Tennessee

Tennessee ( (listen), locally ), 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, and a section of the Appalachian Trail roughly follows the Tennessee–North Carolina border. Wikipedia ->