible college is in Nashville. The Southern Baptist Convention maintains its general headquarters in Nashville. Nashville has publishing houses of several denominations.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Tennessee

See also: List of Tennessee locations by per capita income

A geomap showing the counties of Tennessee colored by the relative range of that county's median income. Source: 2014 American Community Survey five-year estimate report.

Chart showing poverty in Tennessee, by age and gender (red = female)

As of 2020, Tennessee had a gross state product of $364.5 billion. In 2019, the state's per capita personal income was $29,859. The median household income was $53,320. About 13.9% percent of the population was below the poverty line. In 2018, the state reported a total employment of 2,683,214, and a total number of 138,269 employer establishments. Tennessee is a right to work state, as are most of its Southern neighbors. Unionization has historically been low and continues to decline as in most of the U.S. generally.

Taxation

Tennessee has a reputation as low-tax state and is usually ranked as one of the five states with the lowest tax burden on residents. It is one of nine states that do not have a general income tax; the sales tax is the primary means of funding the government. The Hall income tax was a tax imposed on most dividends and interest. The tax rate was 6% from 1937 to 2016, but was completely phased out by January 1, 2021. The first $1,250 of individual income and $2,500 of joint income was exempt from this tax.

The state's sales and use tax rate for most items is 7%, the second-highest in the nation, along with Mississippi, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Indiana. Food is taxed at a lower rate of 4%, but candy, dietary supplements and prepared food are taxed at 7%. Local sales taxes are collected in most jurisdictions at rates varying from 1.5% to 2.75%, bringing the total sales tax to between 8.5% and 9.75%, with an average rate of about 9.5%, the nation's highest average sales tax. Intangible property tax is assessed on the shares of stock of stockholders of any loan, investment, insurance, or for-profit cemetery companies. The assessment ratio is 40% of the value times the jurisdiction's tax rate. Since January 1, 2016, Tennessee has had no inheritance tax.

While the sales tax remains the main source of state government funding, property taxes are the primary source of revenue for local governments.

Agriculture

Tennessee has the eighth-most farms in the nation, which cover more than 40% of the state's land area, and have an average size of about 155 acres (0.63 km²). Cash receipts for crops and livestock have an estimated annual value of $3.5 billion, and the agriculture sector has an estimated annual impact of $81 billion on the state's economy. Beef cattle is the state's largest agricultural commodity. Tennessee ranks 12th in the nation for the number of heads of cattle, with more than half of the state's farmland dedicated to cattle grazing. Soybeans are the most common crop produced in the state, followed by corn and cotton. Most soybeans in Tennessee are grown in West and Middle Tennessee, especially in the northwestern corner of the state. Broilers and poultry constitute the state's second most common livestock commodity.

Tennessee ranks seventh overall in the nation in cotton production, most of which is grown in the fertile soils of West Tennessee. Tennessee also ranks fourth nationwide in the production of tobacco, which is predominantly grown in the Ridge-and-Valley region of East Tennessee. The state is also the sixth-largest producer of tomatoes, with Grainger County being recognized as one of the top tomato-producing communities in the nation. Other important cash crops raised in the state include hay, wheat, eggs, and snap beans.

The Nashville Basin is a top equestrian region, due to soils that produce grass ideal for feeding horses. The Tennessee Walking Horse, first bred in the region in the late 18th century, is one of the most recognized horse breeds in the world. The state also ranks second nationwide for mule breeding and the production of goat meat. Horticultural products are an important aspect of the economy of the Eastern Highland Rim, particularly in Warren County, which is nicknamed the "Nursery Capitol of the World". Forests cover more than half of Tennessee's land area, but the state's timber industry is largely concentrated on the Cumberland Plateau, which ranks as one of the top producers of hardwood nationwide.

Industry and manufacturing

A Nissan Leaf, one of six models manufactured at the Nissan Smyrna Assembly Plant, the largest automotive assembly plant in North America

Until World War II, Tennessee, like most Southern states, remained predominantly agrarian. But Chattanooga became one of the first industrial cities in the south in the decades following the Civil War, when many factories, including iron foundries, steel mills, and textile mills were constructed there. Most of Tennessee's industrial growth, however, began with the federal investments in the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Manhattan Project in the 1930s and 1940s. The state's industrial and manufacturing sector continued to rapidly expand in the succeeding decades, and Tennessee is now home to more than 2,400 advanced manufacturing establishments, which produce a total of more than $29 billion worth of goods annually. Today, Tennessee's top manufacturing outputs include automotive and transportation products, processed foods and drinks, chemicals, electrical equipment and appliances, fabricated metals, and machinery.

