State of Tennessee general data
- Time zone: 7 hours less than Italy
- Capital: Nashville
- Main towns: Clarksville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Murfreesboro
- Area: 109.150 km²
- Population: Approximately 6,700,000 inhabitants.
- Population density: 61,3 residents / km²
- State abbreviation: TN
- Entry into the United States: It joins the United States on June 1, 1796, it is the 16th state to join the union.
According to thembaprograms.com, the state of Tennessee can be physically divided into six major regions: The Unaka Mountains, the Great East Tennessee Valley, the Cumberland Plateau, the Highlands Rim, the Nashville Basin, and the Plain. coast of the gulf. The territory is sloping from east to west, has an average height of 270 m, with the highest point in Clingmans Dome (2025 m), and the lowest in the Mississippi river bed, 54 m.
The Unaka Mountains, east of the state, are part of the Blue Ridge range, which extends from the state of North Carolina. It is a wild area formed by various mountain ranges and valleys and very wooded. Among the mountain ranges, the Great Smoky Mountains are worth mentioning. The Cumberland Plateau is a section of the Appalachian Highlands, which it shares with the states of Kentucky and Alabama. In this section with an average height of 600 m, you will find the Walden mountain range and the Sequatchie valley. The highlands region surrounds the Nashville Basin and to the west, the Cumberland Plateau. It is a plain with low hills, but wild in parts west of the Tennessee Valley. The Nashville Basin, also called the Central Basin, is a low-mountainous section where the best agricultural land in the state is found. Finally, the coastal plain is a geographical unit located between the valleys of Tennessee and Mississippi, part of the greater region of the sub-continent of the United States, which extends into the states of Mississippi and Alabama.
The most important rivers in this state are Tennessee and Mississippi. Triburtari of the former the Little Tennessee, Clinch, Duck and Hiwassee rivers. At the Mississippi, in addition to Tennessee itself, which joins the Mississippi in the territory of Kentucky, the rivers Kentucky and Hatchie flow. In a small area in the east of the state flow rivers of the Alabama system, and the Cumberland that flows into Ohio.
The only major lake in Tennessee is the Reelfoot which was formed in 1811 following a series of earthquakes. The rest of the state’s great lakes are man-made, many of them built by the Tennessee Valley Authority and US Army engineers during the Great Depression starting in 1933. The most important are Kentucky, Pickwick Landing, Chickamauga, Watts Bar and Barkley.
Flora and fauna– More than half of Tennessee is covered in forest, with soft and hard woods in the east, and hardwood trees in the rest of the land. Cedar groves are found in the Nashville Basin. The wildlife of the state, in the past very rich, is now strictly protected to avoid extinction.
The climate of Tennessee is varied since it shares some characteristics of the continental climate, but with influences of the subtropical climate that characterizes the regions close to the Gulf of Mexico. In general, the climate can be defined as mild without sudden changes, with an average annual temperature of 16 ° C, although there are strong differences in temperature between the seasons. Thus, summers in Tennessee are long and hot, while winters are short and mild. Due to topographical differences, temperatures are warmer in the low-lying regions of the southwest. In summer, an average temperature of 25 ° C is recorded, while in winter it is 5 ° C. As for rainfall, the annual average is 1,270 mm, with variations between 1,150 mm and 1. 400 according to the zones. Snowfall of some importance occurs only in the eastern mountains, an annual average of 380 mm.
Tennessee: places to visit
In Memphis, those who are nostalgic for the past can embark on a slow cruise on the Mississippi aboard the Delta Queen, one of the last paddlewheel boats. However, if the great classics remain at Pee Wee, the famous saloon on Beale Street, the street where W. Handy lived, Beale Street Blues and Memphis Blues, other cadences have appeared with the rock and roll that brought Elvis Presley to the top of the world. gloria, his luxurious residence on the southern outskirts of the city, attracts numerous visitors.
As for Nashville, capital of the state, whose dreams of greatness are expressed above all by a perfect copy of the Parthenon in Athens as it existed at the time of Pericles, the city owes its international reputation to true musical institutions, such as the Gran Ole Opry, the most ancient radio station of the United States. Since 1925 it has presented, with great artists, “the longest permanent show that has ever existed”, mainly spreading the country music that has conquered America.
One of the songs in the folk repertoire, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, celebrates the famous funicular which, with one of the steepest routes in the world, takes visitors after the industrial city of Chattanooga in the southeast of the state, up to Lookout Mountain, from where you can admire the exceptional panorama of the surrounding mountains. The valleys are home to hundreds of peaceful lakes with wooded banks, formed by the numerous barriers that have harnessed the rushing Tennessee River. Beyond the Appalachian Range (Tennessee shares the 2,000 km2 of Great Smoky Mountains National Park with North Carolina), the east of the state boasts the stunning peaks of the Cumberland Mountains.
Cultural Tourist Places – The most important cultural institutions are the Pink Palace Museum of Memphis, the Brooks Museum of Art, the National Museum of Civil Rights, the Tennessee State Museum, the Center of Fine Arts, the Botanical Garden, the Museum Carroll Reece, the Cumberland Museum and Science Center and the American Museum of Atomic Energy. Other places of historical and cultural interest are the parks that commemorate the great battles during the civil war, such as those of Shiloh, Lookout Mountain and Franklin.
