title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Most observed events (70%) have a duration of greater than two seconds and are classified as long gamma-ray bursts. Because these events constitute the majority of the population and because they tend to have the brightest afterglows, they have been observed in much greater detail than their short counterparts. Almost every well-studied long gamma-ray burst has been linked to a galaxy with rapid star formation, and in many cases to a core-collapse supernova as well, unambiguously associating long GRBs with the deaths of massive stars. Long GRB afterglow observations, at high redshift, are also consistent with the GRB having originated in star-forming regions. In December 2022, astronomers reported the first evidence of a long GRB produced by a neutron star merger.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: These events are at the tail end of the long GRB duration distribution, lasting more than 10,000 seconds. They have been proposed to form a separate class, caused by the collapse of a blue supergiant star, a tidal disruption event or a new-born magnetar. Only a small number have been identified to date, their primary characteristic being their gamma ray emission duration. The most studied ultra-long events include GRB 101225A and GRB 111209A. The low detection rate may be a result of low sensitivity of current detectors to long-duration events, rather than a reflection of their true frequency. A 2013 study, on the other hand, shows that the existing evidence for a separate ultra-long GRB population with a new type of progenitor is inconclusive, and further multi-wavelength observations are needed to draw a firmer conclusion.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Gamma-ray bursts are very bright as observed from Earth despite their typically immense distances. An average long GRB has a bolometric flux comparable to a bright star of our galaxy despite a distance of billions of light years (compared to a few tens of light years for most visible stars). Most of this energy is released in gamma rays, although some GRBs have extremely luminous optical counterparts as well. GRB 080319B, for example, was accompanied by an optical counterpart that peaked at a visible magnitude of 5.8, comparable to that of the dimmest naked-eye stars despite the burst's distance of 7.5 billion light years. This combination of brightness and distance implies an extremely energetic source. Assuming the gamma-ray explosion to be spherical, the energy output of GRB 080319B would be within a factor of two of the rest-mass energy of the Sun (the energy which would be released were the Sun to be converted entirely into radiation).