The automotive industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the state, and is one of the largest in the nation. Nissan's assembly plant in Smyrna, is the largest automotive assembly plant in North America. Two other auto manufacturers have assembly plants in Tennessee: General Motors in Spring Hill, and Volkswagen in Chattanooga, In addition, the state is home to more than 900 automotive suppliers. Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors have their North American corporate headquarters Franklin. The state is also one of the top producers of food and drink products, which ranks as its second largest manufacturing sector. A number of well-known brands originated in Tennessee, and even more are produced there. Tennessee is also one of the top producers of chemicals, especially non-petrochemicals. Chemical products manufactured in Tennessee include industrial chemicals, paints, pharmaceuticals, plastic resins, and soaps and hygiene products. Other important products manufactured in Tennessee include consumer electronics, electrical appliances and equipment, nonelectrical machinery, and fabricated metal products.

Business

Established in 1942, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the largest national laboratory in the Department of Energy system

Tennessee's commercial sector is dominated by a wide variety of companies, but its largest service industries include health care, transportation, music and entertainment, banking, and finance. Large corporations with headquarters in Tennessee include FedEx, AutoZone, International Paper, and First Horizon Corporation, all based in Memphis; Pilot Corporation and Regal Entertainment Group in Knoxville; Hospital Corporation of America and Caterpillar Inc., based in Nashville; Unum in Chattanooga; Acadia Senior Living and Community Health Systems in Franklin; Dollar General in Goodlettsville, and LifePoint Health, Tractor Supply Company, and Delek US in Brentwood.

Since the 1990s, the geographical area between Oak Ridge and Knoxville has been known as the Tennessee Technology Corridor, with more than 500 high-tech firms located in the region. The research and development industry in Tennessee is also one of the largest employment sectors, mainly due to the prominence of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Y-12 National Security Complex in the city of Oak Ridge. ORNL conducts scientific research in materials science, nuclear physics, energy, high-performance computing, systems biology, and national security, and is the largest national laboratory in the Department of Energy (DOE) system by size. The technology sector is also a rapidly growing industry in Middle Tennessee, particularly in the Nashville metropolitan area.

Energy and mineral production

Further information: List of power stations in Tennessee and List of power stations operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority

Norris Dam, a hydroelectric dam operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority that was among the first projects the TVA performed as part of the New Deal in 1933.

Tennessee's electric utilities are regulated monopolies, as in many other states. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) owns over 90% of the state's generating capacity. Nuclear power is Tennessee's largest source of electricity generation, producing about 47.3% of its power in 2020. The same year, 20.2% of the power was produced from natural gas, 18.4% from coal, 13.4% from hydroelectric power, and 1.6% from other renewables. About 61.3% of the electricity generated in Tennessee produces no greenhouse gas emissions. Tennessee is a net consumer of electricity, receiving power from other TVA facilities in neighboring states.

Tennessee is home to the two newest civilian nuclear power reactors in the United States, at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Rhea County. Unit 1 began operation in 1996 and Unit 2 in 2016, making it the first and only new nuclear power reactor to begin operation in the United States in the 21st century. In a joint effort, officials at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and TVA are studying advancements in nuclear power, including small modular reactors. Tennessee was also an early leader in hydroelectric power, first with the now defunct Chattanooga and Tennessee Electric Power Company; later, the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the TVA constructed several hydroelectric dams on Tennessee rivers. Tennessee is the third-largest hydroelectric power-producing state east of the Rocky Mountains.

Tennessee has very little petroleum and natural gas reserves, but is home to one oil refinery, in Memphis. Bituminous coal is mined in small quantities in the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains. There are sizable reserves of lignite coal in West Tennessee that remain untapped. Coal production in Tennessee peaked in 1972, and today less than 0.1% of coal production in the United States comes from Tennessee mines.

Tennessee is the nation's leading producer of ball clay. Other major mineral products produced in Tennessee include sand, gravel, crushed stone, Portland cement, marble, sandstone, common clay, lime, and zinc. The Copper Basin, in Tennessee's southeastern corner in Polk County, was one of the nation's most productive copper mining districts between the 1840s and 1980s, and supplied about 90% of the copper the Confederacy used during the Civil War. Mining activities in the basin resulted in a major environmental disaster, which left the surrounding landscape barren for more than a century. Iron ore was another major mineral mined in Tennessee until the early 20th century. Tennessee was also a top producer of phosphate until the early 1990s.

