Tennessee Facts

Fast Facts

Population:: 5,841,748
Capital:: Nashville; 545,915
Area:: 42,143 square miles (109,151 square kilometers)
Per Capita Income:: U.S. $27,378
Date Statehood Achieved:: June 1, 1796

Foreign companies drawn by nonunionized labor and access to U.S. markets are invigorating Tennessee, and the population is now predominantly urban. The Tennessee River, whose dams generate abundant electricity, trisects the state. In the west biomedical, telecommunications, and transportation industries lead an economic resurgence centered on Memphis that has brought billions to the local economy. Soybean and cotton growers in this region struggle to conserve easily eroded soils. Nashville, in the middle of the state, is America's country-music capital.

ECONOMY

Industry: Service industries, chemicals, transportation equipment, processed foods, machinery
Agriculture: Cattle, cotton, dairy products, hogs, poultry, nursery stock

—Text From National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition

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