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Gamma-ray bursts are thought to be highly focused explosions, with most of the explosion energy collimated into a narrow jet. The approximate angular width of the jet (that is, the degree of spread of the beam) can be estimated directly by observing the achromatic "jet breaks" in afterglow light curves: a time after which the slowly decaying afterglow begins to fade rapidly as the jet slows and can no longer beam its radiation as effectively. Observations suggest significant variation in the jet angle from between 2 and 20 degrees.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Because their energy is strongly focused, the gamma rays emitted by most bursts are expected to miss the Earth and never be detected. When a gamma-ray burst is pointed towards Earth, the focusing of its energy along a relatively narrow beam causes the burst to appear much brighter than it would have been were its energy emitted spherically. When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 10 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass () energy equivalentwhich is still many times the mass-energy equivalent of the Earth (about 5.5 × 10 J). This is comparable to the energy released in a bright type Ib/c supernova and within the range of theoretical models. Very bright supernovae have been observed to accompany several of the nearest GRBs. Additional support for focusing of the output of GRBs has come from observations of strong asymmetries in the spectra of nearby type Ic supernovae and from radio observations taken long after bursts when their jets are no longer relativistic.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Short (time duration) GRBs appear to come from a lower-redshift (i.e. less distant) population and are less luminous than long GRBs. The degree of beaming in short bursts has not been accurately measured, but as a population they are likely less collimated than long GRBs or possibly not collimated at all in some cases.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Because of the immense distances of most gamma-ray burst sources from Earth, identification of the progenitors, the systems that produce these explosions, is challenging. The association of some long GRBs with supernovae and the fact that their host galaxies are rapidly star-forming offer very strong evidence that long gamma-ray bursts are associated with massive stars. The most widely accepted mechanism for the origin of long-duration GRBs is the collapsar model, in which the core of an extremely massive, low-metallicity, rapidly rotating star collapses into a black hole in the final stages of its evolution. Matter near the star's core rains down towards the center and swirls into a high-density accretion disk. The infall of this material into a black hole drives a pair of relativistic jets out along the rotational axis, which pummel through the stellar envelope and eventually break through the stellar surface and radiate as gamma rays. Some alternative models replace the black hole with a newly formed magnetar, although most other aspects of the model (the collapse of the core of a massive star and the formation of relativistic jets) are the same.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The closest analogs within the Milky Way galaxy of the stars producing long gamma-ray bursts are likely the Wolf–Rayet stars, extremely hot and massive stars, which have shed most or all of their hydrogen envelope. Eta Carinae, Apep, and WR 104 have been cited as possible future gamma-ray burst progenitors. It is unclear if any star in the Milky Way has the appropriate characteristics to produce a gamma-ray burst.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The massive-star model probably does not explain all types of gamma-ray burst. There is strong evidence that some short-duration gamma-ray bursts occur in systems with no star formation and no massive stars, such as elliptical galaxies and galaxy halos. The favored theory for the origin of most short gamma-ray bursts is the merger of a binary system consisting of two neutron stars. According to this model, the two stars in a binary slowly spiral towards each other because gravitational radiation releases energy until tidal forces suddenly rip the neutron stars apart and they collapse into a single black hole. The infall of matter into the new black hole produces an accretion disk and releases a burst of energy, analogous to the collapsar model. Numerous other models have also been proposed to explain short gamma-ray bursts, including the merger of a neutron star and a black hole, the accretion-induced collapse of a neutron star, or the evaporation of primordial black holes.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: An alternative explanation proposed by Friedwardt Winterberg is that in the course of a gravitational collapse and in reaching the event horizon of a black hole, all matter disintegrates into a burst of gamma radiation.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: This new class of GRB-like events was first discovered through the detection of GRB 110328A by the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission on 28 March 2011. This event had a gamma-ray duration of about 2 days, much longer than even ultra-long GRBs, and was detected in X-rays for many months. It occurred at the center of a small elliptical galaxy at redshift z = 0.3534. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the explosion was the result of stellar collapse or a tidal disruption event accompanied by a relativistic jet, although the latter explanation has become widely favoured.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: A tidal disruption event of this sort is when a star interacts with a supermassive black hole, shredding the star, and in some cases creating a relativistic jet which produces bright emission of gamma ray radiation. The event GRB 110328A (also denoted Swift J1644+57) was initially argued to be produced by the disruption of a main sequence star by a black hole of several million times the mass of the Sun, although it has subsequently been argued that the disruption of a white dwarf by a black hole of mass about 10 thousand times the Sun may be more likely.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The means by which gamma-ray bursts convert energy into radiation remains poorly understood, and as of 2010 there was still no generally accepted model for how this process occurs. Any successful model of GRB emission must explain the physical process for generating gamma-ray emission that matches the observed diversity of light curves, spectra, and other characteristics. Particularly challenging is the need to explain the very high efficiencies that are inferred from some explosions: some gamma-ray bursts may convert as much as half (or more) of the explosion energy into gamma-rays. Early observations of the bright optical counterparts to GRB 990123 and to GRB 080319B, whose optical light curves were extrapolations of the gamma-ray light spectra, have suggested that inverse Compton scattering may be the dominant process in some events. In this model, pre-existing low-energy photons are scattered by relativistic electrons within the explosion, augmenting their energy by a large factor and transforming them into gamma-rays.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The nature of the longer-wavelength afterglow emission (ranging from X-ray through radio) that follows gamma-ray bursts is better understood. Any energy released by the explosion not radiated away in the burst itself takes the form of matter or energy moving outward at nearly the speed of light. As this matter collides with the surrounding interstellar gas, it creates a relativistic shock wave that then propagates forward into interstellar space. A second shock wave, the reverse shock, may propagate back into the ejected matter. Extremely energetic electrons within the shock wave are accelerated by strong local magnetic fields and radiate as synchrotron emission across most of the electromagnetic spectrum. This model has generally been successful in modeling the behavior of many observed afterglows at late times (generally, hours to days after the explosion), although there are difficulties explaining all features of the afterglow very shortly after the gamma-ray burst has occurred.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Gamma ray bursts can have harmful or destructive effects on life. Considering the universe as a whole, the safest environments for life similar to that on Earth are the lowest density regions in the outskirts of large galaxies. Our knowledge of galaxy types and their distribution suggests that life as we know it can only exist in about 10% of all galaxies. Furthermore, galaxies with a redshift, "z", higher than 0.5 are unsuitable for life as we know it, because of their higher rate of GRBs and their stellar compactness.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: All GRBs observed to date have occurred well outside the Milky Way galaxy and have been harmless to Earth. However, if a GRB were to occur within the Milky Way within 5,000 to 8,000 light-years and its emission were beamed straight towards Earth, the effects could be harmful and potentially devastating for its ecosystems. Currently, orbiting satellites detect on average approximately one GRB per day. The closest observed GRB as of March 2014 was GRB 980425, located away (z=0.0085) in an SBc-type dwarf galaxy. GRB 980425 was far less energetic than the average GRB and was associated with the Type Ib supernova SN 1998bw.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Estimating the exact rate at which GRBs occur is difficult; for a galaxy of approximately the same size as the Milky Way, estimates of the expected rate (for long-duration GRBs) can range from one burst every 10,000 years, to one burst every 1,000,000 years. Only a small percentage of these would be beamed towards Earth. Estimates of rate of occurrence of short-duration GRBs are even more uncertain because of the unknown degree of collimation, but are probably comparable.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Since GRBs are thought to involve beamed emission along two jets in opposing directions, only planets in the path of these jets would be subjected to the high energy gamma radiation.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Although nearby GRBs hitting Earth with a destructive shower of gamma rays are only hypothetical events, high energy processes across the galaxy have been observed to affect the Earth's atmosphere.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: Earth's atmosphere is very effective at absorbing high energy electromagnetic radiation such as x-rays and gamma rays, so these types of radiation would not reach any dangerous levels at the surface during the burst event itself. The immediate effect on life on Earth from a GRB within a few kiloparsecs would only be a short increase in ultraviolet radiation at ground level, lasting from less than a second to tens of seconds. This ultraviolet radiation could potentially reach dangerous levels depending on the exact nature and distance of the burst, but it seems unlikely to be able to cause a global catastrophe for life on Earth.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The long-term effects from a nearby burst are more dangerous. Gamma rays cause chemical reactions in the atmosphere involving oxygen and nitrogen molecules, creating first nitrogen oxide then nitrogen dioxide gas. The nitrogen oxides cause dangerous effects on three levels. First, they deplete ozone, with models showing a possible global reduction of 25–35%, with as much as 75% in certain locations, an effect that would last for years. This reduction is enough to cause a dangerously elevated UV index at the surface. Secondly, the nitrogen oxides cause photochemical smog, which darkens the sky and blocks out parts of the sunlight spectrum. This would affect photosynthesis, but models show only about a 1% reduction of the total sunlight spectrum, lasting a few years. However, the smog could potentially cause a cooling effect on Earth's climate, producing a "cosmic winter" (similar to an impact winter, but without an impact), but only if it occurs simultaneously with a global climate instability. Thirdly, the elevated nitrogen dioxide levels in the atmosphere would wash out and produce acid rain. Nitric acid is toxic to a variety of organisms, including amphibian life, but models predict that it would not reach levels that would cause a serious global effect. The nitrates might in fact be of benefit to some plants.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: All in all, a GRB within a few kiloparsecs, with its energy directed towards Earth, will mostly damage life by raising the UV levels during the burst itself and for a few years thereafter. Models show that the destructive effects of this increase can cause up to 16 times the normal levels of DNA damage. It has proved difficult to assess a reliable evaluation of the consequences of this on the terrestrial ecosystem, because of the uncertainty in biological field and laboratory data.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: There is a very good chance (but no certainty) that at least one lethal GRB took place during the past 5 billion years close enough to Earth as to significantly damage life. There is a 50% chance that such a lethal GRB took place within two kiloparsecs of Earth during the last 500 million years, causing one of the major mass extinction events.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: The major Ordovician–Silurian extinction event 450 million years ago may have been caused by a GRB. Estimates suggest that approximately 20–60% of the total phytoplankton biomass in the Ordovician oceans would have perished in a GRB, because the oceans were mostly oligotrophic and clear. The late Ordovician species of trilobites that spent portions of their lives in the plankton layer near the ocean surface were much harder hit than deep-water dwellers, which tended to remain within quite restricted areas. This is in contrast to the usual pattern of extinction events, wherein species with more widely spread populations typically fare better. A possible explanation is that trilobites remaining in deep water would be more shielded from the increased UV radiation associated with a GRB. Also supportive of this hypothesis is the fact that during the late Ordovician, burrowing bivalve species were less likely to go extinct than bivalves that lived on the surface.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: A case has been made that the 774–775 carbon-14 spike was the result of a short GRB, though a very strong solar flare is another possibility.