Tourism

The resort city of Gatlinburg borders the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is the most visited national park in the United States.

Tennessee is the 11th-most visited state in the nation. In 2019 a record 126 million people visited the state, up from 119 million the previous year. This resulted in $23.3 billion of tourism-related spending in the state, approximately $1.1 billion of which came from international travelers. Tourism-related jobs in the state reached 195,000 that year.

Tennessee is home to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the U.S., with more than 12 million visitors annually. The park anchors a large tourism industry based primarily in nearby Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, which contains numerous attraction, including Dollywood, the most visited ticketed attraction in Tennessee. Major attractions in Memphis include Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum, and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Nashville contains many attractions related to its musical heritage, including Lower Broadway, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman Auditorium, the Grand Ole Opry, and the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Other major attractions in Nashville include the Tennessee State Museum, The Parthenon, and the Belle Meade Plantation. Major attractions in Chattanooga include Lookout Mountain, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel, Ruby Falls, and the Tennessee Aquarium, the largest freshwater aquarium in the United States. Other important attractions include the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, the Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, and the Hiwassee and Ocoee rivers in Polk County.

Four Civil War battlefields in Tennessee are preserved by the National Park Service: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Stones River National Battlefield, Shiloh National Military Park, and Fort Donelson National Battlefield. Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area is within the Cumberland Mountains in northeastern Tennessee. Other historical attractions preserved by the National Park Service include Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Tennessee is home to eight National Scenic Byways, including the Natchez Trace Parkway, the East Tennessee Crossing Byway, the Great River Road, the Norris Freeway, Cumberland National Scenic Byway, Sequatchie Valley Scenic Byway, The Trace, and the Cherohala Skyway. Tennessee maintains 45 state parks, covering some 132,000 acres (530 km²). Many reservoirs the TVA created to generate electricity have also created water-based tourist attractions.

Culture

Further information: Literature of Tennessee

A culturally diverse state, Tennessee blends Appalachian and Southern flavors, which originate from its English, Scotch-Irish, and African roots, and has evolved as the state has grown. The state's Grand Divisions also manifest into distinct cultural regions, with East Tennessee commonly associated with Southern Appalachia, and Middle and West Tennessee commonly associated with Upland Southern culture. Parts of West Tennessee, especially Memphis, are sometimes considered part of the Deep South. The Tennessee State Museum in Nashville chronicles the state's history and culture.

Tennessee is perhaps best culturally known for its deep musical heritage and the role the state has played in the development of many forms of popular music. Notable authors with ties to Tennessee include Cormac McCarthy, Peter Taylor, James Agee, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Thomas S. Stribling, Ida B. Wells, Nikki Giovanni, Shelby Foote, Ann Patchett, Ishmael Reed, and Randall Jarrell. The state's well-known contributions to Southern cuisine include Memphis-style barbecue, Nashville hot chicken, and Tennessee whiskey.

Music

Main articles: Music of Tennessee and Music of East Tennessee

The Grand Ole Opry, which was recorded in Nashville's Ryman Auditorium from 1943 to 1974, is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history.

Tennessee has played a critical role in the development of many forms of American popular music, including rock and roll, blues, country, rockabilly, soul, Contemporary Christian, and gospel. Many consider Memphis's Beale Street the birthplace of the blues, with musicians such as W. C. Handy performing in its clubs as early as 1909. Memphis was historically home to Sun Records, where musicians such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich began their recording careers, and where rock and roll took shape in the 1950s. Stax records in Memphis became one of the most important labels for soul artists in the late 1950s and 1960s, and a subgenre known as Memphis soul emerged. The 1927 Victor recording sessions in Bristol generally mark the beginning of the country music genre and the rise of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s helped make Nashville the center of the country music recording industry. Nashville became known as "Music City", and the Grand Ole Opry remains the longest running radio program in the nation.

Multiple museums recognize Tennessee's role in nurturing various forms of popular music, including the Memphis Rock N' Soul Museum, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, and National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, the International Rock-A-Billy Museum in Jackson, and the Mountain Music Museum in Kingsport. Moreover, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, an online site recognizing the development of rockabilly, is based in Nashville. A number of annual music festivals take place throughout the state, the largest of which are the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, the CMA Music Festival in Nashville, Bonnaroo in Manchester, and Riverbend in Chattanooga.

Sports

Tennessee Titans

Nashville Predators

Memphis Grizzlies

Nashville SC

Tennessee Volunteers football

Tennessee is home to four major professional sports franchises: the Tennessee Titans have played in the National Football League (NFL) since 1997, the Nashville Predators have played in the National Hockey League (NHL) since 1998, the Memphis Grizzlies have played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) since 2001, and Nashville SC has played in Major League Soccer (MLS) since 2020.

