Atlanta

Atlanta, is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia with a 2010 population of 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest in the U.S.  It is a major component of a growing southeastern megalopolis known as the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion. Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County, and a small portion of the city extends eastward into DeKalb County.
Atlanta began as a settlement located at the terminus of a railroad line, and it was incorporated in 1845. Today, the city is a major business city and the primary transportation hub of the Southeastern United States (via highway, railroad, and air), with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being the world's busiest airport since 1998. The World Cities Study Group at Loughborough University rated Atlanta as an "alpha(-) world city." With a gross domestic product of US$270 billion, Atlanta's economy ranks 15th among world cities and sixth in the nation. The city is a center for services, finance, information technology, government, and higher education. Metro Atlanta contains the country's third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies, and is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, Turner Broadcasting, The Home Depot, AT&T Mobility, UPS, and Delta Air Lines. As of 2010, Atlanta is the seventh most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year.
The city has long been known as a center of black wealth, political power and culture; a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement[18] and home to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. However, the city's white population is growing rapidly, while Metro Atlanta has quickly become ethnically diverse with large Hispanic and Asian populations. The arts and entertainment are well represented in Atlanta, and the city is an important base for hip hop, gospel, and neo soul music; in addition, it has become a major center of film and TV production. Atlanta stands out among major U.S. cities for its dense tree coverage. In 1996, Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympics, an event that spurred a wave of gentrification that has intensified into the 21st century, revitalizing the city's center and in-town neighborhoods.


Arts in Atlanta 
Atlanta has flourishing music, fine art, and theater scenes. It has also become a major regional center for film and television production.
In music, Atlanta has been called the "center of gravity" for hip hop, including Southern hip hop, and is also an important center for R&B and of neo soul. The city is the current home or birthplace of many hip-hop artists including Lil Jon, Ludacris, and Usher. It is also a center of gospel music where the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards take place. Atlanta also has strong live music, pop, rock, indie-rock, country, blues and jazz scenes, including artists such as the Indigo Girls, and Justin Bieber. From the 1920s through 1950s, Atlanta, with its many mill workers from Appalachia bringing their music with them, became a major center for country music.
The Fox Theatre is a historic landmark and is among the highest grossing theatres in of its size. The city also has a large collection of highly successful music venues of various sizes that host top and emerging touring acts including the Tabernacle, the Variety Playhouse and The Masquerade.
The High Museum of Art is arguably the South's leading art museum. Other art institutions include the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory, containing the largest collection of ancient art in the Southeast.
Theater groups include the Alliance Theater, winner of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the internationally-known Center for Puppetry Arts and dozens of other groups across the city and Metro Atlanta.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra plays at its concert hall at the Woodruff Arts Center in Midtown, which also houses the High Museum of Art and Alliance Theatre. The Atlanta Opera and The Atlanta Ballet usually perform at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre at the city's northwest edge. Atlanta's renowned classical musicians have included conductors Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony's Robert Spano.
In literature, Atlanta has been the home of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone With the Wind, one of the best-selling books of all time; Alice Walker, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple; Alfred Uhry, playwright of Driving Miss Daisy, and Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Brer Rabbit children's stories. Famous journalists include Ralph McGill, the anti-segregationist editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Atlanta is also the home of contemporary editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich, who is syndicated nationally to 150 newspapers.


Tourism in Atlanta, Festivals in Atlanta, and Museums in Atlanta
As of 2010, the city is the seventh-most visited city in the United States, with over 35 million visitors per year. The city was the 12th most popular destination for overseas visitors, who numbered 712,000 in total (2010).
Atlanta's museums, the High in particular (see Museums in Atlanta) are a great draw, as are the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, the Georgia Aquarium (the world's largest indoor aquarium),[92] and the World of Coca-Cola.
Other museums include the Atlanta Cyclorama & Civil War Museum, the Carter Center and Presidential Library, and the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum (where Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind). Museums geared specifically towards children include the Fernbank Science Center and Imagine It! The Children's Museum of Atlanta. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, next to Piedmont Park, is home to the only canopy-level pathway of its kind in the U.S., 600-foot-long (180 m). Zoo Atlanta, located in Grant Park, is one of only four zoos in the U.S. currently housing giant pandas.
Outdoor events and attractions are plentiful. Piedmont Park hosts many of Atlanta's festivals, including the annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Festival Peachtree Latino, Music Midtown, and Atlanta Pride. Most older intown neighborhoods hold yearly festivals as well, such as the Inman Park Festival and Virginia Highland Summerfest. Yearly traditions include the Southeastern Flower Show, and at Christmastime the Macy's (originally Rich's) Great Tree and "Pink Pig" ride at Macy's Lenox Square.


 Media in Atlanta
The Atlanta metro area is served by dozens of local television stations and is the eighth largest designated market area (DMA) in the U.S. with 2,387,520 homes (2.0% of the total U.S.). The Atlanta radio market is ranked seventh in the nation by Arbitron, and is home to more than forty radio stations. See Media in Atlanta for a full list of TV and radio stations.
The nation's first cable superstation launched in Atlanta in 1976, WTCG (Channel 17). The station changed its call letters to WTBS in 1979. In 2007, parent Turner Broadcasting System separated the local (WPCH-TV, "Peachtree TV") and national ("TBS") feeds. Based in Atlanta are other Turner properties TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, HLN, truTV, and Turner Classic Movies, as well as NBC Universal's The Weather Channel.
Cox Enterprises has substantial media holdings in and beyond Atlanta. Its Cox Communications division is the nation's third-largest cable television service provider; the company also publishes over a dozen daily newspapers in the United States, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. WSB AM—the flagship station of Cox Radio—was the first broadcast station in the South.
Many film and television shows are set and/or filmed in Metro Atlanta; see "Arts and entertainment"