title: Gamma-ray burst

text: No gamma-ray bursts from within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, have been observed, and the question of whether one has ever occurred remains unresolved. In light of evolving understanding of gamma-ray bursts and their progenitors, the scientific literature records a growing number of local, past, and future GRB candidates. Long duration GRBs are related to superluminous supernovae, or hypernovae, and most luminous blue variables (LBVs) and rapidly spinning Wolf–Rayet stars are thought to end their life cycles in core-collapse supernovae with an associated long-duration GRB. Knowledge of GRBs, however, is from metal-poor galaxies of former epochs of the universe's evolution, and it is impossible to directly extrapolate to encompass more evolved galaxies and stellar environments with a higher metallicity, such as the Milky Way.


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: Trapped () is an Icelandic television mystery drama series, created by Baltasar Kormákur and produced by RVK Studios. Broadcast in Iceland on RÚV started on 27 December 2015. Co-written by Sigurjón Kjartansson and Clive Bradley, the first series of ten episodes follows Andri Ólafsson (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), the chief of police in a remote town in Iceland, solving the murder of a former townsman whose mutilated corpse is recovered by fishermen. The series was directed by Kormákur, Baldvin Z, Óskar Thor Axelsson and Börkur Sigthorsson.


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: Golden Globe winner Jóhann Jóhannsson with Hildur Gudnadóttir and Rutger Hoedemaekers composed the music. Sigurjón Kjartansson acted as executive producer, alongside Kormákur and Magnus V. Sigurdsson as producers. "Dagblaðið Vísir" reported on 2 May 2015 that "Trapped" is the most expensive television series ever made in Iceland, with overall costs estimated to be about 1,000,000,000 ISK (€6,500,000 EUR). Before this, most Icelandic television series rarely exceeded production costs of 100–200,000,000 ISK. RVK Studios provided most of the funding, while Creative Europe also supported the project with 75,000,000 ISK. Filming for the first series took place in Siglufjörður, Seyðisfjörður and Reykjavík between December 2014 and May 2015.


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: The series received its worldwide premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 20 September 2015. It has since been sold to numerous broadcasters across the world, including the BBC, which began screening it in the United Kingdom on BBC Four on 13 February 2016. The Weinstein Company announced it had purchased the US distribution rights in September 2015.


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: In September 2016, RÚV announced that a ten-episode second series had been commissioned for broadcast in late 2018 featuring the same lead characters. Principal photography for the second series began in October 2017 in Siglufjörður. The first episode was premiered on RÚV on 26 December 2018, and broadcast on BBC Four during February/March 2019, with two episodes being shown back-to-back.


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: Although early work on a third series was already underway by December 2018, with filming commencing in September 2020, the third series did not premiere on RÚV until 17 October 2021. It was released internationally on Netflix under the title "Entrapped" on 8 September 2022, edited into six episodes, compared to the original eight.


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: The first episode received its worldwide premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival on 20 September 2015, as part of the festival's new "Primetime" platform of selected television projects. The first series began broadcasting on RÚV in Iceland on 27 December 2015, and broadcasting rights have since been sold to several countries. The series commenced on NRK1 in Norway on 18 January 2016, under the title "Innesperret", and on Yle Fem in Finland on 2 February under the titles "Fångade" (Swedish) and "Loukussa" (Finnish). The series first aired on BBC Four in the United Kingdom on 13 February and on RTÉ2 in Ireland on 21 February under the title "Trapped".


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: The series has also aired on France 2 in France, and on ZDF in Germany. In Australia, SBS on Demand released the first season for streaming on 16 June 2016, followed by a televisual broadcast on SBS One on 30 November 2016. In Poland, Ale Kino+ began broadcasting the series on 7 September 2016, airing two episodes per week, back-to-back. In Denmark, DR2 began broadcasting the series on 30 November 2016, airing two episodes per week, back-to-back, under the title "Fanget".


title: Trapped (Icelandic TV series)

text: In the United States, Viceland began broadcasting the first season on 19 February 2017, and the second season premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 10 July 2019. In Belgium, Canvas began broadcasting the series on 11 March 2017. In Portugal, RTP2 began broadcasting the series under the title "Encurralados" on 13 October 2017. In the Czech Republic, ČT2 began broadcasting the series under the title "V Pasti" on 12 January 2018. In Italy, TIMvision made the first series available on demand from 5 February 2018.


title: Defibrillation

text: Defibrillation is a treatment for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, specifically ventricular fibrillation (V-Fib) and non-perfusing ventricular tachycardia (V-Tach). A defibrillator delivers a dose of electric current (often called a "counter-shock") to the heart. Although not fully understood, this process depolarizes a large amount of the heart muscle, ending the arrhythmia. Subsequently, the body's natural pacemaker in the sinoatrial node of the heart is able to re-establish normal sinus rhythm. A heart which is in asystole (flatline) cannot be restarted by a defibrillator, but would be treated by cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).


title: Defibrillation

text: In contrast to defibrillation, synchronized electrical cardioversion is an electrical shock delivered in synchrony to the cardiac cycle. Although the person may still be critically ill, cardioversion normally aims to end poorly perfusing cardiac arrhythmias, such as supraventricular tachycardia.


title: Defibrillation

text: Defibrillators can be external, transvenous, or implanted (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator), depending on the type of device used or needed. Some external units, known as automated external defibrillators (AEDs), automate the diagnosis of treatable rhythms, meaning that lay responders or bystanders are able to use them successfully with little or no training.


title: Defibrillation

text: Defibrillation is often an important step in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). CPR is an algorithm-based intervention aimed to restore cardiac and pulmonary function. Defibrillation is indicated only in certain types of cardiac dysrhythmias, specifically ventricular fibrillation (VF) and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. If the heart has completely stopped, as in asystole or pulseless electrical activity (PEA), defibrillation is not indicated. Defibrillation is also not indicated if the patient is conscious or has a pulse. Improperly given electrical shocks can cause dangerous dysrhythmias, such as ventricular fibrillation.


title: Defibrillation

text: The defibrillation device that is usually available out of the medical centers is the automated external defibrillator (AED), a portable machine that can be used even by users with no previous training. That is possible because the machine produces pre-recorded voice instructions that guide to the user, and automatically checks the patient's condition and applies the correct electric shocks. Anyway, there also exist written instructions of defibrillators that explain the procedure step-by-step.


title: Defibrillation

text: Survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests are poor, often less than 10%. Outcome for in-hospital cardiac arrests are higher at 20%. Within the group of people presenting with cardiac arrest, the specific cardiac rhythm can significantly impact survival rates. Compared to people presenting with a non-shockable rhythm (such as asystole or PEA), people with a shockable rhythm (such as VF or pulseless ventricular tachycardia) have improved survival rates, ranging between 21 and 50%.


title: Defibrillation

text: Manual external defibrillators require the expertise of a healthcare professional. They are used in conjunction with an electrocardiogram, which can be separate or built-in. A healthcare provider first diagnoses the cardiac rhythm and then manually determine the voltage and timing for the electrical shock. These units are primarily found in hospitals and on some ambulances. For instance, every NHS ambulance in the United Kingdom is equipped with a manual defibrillator for use by the attending paramedics and technicians. In the United States, many advanced EMTs and all paramedics are trained to recognize lethal arrhythmias and deliver appropriate electrical therapy with a manual defibrillator when appropriate.


title: Defibrillation

text: An internal defibrillator is often used to defibrillate the heart during or after cardiac surgery such as a heart bypass. The electrodes consist of round metal plates that come in direct contact with the myocardium. Manual internal defibrillators deliver the shock through paddles placed directly on the heart. They are mostly used in the operating room and, in rare circumstances, in the emergency room during an open heart procedure.


title: Defibrillation

text: Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are designed for use by untrained or briefly trained laypersons. AEDs contain technology for analysis of heart rhythms. As a result, it does not require a trained health provider to determine whether or not a rhythm is shockable. By making these units publicly available, AEDs have improved outcomes for sudden out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.


title: Defibrillation

text: Trained health professionals have more limited use for AEDs than manual external defibrillators. Recent studies show that AEDs does not improve outcome in patients with in-hospital cardiac arrests. AEDs have set voltages and does not allow the operator to vary voltage according to need. AEDs may also delay delivery of effective CPR. For diagnosis of rhythm, AEDs often require the stopping of chest compressions and rescue breathing. For these reasons, certain bodies, such as the European Resuscitation Council, recommend using manual external defibrillators over AEDs if manual external defibrillators are readily available.


title: Defibrillation

text: As early defibrillation can significantly improve VF outcomes, AEDs have become publicly available in many easily accessible areas. AEDs have been incorporated into the algorithm for basic life support (BLS). Many first responders, such as firefighters, policemen, and security guards, are equipped with them.


title: Defibrillation

text: AEDs can be fully automatic or semi-automatic. A semi-automatic AED automatically diagnoses heart rhythms and determines if a shock is necessary. If a shock is advised, the user must then push a button to administer the shock. A fully automated AED automatically diagnoses the heart rhythm and advises the user to stand back while the shock is automatically given. Some types of AEDs come with advanced features, such as a manual override or an ECG display.


title: Defibrillation

text: Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, also known as automatic internal cardiac defibrillator (AICD), are implants similar to pacemakers (and many can also perform the pacemaking function). They constantly monitor the patient's heart rhythm, and automatically administer shocks for various life-threatening arrhythmias, according to the device's programming. Many modern devices can distinguish between ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, and more benign arrhythmias like supraventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation. Some devices may attempt overdrive pacing prior to synchronised cardioversion. When the life-threatening arrhythmia is ventricular fibrillation, the device is programmed to proceed immediately to an unsynchronized shock.


title: Defibrillation

text: There are cases where the patient's ICD may fire constantly or inappropriately. This is considered a medical emergency, as it depletes the device's battery life, causes significant discomfort and anxiety to the patient, and in some cases may actually trigger life-threatening arrhythmias. Some emergency medical services personnel are now equipped with a ring magnet to place over the device, which effectively disables the shock function of the device while still allowing the pacemaker to function (if the device is so equipped). If the device is shocking frequently, but appropriately, EMS personnel may administer sedation.


title: Defibrillation

text: A wearable cardioverter defibrillator is a portable external defibrillator that can be worn by at-risk patients. The unit monitors the patient 24 hours a day and can automatically deliver a biphasic shock if VF or VT is detected. This device is mainly indicated in patients who are not immediate candidates for ICDs.


title: Defibrillation

text: The connection between the defibrillator and the patient consists of a pair of electrodes, each provided with electrically conductive gel in order to ensure a good connection and to minimize electrical resistance, also called chest impedance (despite the DC discharge) which would burn the patient. Gel may be either wet (similar in consistency to surgical lubricant) or solid (similar to gummi candy). Solid-gel is more convenient, because there is no need to clean the used gel off the person's skin after defibrillation. However, the use of solid-gel presents a higher risk of burns during defibrillation, since wet-gel electrodes more evenly conduct electricity into the body. Paddle electrodes, which were the first type developed, come without gel, and must have the gel applied in a separate step. Self-adhesive electrodes come prefitted with gel. There is a general division of opinion over which type of electrode is superior in hospital settings; the American Heart Association favors neither, and all modern manual defibrillators used in hospitals allow for swift switching between self-adhesive pads and traditional paddles. Each type of electrode has its merits and demerits.


title: Defibrillation

text: The most well-known type of electrode (widely depicted in films and television) is the traditional metal "hard" paddle with an insulated (usually plastic) handle. This type must be held in place on the patient's skin with approximately 25 lbs (11.3 kg) of force while a shock or a series of shocks is delivered. Paddles offer a few advantages over self-adhesive pads. Many hospitals in the United States continue the use of paddles, with disposable gel pads attached in most cases, due to the inherent speed with which these electrodes can be placed and used. This is critical during cardiac arrest, as each second of nonperfusion means tissue loss. Modern paddles allow for monitoring (electrocardiography), though in hospital situations, separate monitoring leads are often already in place.


title: Defibrillation

text: Paddles are reusable, being cleaned after use and stored for the next patient. Gel is therefore not preapplied, and must be added before these paddles are used on the patient. Paddles are generally only found on manual external units.


title: Defibrillation

text: Newer types of resuscitation electrodes are designed as an adhesive pad, which includes either solid or wet gel. These are peeled off their backing and applied to the patient's chest when deemed necessary, much the same as any other sticker. The electrodes are then connected to a defibrillator, much as the paddles would be. If defibrillation is required, the machine is charged, and the shock is delivered, without any need to apply any additional gel or to retrieve and place any paddles. Most adhesive electrodes are designed to be used not only for defibrillation, but also for transcutaneous pacing and synchronized electrical cardioversion. These adhesive pads are found on most automated and semi-automated units and are replacing paddles entirely in non-hospital settings. In hospital, for cases where cardiac arrest is likely to occur (but has not yet), self-adhesive pads may be placed prophylactically.


title: Defibrillation

text: Pads also offer an advantage to the untrained user, and to medics working in the sub-optimal conditions of the field. Pads do not require extra leads to be attached for monitoring, and they do not require any force to be applied as the shock is delivered. Thus, adhesive electrodes minimize the risk of the operator coming into physical (and thus electrical) contact with the patient as the shock is delivered by allowing the operator to be up to several feet away. (The risk of electrical shock to others remains unchanged, as does that of shock due to operator misuse.) Self-adhesive electrodes are single-use only. They may be used for multiple shocks in a single course of treatment, but are replaced if (or in case) the patient recovers then reenters cardiac arrest.


title: Defibrillation

text: Resuscitation electrodes are placed according to one of two schemes. The anterior-posterior scheme is the preferred scheme for long-term electrode placement. One electrode is placed over the left precordium (the lower part of the chest, in front of the heart). The other electrode is placed on the back, behind the heart in the region between the scapula. This placement is preferred because it is best for non-invasive pacing.


title: Defibrillation

text: The anterior-apex scheme (anterior-lateral position) can be used when the anterior-posterior scheme is inconvenient or unnecessary. In this scheme, the anterior electrode is placed on the right, below the clavicle. The apex electrode is applied to the left side of the patient, just below and to the left of the pectoral muscle. This scheme works well for defibrillation and cardioversion, as well as for monitoring an ECG.


title: Defibrillation

text: Researchers have created a software modeling system capable of mapping an individual's chest and determining the best position for an external or internal cardiac defibrillator.


title: Defibrillation

text: The exact mechanism of defibrillation is not well understood. One theory is that successful defibrillation affects most of the heart, resulting in insufficient remaining heart muscle to continue the arrhythmia. Recent mathematical models of defibrillation are providing new insight into how cardiac tissue responds to a strong electrical shock.


title: Defibrillation

text: Defibrillators were first demonstrated in 1899 by Jean-Louis Prévost and Frédéric Batelli, two physiologists from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. They discovered that small electrical shocks could induce ventricular fibrillation in dogs, and that larger charges would reverse the condition.


title: Defibrillation

text: In 1933, Dr. Albert Hyman, heart specialist at the Beth Davis Hospital of New York City and C. Henry Hyman, an electrical engineer, looking for an alternative to injecting powerful drugs directly into the heart, came up with an invention that used an electrical shock in place of drug injection. This invention was called the "Hyman Otor" where a hollow needle is used to pass an insulated wire to the heart area to deliver the electrical shock. The hollow steel needle acted as one end of the circuit and the tip of the insulated wire the other end. Whether the "Hyman Otor" was a success is unknown.


title: Defibrillation

text: The external defibrillator, as it is known today, was invented by electrical engineer William Kouwenhoven in 1930. Kouwenhoven studied the relationship between electric shocks and their effects on the human heart when he was a student at Johns Hopkins University School of Engineering. His studies helped him invent a device to externally jump start the heart. He invented the defibrillator and tested it on a dog, like Prévost and Batelli. The first use on a human was in 1947 by Claude Beck, professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University. Beck's theory was that ventricular fibrillation often occurred in hearts that were fundamentally healthy, in his terms "Hearts that are too good to die", and that there must be a way of saving them. Beck first used the technique successfully on a 14-year-old boy who was being operated on for a congenital chest defect. The boy's chest was surgically opened, and manual cardiac massage was undertaken for 45 minutes until the arrival of the defibrillator. Beck used internal paddles on either side of the heart, along with procainamide, an antiarrhythmic drug, and achieved return of a perfusing cardiac rhythm.


title: Defibrillation

text: These early defibrillators used the alternating current from a power socket, transformed from the 110–240 volts available in the line, up to between 300 and 1000 volts, to the exposed heart by way of "paddle" type electrodes. The technique was often ineffective in reverting VF while morphological studies showed damage to the cells of the heart muscle post-mortem. The nature of the AC machine with a large transformer also made these units very hard to transport, and they tended to be large units on wheels.


title: Defibrillation

text: Until the early 1950s, defibrillation of the heart was possible only when the chest cavity was open during surgery. The technique used an alternating voltage from a 300 or greater volt source derived from standard AC power, delivered to the sides of the exposed heart by "paddle" electrodes where each electrode was a flat or slightly concave metal plate of about 40 mm diameter. The closed-chest defibrillator device which applied an alternating voltage of greater than 1000 volts, conducted by means of externally applied electrodes through the chest cage to the heart, was pioneered by Dr V. Eskin with assistance by A. Klimov in Frunze, USSR (today known as Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) in the mid-1950s. The duration of AC shocks was typically in the range of 100–150 milliseconds.


title: Defibrillation

text: Early successful experiments of successful defibrillation by the discharge of a capacitor performed on animals were reported by N. L. Gurvich and G. S. Yunyev in 1939. In 1947 their works were reported in western medical journals. Serial production of Gurvich's pulse defibrillator started in 1952 at the electromechanical plant of the institute, and was designated model ИД-1-ВЭИ ("Импульсный Дефибриллятор 1, Всесоюзный Электротехнический Институт", or in English, "Pulse Defibrillator 1, All-Union Electrotechnical Institute"). It is described in detail in Gurvich's 1957 book, "Heart Fibrillation and Defibrillation".


title: Defibrillation

text: The first Czechoslovak "universal defibrillator Prema" was manufactured in 1957 by the company Prema, designed by Dr. Bohumil Peleška. In 1958 his device was awarded Grand Prix at Expo 58.


title: Defibrillation

text: In 1958, US senator Hubert H. Humphrey visited Nikita Khrushchev and among other things he visited the Moscow Institute of Reanimatology, where, among others, he met with Gurvich. Humphrey immediately recognized importance of reanimation research and after that a number of American doctors visited Gurvich. At the same time, Humphrey worked on establishing a federal program in the National Institute of Health in physiology and medicine, telling Congress: "Let's compete with U.S.S.R. in research on reversibility of death".


title: Defibrillation

text: In 1959 Bernard Lown commenced research in his animal laboratory in collaboration with engineer Barouh Berkovits into a technique which involved charging of a bank of capacitors to approximately 1000 volts with an energy content of 100–200 joules then delivering the charge through an inductance such as to produce a heavily damped sinusoidal wave of finite duration (~5 milliseconds) to the heart by way of paddle electrodes. This team further developed an understanding of the optimal timing of shock delivery in the cardiac cycle, enabling the application of the device to arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, and supraventricular tachycardias in the technique known as "cardioversion".


title: Defibrillation

text: The Lown-Berkovits waveform, as it was known, was the standard for defibrillation until the late 1980s. Earlier in the 1980s, the "MU lab" at the University of Missouri had pioneered numerous studies introducing a new waveform called a biphasic truncated waveform (BTE). In this waveform an exponentially decaying DC voltage is reversed in polarity about halfway through the shock time, then continues to decay for some time after which the voltage is cut off, or truncated. The studies showed that the biphasic truncated waveform could be more efficacious while requiring the delivery of lower levels of energy to produce defibrillation. An added benefit was a significant reduction in weight of the machine. The BTE waveform, combined with automatic measurement of transthoracic impedance, is the basis for modern defibrillators.


title: Defibrillation

text: A major breakthrough was the introduction of portable defibrillators used out of the hospital. Already Peleška's Prema defibrillator was designed to be more portable than original Gurvich's model. In Soviet Union, a portable version of Gurvich's defibrillator, model ДПА-3 (DPA-3), was reported in 1959. In the west this was pioneered in the early 1960s by Prof. Frank Pantridge in Belfast. Today portable defibrillators are among the many very important tools carried by ambulances. They are the only proven way to resuscitate a person who has had a cardiac arrest unwitnessed by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) who is still in persistent ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia at the arrival of pre-hospital providers.


title: Defibrillation

text: Gradual improvements in the design of defibrillators, partly based on the work developing implanted versions (see below), have led to the availability of Automated External Defibrillators. These devices can analyse the heart rhythm by themselves, diagnose the shockable rhythms, and charge to treat. This means that no clinical skill is required in their use, allowing lay people to respond to emergencies effectively.


title: Defibrillation

text: Until the mid 90s, external defibrillators delivered a Lown type waveform (see Bernard Lown) which was a heavily damped sinusoidal impulse having a mainly uniphasic characteristic. Biphasic defibrillation alternates the direction of the pulses, completing one cycle in approximately 12 milliseconds. Biphasic defibrillation was originally developed and used for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. When applied to external defibrillators, biphasic defibrillation significantly decreases the energy level necessary for successful defibrillation, decreasing the risk of burns and myocardial damage.


title: Defibrillation

text: Ventricular fibrillation (VF) could be returned to normal sinus rhythm in 60% of cardiac arrest patients treated with a single shock from a monophasic defibrillator. Most biphasic defibrillators have a first shock success rate of greater than 90%.


title: Defibrillation

text: A further development in defibrillation came with the invention of the implantable device, known as an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (or ICD). This was pioneered at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore by a team that included Stephen Heilman, Alois Langer, Jack Lattuca, Morton Mower, Michel Mirowski, and Mir Imran, with the help of industrial collaborator Intec Systems of Pittsburgh. Mirowski teamed up with Mower and Staewen, and together they commenced their research in 1969. However, it was 11 years before they treated their first patient. Similar developmental work was carried out by Schuder and colleagues at the University of Missouri.


title: Defibrillation

text: The work was commenced, despite doubts amongst leading experts in the field of arrhythmias and sudden death. There was doubt that their ideas would ever become a clinical reality. In 1962 Bernard Lown introduced the external DC defibrillator. This device applied a direct current from a discharging capacitor through the chest wall into the heart to stop heart fibrillation. In 1972, Lown stated in the journal "Circulation" — "The very rare patient who has frequent bouts of ventricular fibrillation is best treated in a coronary care unit and is better served by an effective antiarrhythmic program or surgical correction of inadequate coronary blood flow or ventricular malfunction. In fact, the implanted defibrillator system represents an imperfect solution in search of a plausible and practical application."


title: Defibrillation

text: The problems to be overcome were the design of a system which would allow detection of ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Despite the lack of financial backing and grants, they persisted and the first device was implanted in February 1980 at Johns Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. assisted by Vivien Thomas. Modern ICDs do not require a thoracotomy and possess pacing, cardioversion, and defibrillation capabilities.


title: Defibrillation

text: The invention of implantable units is invaluable to some people with regular heart problems, although they are generally only given to those people who have already had a cardiac episode.


title: Defibrillation

text: People can live long normal lives with the devices. Many patients have multiple implants. A patient in Houston, Texas had an implant at the age of 18 in 1994 by the recent Dr. Antonio Pacifico. He was awarded "Youngest Patient with Defibrillator" in 1996. Today these devices are implanted into small babies shortly after birth.


title: Defibrillation

text: As devices that can quickly produce dramatic improvements in patient health, defibrillators are often depicted in movies, television, video games and other fictional media. Their function, however, is often exaggerated with the defibrillator inducing a sudden, violent jerk or convulsion by the patient. In reality, while the muscles may contract, such dramatic patient presentation is rare. Similarly, medical providers are often depicted defibrillating patients with a "flat-line" ECG rhythm (also known as asystole). This is not normal medical practice, as the heart cannot be restarted by the defibrillator itself. Only the cardiac arrest rhythms ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia are normally defibrillated. The purpose of defibrillation is to depolarize the entire heart all at once so that it is synchronized, effectively inducing temporary asystole, in the hope that in the absence of the previous abnormal electrical activity, the heart will spontaneously resume beating normally. Someone who is already in asystole cannot be helped by electrical means, and usually needs urgent CPR and intravenous medication (and even these are rarely successful in cases of asystole). A useful analogy to remember is to think of defibrillators as power-cycling, rather than jump-starting, the heart. There are also several heart rhythms that can be "shocked" when the patient is not in cardiac arrest, such as supraventricular tachycardia and ventricular tachycardia that produces a pulse; this more-complicated procedure is known as cardioversion, not defibrillation.


title: Defibrillation

text: In Australia up until the 1990s it was relatively rare for ambulances to carry defibrillators. This changed in 1990 after Australian media mogul Kerry Packer had a cardiac arrest due to a heart attack and, purely by chance, the ambulance that responded to the call carried a defibrillator. After recovering, Kerry Packer donated a large sum to the Ambulance Service of New South Wales in order that all ambulances in New South Wales should be fitted with a personal defibrillator, which is why defibrillators in Australia are sometimes colloquially called "Packer Whackers".


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the eighth-largest in the United States. Its economic, cultural and demographic center is Atlanta, and its total population was 6,144,050 according to the 2021 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau. The metro area forms the core of a broader trading area, the Atlanta–Athens-Clarke–Sandy Springs Combined Statistical Area. The Combined Statistical Area spans up to 39 counties in north Georgia, and one county in Alabama, Chambers. The Combined Statistical Area recorded in the 2020 census a population of 6,930,423. Atlanta is the second-largest metropolitan area in the Census Bureau's Southeast region, behind that of Greater Washington, D.C. It surpassed the Greater Miami area in total population in 2021.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: By U.S. Census Bureau standards, the population of the Atlanta region spreads across a metropolitan area of – a land area comparable to that of Massachusetts. Because Georgia contains more counties than any other state except Texas (explained in part by the now-defunct county-unit system of weighing votes in primary elections), area residents live under a heavily decentralized collection of governments. As of the 2000 census, fewer than one in ten residents of the metropolitan area lived inside Atlanta city limits.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: A 2006 survey by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce counted 140 cities and towns in the 28‑county Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in mid-2005. Nine cities – Johns Creek (2006), Milton (2006), Chattahoochee Hills (2007), Dunwoody (2008), Peachtree Corners (2012), Brookhaven (2012), Tucker (2016), Stonecrest (2016) and South Fulton (2017) – have incorporated since then, following the lead of Sandy Springs in 2005.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Atlanta metropolitan area was first defined in 1950 as Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb and Clayton counties. Walton, Newton, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Henry, Cherokee, Rockdale, and Butts counties were added after the 1970 census, with Barrow and Coweta counties joining in 1980 and Bartow, Carroll, Paulding, Pickens and Spalding counties in 1990.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Atlanta's larger combined statistical area (CSA) adds the Gainesville and Athens metropolitan areas plus LaGrange, Thomaston, Jefferson, Calhoun, and Cedartown micropolitan areas, for a total 2012 population of 6,162,195. The CSA also abuts the Macon and Columbus MSAs. The region is one of the metropolises of the Southeastern United States, and is part of the emerging megalopolis known as Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion along the I-85 Corridor.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: In 2019, the name of the MSA was changed from Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell to Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The counties listed below are included in the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. However, some entities define a much smaller metropolitan area by including only the counties which have the densest suburban development. Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton were the five original counties when the Atlanta metropolitan area was first defined in 1950, and continue to be the core of the metro area. These five counties along with six more (Cherokee, Douglas, Fayette, Henry, Rockdale, and Forsyth) are members of the Atlanta Regional Commission, a weak metropolitan government organization which also is a regional planning agency. The eleven ARC counties, bolded, and four more (Bartow, Coweta, Hall, Paulding), with an asterisk (*), form part of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, created in 2001.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The 12 counties listed above with under 85,000 residents are usually not included in any other metropolitan definition except the OMB/Census Bureau's MSA and CSA.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Hall County forms the Gainesville MSA, but with astronomical growth to over 200,000 residents, is now also part of the Atlanta CSA.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The official tourism website of the State of Georgia features a "Metro Atlanta" tourism region that includes only eight counties: Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette, and Henry.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: More than one half of metro Atlanta's population is in unincorporated areas or areas considered a census-designated-place (CDP) by the census bureau. One notable example is East Cobb, an unincorporated area (though not a CDP) adjacent to Marietta and Roswell in Cobb County. With an estimated population of approximately 208,000 as of 2019, it would be the second largest city in the metro besides Atlanta if incorporated.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The area sprawls across the low foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the north and the Piedmont to the south. The northern and some western suburbs tend to be higher and significantly more hilly than the southern and eastern suburbs. The average elevation is around .


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The highest point in the immediate area is Kennesaw Mountain at , followed by Stone Mountain at , Sweat Mountain at , and Little Kennesaw Mountain at . Others include Blackjack Mountain, Lost Mountain, Brushy Mountain, Pine Mountain, and Mount Wilkinson (Vinings Mountain). Many of these play prominently in the various battles of the Atlanta Campaign during the American Civil War. If the further-north counties are included, Bear Mountain is highest, followed by Pine Log Mountain, Sawnee Mountain, and Hanging Mountain, followed by the others listed above. Stone, Sweat, Bear, and Sawnee are all home to some of the area's broadcast stations.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The area's subsoil is a dense clay soil, colored rusty by the iron oxide present in it. It becomes very muddy and sticky when wet, and hard when dry, and stains light-colored carpets and clothing easily. It also tends to have a low pH, further aggravating gardeners. The fineness of it also means it is easily deposited into streams during heavy rains, creating silt problems where it is exposed due to construction. This transported red soil can be seen downstream on the riverbanks of south Georgia (where the native clay is white), and down to the Florida panhandle (where the native sand is also white). Topsoil is present only in natural forest areas, created by the decomposition of leaf litter.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: An extinct fault line called the Brevard Fault runs roughly parallel to the Chattahoochee River, but as its last movements were apparently prehistoric, it is considered extinct and not a threat to the region. Still, minor earthquakes do rattle the area (and all of Georgia) occasionally. One notable one was in April 2003 (magnitude 4.6) coming from the northwest, its epicenter just across the state line in northeastern Alabama. While many people slept through the 5 quake, it caused a minor panic in others completely unaware of what was happening. Similar earthquakes occur in this region called the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone, often felt much more widely across the stronger crust of eastern North America as compared to the west. Thus, the 1886 Charleston, South Carolina earthquake was also felt in Atlanta and throughout the Southeast. It caused damage as far as central Alabama and West Virginia. Two small earthquakes were also felt on the southeast side near Eatonton in early April 2009. The New Madrid Seismic Zone (near the Missouri-Tennessee borders) and the seismic zone producing the 1886 magnitude 7.3 earthquake are still capable of producing moderate or major earthquakes, which the entire Atlanta area will feel moderately or even strongly.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Atlanta metro area has a humid subtropical climate with four seasons, although summer is the longest. January daily lows average from north to south, and highs range from , but often reach well above or below this average. There is an average annual snowfall of about , falling mostly from December through March, though there was snow north of the city on April 3, 1987. Snow flurries are actually common during the winter months when there is an especially deep trough in the jet stream. These events usually do not amount to more than a slight dusting and therefore go unrecognized in most weather summaries. Summers, by contrast, are long and consistently hot and humid, with July mornings averaging and afternoons averaging , slight breezes, and typically a 20–40% chance of afternoon thunderstorms. During the summer afternoon thunderstorms, temperatures may suddenly drop to 70–77 degrees with locally heavy rainfall. Average annual rainfall is about , with late winter and early spring (as well as July) being the wettest and fall (especially October) being the driest.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: From 1878 to 2011, the highest recorded temperatures at Atlanta were on three days in the extraordinarily hot July 1980, followed by that month and in August 2007, the hottest month ever for the area. This was broken on the last day of June 2012, when the temperature reached , during a massive heat wave that hit most of the country, with another 105 the next day tying the July record. The lowest recorded temperatures were and on January 20 and 21 of 1985, and on February 13, 1899, during severe cold snaps that went so far south they devastated the entire citrus industry in central Florida.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Hurricane Opal brought sustained tropical storm conditions to the area one night in early October 1995, uprooting hundreds of trees and causing widespread power outages, after soaking the area with rain for two days prior. Since 1950 some metro counties have been hit more than 20 times by tornadoes, with Cobb (26) and Fulton (22) being two of the highest in the state. The Dunwoody tornado in early April 1998 was the worst tornado to have struck the area. A tornado struck downtown Atlanta in March 2008, causing a half-billion dollars in damage, one of the most expensive storms ever recorded anywhere.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The area experiences a winter storm with significant snowfall about once each year, however this can be extremely irregular with several consecutive years receiving no measurable snow. A blizzard (see: 1993 Storm of the Century) caught much of the Southeast off-guard in 1993, dumping at the Atlanta airport on March 13, and much more than that in the suburbs to the north and west, as well as in the mountains. The only other recorded winter storm of comparable severity was the Great Blizzard of 1899. The heaviest snow, however, was in January 1940, when buried the city during its coldest month on record. The second-heaviest was in 1983, when a very late storm dumped on March 24. Ice storms have also occurred in the area. The well-remembered 1973 ice storm was brutal as was the storm in 1982.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Southeastern U.S. drought of 2006–2008 began with dry weather in 2006, and left area lakes very low. The drought finally began to abate significantly after the 2009 Atlanta floods, when some areas got up to of rain in a week, with half of that falling in just 24 hours near the end of the period. The USGS calculated it to be a greater-than-500-year flood.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The area's prolific rains are drained by many different streams and creeks. The main basin is that of the Chattahoochee River, running northeast to southwest. The further northwestern suburbs drain into the Etowah River via the Little River and Lake Allatoona. The southern suburbs are drained by the Flint River, and the east-southeastern ones by the Oconee River and Yellow River.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: By 2005 the metro area was using of water per day (about per person per day) from these rivers. This usage was reduced by more than 10% during the drought, but soared back up after watering restrictions were eased (and before the flooding ensued). The need for water is seen as a barrier to further growth in the area, but permanent measures for non-emergency water conservation have never been put in place. The state legislature has refused to pass a requirement for low-flow toilets to be installed in homes that are sold, bowing to pressure from the real estate sales industry.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Disputes over water are becoming increasingly common, with both Alabama and Florida filing lawsuits and threatening injunctions to prevent Georgia from taking too much water, mostly for metro Atlanta. South Carolina also threatened when a pipeline east to the Savannah River was mentioned even informally. The state has now been ordered by a judge to reduce withdrawals from the Chattahoochee south of Lanier to 1970s levels within three years (2012), something that would create an immediate emergency water shortage if it were actually enforced.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The native forest canopy is mainly oak, redbud, hickory, poplar, tuliptree, pine, and sweetgum, with chestnut having been common decades before in what is now considered oak-hickory forest. Saw palmetto, Sabal palmetto and Trachycarpus fortunei have become common ornamentals as well. Traveling from the south, the metro area is generally the first area in which autumn leaf color can be seen, due to the different trees growing at the higher elevation and latitude. Underneath, the flowering dogwood is very common, the black cherry are quite prolific, with mulberry popping up sometimes as well. