

The location was known first as Terminus and then as Marthasville in 1845 it was renamed Atlanta for the Western and Atlantic Railroad. In 1837 a spot near what is now Five Points, in the centre of the present-day city, was selected for the southern terminus of a railroad that was subsequently built northward to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Lying as it does at the southern extremity of the Appalachian Mountains, it became the gateway through which most overland traffic had to pass between the southern Atlantic Seaboard and regions to the west. HistoryĪtlanta owes its existence to the railroads, the routes of which were determined by geography. It is the centre of an extensive metropolitan area that includes 20 counties and cities such as Decatur, East Point, and Marietta. Atlanta is Georgia’s largest city and the principal trade and transportation centre of the southeastern United States.

It lies in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwestern part of the state, just southeast of the Chattahoochee River.

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