The state is also home to eight minor league teams. Four of these are Minor League Baseball clubs. The Nashville Sounds, which began play in 1978, and Memphis Redbirds, which began in 1998, each compete in the Triple-A East at the Triple-A level, the highest before Major League Baseball. The Tennessee Smokies, which have played continuously since 1972, and Chattanooga Lookouts, which have played continuously since 1976, are members of the Double-A classification Double-A South. Tennessee has three minor league soccer teams. Memphis 901 FC has played in the second-tier USL Championship since 2019. Chattanooga Red Wolves SC has been a member of the third-tier USL League One since 2019. Founded in 2009, Chattanooga FC began playing in the third-tier National Independent Soccer Association in 2020. The state has one minor league ice hockey team: the Knoxville Ice Bears, which began play in 2002 and are members of the Southern Professional Hockey League.

In Knoxville, the Tennessee Volunteers college teams have played in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) since the conference was formed in 1932. The football team has won six national championships, 13 SEC championships and 28 bowls, including four Sugar Bowls, three Cotton Bowls, an Orange Bowl and a Fiesta Bowl. The men's basketball team has won four SEC championships and reached the NCAA Elite Eight in 2010. The women's basketball team has won a host of SEC regular-season and tournament titles, and eight national titles. In Nashville, the Vanderbilt Commodores are also charter members of the SEC. The Tennessee–Vanderbilt football rivalry began in 1892, having since played more than 100 times. In 2014, the Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team won its first men's national championship by winning the 2014 College World Series.

The state is home to 10 other NCAA Division I programs. Two of these participate in the top level of college football, the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Memphis Tigers are members of the American Athletic Conference (AAC), and the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders from Murfreesboro play in Conference USA. Nashville is also home to the Belmont Bruins and Tennessee State Tigers, both members of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC), and the Lipscomb Bisons, members of the ASUN Conference. Tennessee State plays football in Division I's second level, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), while Belmont and Lipscomb do not have football teams. Belmont and Lipscomb have an intense rivalry in men's and women's basketball known as the "Battle of the Boulevard", with both schools' men's and women's teams playing two games against each other each season, a rarity among non-conference rivalries. The OVC also includes the Austin Peay Governors from Clarksville, the UT Martin Skyhawks from Martin, and the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles from Cookeville. These three schools, along with fellow OVC member Tennessee State, play each season in football for the Sgt. York Trophy. The Chattanooga Mocs and Johnson City's East Tennessee State Buccaneers are full members, including football, of the Southern Conference.

Tennessee is also home to the Bristol Motor Speedway, which features NASCAR Cup Series racing two weekends a year, routinely selling out more than 160,000 seats on each date; it is the home of the Nashville Superspeedway, which held Nationwide and IndyCar races until it was shut down in 2012; NASCAR plans reopen the track in 2021. Tennessee's only graded stakes horserace, the Iroquois Steeplechase, is held in Nashville each May. The WGC Invitational is a PGA Tour golf tournament that has been held in Memphis since 1958.

Teams

Team	Sport	League	Founded
Tennessee Titans	Football	National Football League	1997
Nashville Predators	Ice hockey	National Hockey League	1998
Memphis Grizzlies	Basketball	National Basketball Association	2001
Nashville SC	Soccer	Major League Soccer	2020
Nashville Sounds	Baseball	Triple-A East	1978
Memphis Redbirds	Baseball	Triple-A East	1998
Tennessee Smokies	Baseball	Double-A South	1972
Chattanooga Lookouts	Baseball	Double-A South	1976
Memphis 901 FC	Soccer	USL Championship	2019
Chattanooga Red Wolves SC	Soccer	USL League One	2019
Chattanooga FC	Soccer	National Independent Soccer Association	2009
Knoxville Ice Bears	Ice hockey	Southern Professional Hockey League	2002

Transportation

Due to its central location to the population of the United States, Tennessee is a crucial transportation hub. The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) is the primary agency that is tasked with regulating and maintaning Tennessee's transportation infrastructure. Tennessee is currently one of five states with no transportation-related debts.

Roads

Further information: List of Interstate Highways in Tennessee, List of U.S. Highways in Tennessee, List of state highways in Tennessee, and Tennessee State Route System

The Hernando de Soto Bridge spans the Mississippi River at Memphis.