Curiosity– Noteworthy are the homes of Presidents Polk (Columbia), Jackson (near Nashville), Johnson (Greeneville), and that of the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, whose house-museum (Graceland) opens its doors to tourists in the city of Memphis. Nashville became the second most important center of the record industry in the country, thanks to the success of country music, during the postwar period for the radio show ‘Grand Ole Opry’. In this city there is the Country Music Hall of Fame, a center dedicated to celebrating and spreading this musical style.
Nashville
According to countryaah.com, Nashville is the capital of the state of Tennessee located in the center of the state. Founded in 1779, it is an important commercial, industrial and, above all, tourist center, because it has become the world center of the ‘country and western’ style that attracts thousands of visitors to the city. Nashville is located 150m above sea level on the banks of the Cumberland River. Its climate is moderate as it does not suffer from extreme temperatures neither in summer nor in the winter resort. Annual averages are 15 ° C, 3 ° C during the month of January, and 26 ° C in July. The rains are concentrated between the months of winter and spring,
History– The area where the city of Nashville is located today was a hunting region of several Indian tribes, including, Chickasaw Cherokee and Shawnee. French hunters and explorers had activities in this region during the 17th and 18th centuries. However, the first permanent settlement was built a few years after the independence of the United States, when some settlers from North Carolina decided to settle in these lands, hitherto prohibited by British law. The group of pioneers, led by James Robertson, founded a fort on the banks of the Cumberland River, which they named Nashborough, in honor of General Francis Nash who was one of the heroes of the North American independence and came from North Carolina. The ancient fort that survived the War of Independence, British and Indian attacks, was renamed Nashville in 1784. After the war, the city began to prosper and a few years later, in 1796, Tennessee was admitted to the Union. which accelerated its growth. Between 1820 and 1845, Nashville gained notoriety thanks to General Andrew Jackson. This military was the seventh president of the United States, and the strongest supporter of Manifest Destiny, which encouraged the expansion of the country, at the expense of Mexico. It is no exaggeration to say that thanks to Jackson the city definitely appeared on the maps of the United States. Indeed, in 1843 Nashville became the capital of Tennessee, a state that, thanks to Jackson’s policy, was no longer a frontier territory.
According to topschoolsoflaw.com, the arrival of the railroad in the mid-19th century and the use of the Cumberland River as a means of transportation transformed Nashville into an important industrial and distribution center. Due to its development and its strategic situation, during the civil war (1861-65) Nasvhille was a military target of both sides. At the beginning of the war, it was a center for the production of weapons in the service of the Confederation, until during the first year of the war the Union army managed to take over the city. In 1864 the Confederates tried desperately to retake Nashville, which resulted in one of the bloodiest battles of this fratricidal war. The reconstruction period was long, due to the extensive damage suffered by the city during the war and the need to reactivate the state’s economy. During the decade of the 1870s, however, Nashville managed to fully recover by transforming itself into a major national distribution center. One of the most important institutions in Nashville, Vanderbilt University, and some buildings that hosted the Centennial Exposition in 1879 to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the city date back to this period. During the first and second world wars, Nashville took advantage of the needs of the contenders and the development plans promoted by the Tennessee Valley Authority (a federal program promoted by the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) to lay the foundations for a large industry. Once the Second Great War was over in 1945, Nashville began to diversify the economy, which it oriented towards new technologies. This was also the time when, thanks to radio and television, (particularly the Grand Ole Opry broadcaster), the whole country identified Nashville with the style of country music. The remarkable physical and demographic expansion of this city led to the administrative merger of Nashville with Davidson County, from which time this metropolitan area was officially called Nashville-Davidson. The city underwent a complex renovation plan during the 1980s, aimed at consolidating its growing tourism industry.
Tourist Places and Cultural Institutions – Nashville’s vibrant downtown is dominated by the Country Music Hall of Fame. Most of the sights in the city are within walking distance, such as the imposing State Capitol at the top of the hill, the ancient and beautifully restored Ryman Auditorium on Fifth Avenue, and the beautiful riverfront with the reconstructed fort, a copy of the original. In the surrounding area, called “the District”, there are many restaurants, cafes and clubs.
Nashville’s premier higher education institution is Vanderbilt University. Also noteworthy are Fisk University, (the first founded in the United States to teach black people), Meharry Medical School, Tennessee State University, Belmont College and the Technical Institute of Nashville. Among the museums, to mention the Van Vechten Gallery, the Alfred Stieglitz Art Collection, the Tennessee State Museum, the Cumberland Museum, the Science Center and above all, the famous Country Music Hall of Fame, the dedicated ‘national’ museum to Country music.
Nashville has a symphony orchestra that holds its concerts in the Tennessee Center for Performing Arts (TPAC), and various theater companies including The Circle Players and Southern Stage Productions. The Hermitage, the palace where the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson lived and died, is worth a visit. Another house-museum of interest is the Mansion Belle Meade, where you can appreciate some aspects of daily life on a southern plantation before the civil war. Other points of interest in the city are the Center of Fine Arts, the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens, and Centennial Park,
The local economy is based on the food, chemical, publishing, wood, textile, aeronautical, aerospace equipment, and metalworking industries. The financial, insurance and transport sectors are also quite developed. It is home to a university, an academy of sciences and arts and several colleges. It is a center of agricultural and livestock trade. It is the home of country music which in Tennessee is a real mass cultural phenomenon. It is no coincidence that the city hosts the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
