Memphis is a city in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4^th Chickasaw Bluff just south of the mouth of the Wolf River.

As of 2007, Memphis had an estimated population of 677,272, making it the largest city in the state of Tennessee, the second largest in the Southeastern United States, and the 18th largest in the United States.

The greater Memphis metropolitan area, including adjacent counties in Mississippi and Arkansas, has a population of 1,280,533. This makes Memphis the second largest metropolitan area in Tennessee, surpassed only by metropolitan Nashville, which overtook Memphis in recent years.

Memphis is the youngest of Tennessee's four major cities (traditionally including Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Nashville). A resident of Memphis is referred to as a Memphian and the Memphis region is known, particularly to media outlets, as the "Mid-South."

History

main: History of Memphis, Tennessee

Early history

The land comprising present-day Memphis remained in a largely unorganized territory throughout most of the 18th century. By 1796, the community was the westernmost point of the newly admitted state of Tennessee, located in the Southeast America.

19th century

Memphis was founded in 1819 by John Overton, James Winchester and Andrew Jackson. The city was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River. Memphis developed as a transportation center in the 19th century because of its flood-free location, high above the Mississippi River.

As the cotton economy of the antebellum South depended on the forced labor of large numbers of African-American slaves, Memphis became a major slave market. In 1857, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was completed, the only East-West railroad across the southern states prior to the Civil War.

Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861 and Memphis briefly became a Confederate stronghold. Union forces captured Memphis in the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862, and the city remained under Union control for the duration of the war. Memphis became a Union supply base and continued to prosper throughout the war.

In the 1870s a series of yellow fever epidemics hit the city. The worst outbreak, in 1878, reduced the population by nearly 75% as many people died or fled the city permanently. Property tax revenues collapsed, and the city could not make payments on its municipal debts. As a result, Memphis lost its city charter and became a taxing district. It operated as a taxing district in 1878-1893 and was rechartered in 1893.

20th century