Tennessee has 96,167 miles (154,766 km) of roads, of which 14,109 miles (22,706 km) are maintained by the state. Of the state maintained highways, 1,233 miles (1,984 km) are part of the Interstate Highway System. Tennessee's Interstate Highways are designated as the "Senator Albert Gore Sr. Memorial Interstate System" after a U.S. Senator from Tennessee who sponsored the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 that created the Interstate Highway System. Tennessee has no tolled roads or bridges. The state has the sixth-highest mileage of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, which are utilized on freeways in the congestion-prone Nashville and Memphis metropolitan areas.

Interstate 40 (I-40) is the longest Interstate Highway in Tennessee, traversing the state for 455 miles (732 km). Known as "Tennessee's Main Street", I-40 serves the major cities of Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, and throughout its entire length in Tennessee, one can observe the diversity of the state's geography and landforms. I-40's branch interstates include I-240 in Memphis; I-440 in Nashville; I-840 around Nashville; I-140 from Knoxville to Alcoa; and I-640 in Knoxville. In a north–south orientation, from west to east, are interstates 55, which serves Memphis; 65, which crosses the state though Nashville; 75, which serves Chattanooga and Knoxville; and 81, which begins east of Knoxville, and serves Bristol to the northeast. I-24 is an east–west interstate that enters the state in Clarksville, passes through Nashville, and terminates in Chattanooga. I-26, although technically an east–west interstate, begins in Kingsport and runs southwardly through Johnson City before exiting into North Carolina. I-155 is a branch highway from I-55 that serves the northwestern part of the state. The only spur highway of I-75 in Tennessee is I-275, which is in Knoxville. An extension of I-69 is proposed in the western part of the state from Memphis to South Fulton, and I-22 is planned to be extended into Memphis. I-269 runs from Millington to Collierville, serving as an outer bypass of Memphis.

Airports

Main article: List of airports in Tennessee

Memphis International Airport, the hub of Fedex Corporation, is the busiest cargo airport in the world

Major airports in Tennessee include Nashville International Airport (BNA), Memphis International Airport (MEM), McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) outside of Knoxville, Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (CHA), Tri-Cities Regional Airport (TRI) in Blountville, and McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport (MKL), in Jackson. Because Memphis International Airport is the major hub for FedEx Corporation, it is the world's busiest air cargo operation. The state also has 74 general aviation airports and 148 heliports.

Railroads

Main article: List of Tennessee railroads

For passenger rail service, Memphis and Newbern are served by the Amtrak City of New Orleans line on its run between Chicago, and New Orleans. Nashville is served by the Music City Star commuter rail service. Cargo services in Tennessee are primarily served by CSX Transportation, which has a classification yard in Nashville called Radnor Yard. Norfolk Southern Railway operates lines in East Tennessee, through cities including Knoxville and Chattanooga, and operates a classification yard near Knoxville, the John Sevier Yard. BNSF operates a major intermodal facility in Memphis. Tennessee currently has 2,604 miles (4,191 km) of freight trackage in operation.

Waterways

Tennessee has a total of 976 miles (1,571 km) of navigable waterways, the 11th highest in the nation. These include the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland rivers. Five inland ports are located in the state, including the Port of Memphis, which is the fifth-largest in the United States and the second largest on the Mississippi River.

Law and government

Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville

Main article: Government of Tennessee

The Constitution of Tennessee was adopted in 1870. The state had two previous constitutions. The first was adopted in 1796, the year Tennessee was admitted to the union, and the second in 1834. Since 1826, Nashville has been the capital of Tennessee. The capital was previously in three other cities. Knoxville was the capital from statehood in 1796 until 1812, except for September 21, 1807, when the legislature met in Kingston for a day. The capital was relocated to Nashville in 1812, where it remained until it was relocated back to Knoxville in 1817. The next year, the capital was moved to Murfreesboro, where it remained until 1826. Nashville was officially named Tennessee's permanent capital in 1843.

Executive and legislative branches

See also: List of Governors of Tennessee

Like the federal government, Tennessee's government has three branches. The executive branch is led by the governor, who holds office for a four-year term and may serve a maximum of two consecutive terms. The governor is the only official elected statewide. The current governor is Bill Lee, a Republican. The governor is supported by 22 cabinet-level departments, most headed by a commissioner the governor appoints. The executive branch also includes several agencies, boards, and commissions, some of which are under the auspices of one of the cabinet-level departments.

The bicameral legislative branch, known as the Tennessee General Assembly, consists of the 33-member Senate and the 99-member House of Representatives. Senators serve four-year terms and House members serve two-year terms. Each chamber chooses a Speaker, who is elected by a joint session of the legislature. The Speaker of the Senate also serves as the lieutenant governor, a practice found only in one other state, and the House Speaker is third in line for the governorship. The legislature can override a veto by a simple majority, and the state has no "pocket veto". The legislature convenes at noon on the second Tuesday in January and meets for a total of 90 days over two sessions, usually adjourning in late April or early May. Special sessions may be called by the governor or by two thirds of the members of both chambers.

Judicial system

See also: Courts of Tennessee

Tennessee's highest court is the state Supreme Court. It has a chief justice and four associate justices. No more than two justices can be from the same Grand Division. The Supreme Court of Tennessee appoints the state's Attorney General, a practice only found in Tennessee. Both the Court of Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals have 12 judges. Under the Tennessee Plan, the governor appoints justices on all three courts to eight-year terms; they must be retained by the voters during the first general election after appointment and at the end of their term. Tennessee is divided into 31 judicial districts, each with a circuit and chancery court, and a district attorney and judges elected to eight-year terms. Separate criminal courts serve 13 of the 31 judicial districts; circuit courts handle criminal cases in the remaining districts. Local courts include general sessions, juvenile and domestic, and municipal courts.

Tennessee maintains four dedicated law enforcement agencies: the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC). The Highway Patrol is the primary entity that enforces highway safety regulations and general non-wildlife state laws. It is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Safety. The TWRA is an independent agency tasked with enforcing all wildlife, boating, and fishery regulations outside of state parks. TDEC enforces state environmental laws and regulations. The TBI is the primary state-level criminal investigative department. State park rangers are responsible for all activities and law enforcement inside the Tennessee State Parks system. Capital punishment is legal in Tennessee, and has existed at various times since statehood. Lethal injection is the primary means of execution, but electrocution is also allowed.

Local

Tennessee is divided into 95 counties, with 92 county governments that use a county commission legislative body and a separately elected county executive. The governments of Davidson (Nashville), Moore (Lynchburg), and Trousdale (Hartsville) are consolidated with their county seats. Each county elects a sheriff, property assessor, trustee, register of deeds, and county clerk. Tennessee has more than 340 municipalities. Most cities and towns use the weak mayor-councol, strong-mayor council, city commission, or council–manager forms of government. Local law enforcement is divided between county sheriff's offices and municipal police departments. In every county except Davidson, the sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer.

Federal

See also: United States congressional delegations from Tennessee and Tennessee's congressional districts

Tennessee sends nine representatives to the United States House of Representatives. The current delegation consists of seven Republicans and two Democrats. Its U.S. senators are Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, both Republicans. Federal courts are divided into three district courts: the Eastern, Middle, and Western districts. Tennessee is under the jurisdiction of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over three district courts in the state: the Eastern, Middle, and Western districts.

Tribal

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is Tennessee's only federally recognized Native American tribe. It owns 79 acres (32 ha) in Henning, which the tribe placed into federal trust in 2012. This is governed directly by the tribe.

Politics

See also: Political party strength in Tennessee

Presidential election results

Presidential elections results

Year	Republican	Democratic
2020	60.66% 1,852,475	37.45% 1,143,711
2016	60.72% 1,522,925	34.72% 870,695
2012	59.42% 1,462,330	39.04% 960,709
2008	56.85% 1,479,178	41.79% 1,087,437
2004	56.80% 1,384,375	42.53% 1,036,477
2000	51.15% 1,061,949	47.28% 981,720
1996	45.59% 863,530	48.00% 909,146
1992	42.43% 841,300	47.08% 933,521
1988	57.89% 947,233	41.55% 679,794
1984	57.84% 990,212	41.57% 711,714
1980	48.70% 787,761	48.41% 783,051
1976	42.94% 633,969	55.94% 825,879
1972	67.70% 813,147	29.75% 357,293
1968	37.85% 472,592	28.13% 351,233
1964	44.49% 508,965	55.50% 634,947
1960	52.92% 556,577	45.77% 481,453

Tennessee's politics are currently dominated by the Republican Party. Republicans currently hold the state's U.S. Senate seats, 7 out of 9 Congressional seats, 73 out of 99 state house seats, and 27 out of 33 state senate seats. Democratic strength is largely concentrated in Nashville, Memphis, and parts of Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clarksville. Several suburban areas of Nashville and Memphis also contain significant Democratic minorities, but these areas are still safely Republican. Tennessee is one of thirteen states which holds its presidential primaries on Super Tuesday. Tennessee does not require voters to declare a party affiliation when registering. The state is one of eight states which require voters to present a form of photo identification to vote.

Between the end of the Civil War and the mid-20th century, the state was part of the Democratic Solid South, but had the largest Republican minority of any former Confederate state. During this time, the eastern third of the state was heavily Republican and the western two thirds mostly voted Democratic, with the latter dominating the state. This division was related to the state's pattern of Unionist and Confederate loyalism during the Civil War. Tennessee's 1st and 2nd congressional districts, based in the Tri-Cities and Knoxville, respectively, are among the few historically Republican districts in the South. The first has been in Republican hands continuously since 1881, and Republicans or their antecedents have held it for all but four years since 1859. The second has been held continuously by Republicans or their antecedents since 1859.

During Reconstruction, freedmen and former free people of color were granted the right to vote; most joined the Republican Party. Numerous African Americans were elected to local offices, and some to state office. Following Reconstruction, Tennessee continued to have competitive party politics, but in the 1880s, the white-dominated state government passed four Jim Crow laws, the last of which imposed a poll tax requirement for voter registration. These served to disenfranchise most African Americans, and their power in state and local politics was markedly reduced. After the disenfranchisement of blacks, the Republican Party became a primarily white sectional party supported mostly in the eastern part of the state. In the early 1900s, the state legislature approved legislation allowing cities to adopt a commission form of government based on at-large voting as a means to limit African American political participation. It was not until after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that African Americans were able to regain their full voting rights.

Between the end of Reconstruction and the mid-20th century, the state voted consistently Democratic in Presidential elections, except for two nationwide Republican landslides of the 1920s, when Tennessee narrowly supported Warren G. Harding over Ohio Governor James Cox in 1920, and more decisively voted for Herbert Hoover over New York Governor Al Smith in 1928. For most of the second half of the 20th century, Tennessee was a swing state in presidential elections. During this time, Democratic presidential nominees from Southern states, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, tended to fare better in Tennessee than their Northern counterparts, especially among split-ticket voters outside the metropolitan areas. In the 1950s, Tennessee twice voted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Allied Commander of the Armed Forces during World War II. Howard Baker, first elected in 1966, became the first Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee since Reconstruction. The elections of Winfield Dunn as governor and Bill Brock to the U.S. Senate in 1970 further helped make the Republican Party competitive among whites for the statewide victory. In the 2000 presidential election, Vice President Al Gore, who had previously served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Tennessee, failed to carry his home state, an unusual occurrence but indicative of strengthening Republican support.

Beginning in the early 21st century, Republicans gained control of most of the state, primarily due to white voters in rural areas who have rejected the increasing liberalism of the Democratic Party. In 2004, Republican President George W. Bush increased his margin of victory in the state to 14% from 4% in 2000. In the 2008 elections, the Republican Party gained control of both houses of the Tennessee state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Since 2016, Tennessee has been the most populous state to vote Republican by more than 60% in presidential elections.

Media

See also: List of television stations in Tennessee, List of newspapers in Tennessee, and List of radio stations in Tennessee

Offices of The Tennessean in Nashville

Tennessee is home to more than 120 newspapers. The most-circulated paid newspapers in the state include The Tennessean in Nashville, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, The Jackson Sun, and The Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro. All of these except the Times Free Press are owned by Gannett.

Six television media markets—Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Tri-Cities, and Jackson—are based in Tennessee. The Nashville market is the third-largest in the Upland South and the ninth-largest in the southeastern United States, according to Nielsen Media Research. Small sections of the Huntsville, Alabama and Paducah, Kentucky-Cape Girardeau, Missouri-Harrisburg, Illinois markets also extend into the state. Tennessee has 43 full-power and 41 low-power television stations and more than 450 Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-licensed radio stations. The Grand Ole Opry, based in Nashville, is the longest-running radio show in the country, having broadcast continuously since 1925.

Education

See also: List of school districts in Tennessee and List of high schools in Tennessee

Education in Tennessee is administered by the Tennessee Department of Education. The state Board of Education consists of eleven members; nine from each Congressional district, a student member, and the executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), who serves as ex-officio nonvoting member. Public primary and secondary education systems are operated by county, city, or special school districts to provide education at the local level, and operate under the direction of the Tennessee Department of Education. The state also has many private schools.

The state enrolls approximately 1 million K–12 students in 137 districts. In 2020, the four-year high school graduation rate was 89.6%, a decrease of 0.1% from the previous year. According to the most recent data, Tennessee spends $9,544 per student, the 8th lowest in the nation.

Colleges and universities

Main article: List of colleges and universities in Tennessee

Vanderbilt University in Nashville is consistently ranked as one of the top research institutions in the nation

Public higher education is under the oversight of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) which provides guidance to the state's two public university systems. The University of Tennessee system operates three primary campuses in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Martin; a Health Sciences Center in Memphis; and an aerospace research facility in Tullahoma. The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR), also known as The College System of Tennessee, operates 13 community colleges and 27 campuses of the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCAT). Until 2017, the TBR also operated six public universities in the state, but now only provides administrative support.

In 2014, the Tennessee General Assembly created the Tennessee Promise, which allows in-state high school graduates to enroll in two-year post-secondary education programs such as associate degrees and certificates at community colleges and trade schools in Tennessee tuition-free, funded by the state lottery, if they meet certain requirements. The Tennessee Promise was created as part of then-governor Bill Haslam's "Drive to 55" program, which set a goal of increasing the number of college-educated residents to at least 55% of the state's population. The program has also received national attention, with multiple states having since created similar programs modeled on the Tennessee Promise.

There are currently 107 private institutions in Tennessee. Vanderbilt University in Nashville is consistently ranked as one of that nation's leading research institutions. In addition, Nashville is often labeled as the "Athens of the South" due to the many colleges and universities in the city. Tennessee is also home to six historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

See also

• Index of Tennessee-related articles
• Outline of Tennessee

References

Bibliography

• Connelly, Thomas Lawrence (1979). Civil War Tennessee: Battles and Leaders. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 9780870492617 – via Google Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Corlew, Robert E.; Folmsbee, Stanley E.; Mitchell, Enoch (1981). Tennessee: A Short History (2nd ed.). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 9780870496479 – via Internet Archive.
• Finger, John R. (2001). Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33985-0 – via Google Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Lamon, Lester C. (1980). Blacks in Tennessee, 1791–1970. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-324-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Langsdon, Phillip R. (2000). Tennessee: A Political History. Franklin, Tennessee: Hillboro Press. ISBN 9781577361251 – via Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Lyons, William; Scheb II, John M.; Stair, Billy (2001). Government and Politics in Tennessee. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 9781572331419 – via Google Books.
• Moore, Harry (1994). A Geologic Trip Across Tennessee by Interstate 40. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. pp. 55–56. ISBN 9780870498329. Retrieved May 14, 2021 – via Google Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Safford, James M. (1869). Geology of Tennessee. Nashville: S.C. Mercer. ISBN 978-1-4585-0040-3 – via Google Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Satz, Ronald (1979). Tennessee's Indian Peoples. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-285-3 – via Internet Archive.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

Further reading

• Bergeron, Paul H. (1982). Antebellum Politics in Tennessee. University of Kentucky Press. ISBN 978-0-8131-1469-9.
• Bontemps, Arna (1941). William C. Handy: Father of the Blues: An Autobiography. New York: Macmillan Company.
• Brownlow, W. G. (1862). Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession: With a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels – via Internet Archive.
• Cartwright, Joseph H. (1976). The Triumph of Jim Crow: Tennessee's Race Relations in the 1880s. University of Tennessee Press.
• Cimprich, John (1985). Slavery's End in Tennessee, 1861–1865. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-0257-3 – via Google Books.
• Mooney, James (1902). Myths of the Cherokee. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 534. ISBN 978-0-914875-19-2 – via Internet Archive.
• Honey, Michael K. (1993). Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-02000-1 – via Internet Archive.
• Norton, Herman (1981). Religion in Tennessee, 1777–1945. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-318-8.
• Olson, Ted (2009). A Tennessee Folklore Sampler: Selected Readings from the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, 1934–2009. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-668-1.
• Schaefer, Richard T. (2006). Sociology Matters. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-299775-0 – via Internet Archive.
• Van West, Carroll, ed. (1998). Tennessee History: The Land, The People, and The Culture. University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-000-9 – via Google Books.

External links

• Official website
• Tennessee Department of Tourist Development
• Tennessee State Library and Archives
• Tennessee Blue Book
• Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
• Tennessee State Agency Databases by the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association
• TNGen Web Project, free genealogy resources for the state
• Tennessee QuickFacts by the U.S. Census Bureau
• Tennessee scientific resources by the U.S. Geological Survey
• Tennessee state data by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Tennessee State Profile and Energy Estimates by U.S. Energy Information Administration
• Tennessee Code Annotated by LexisNexis
• Tennessee Landforms
• Ramsey, J. G. M. (1853). The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century. John Russell.
• Tennessee at Curlie
• Geographic data related to Tennessee at OpenStreetMap

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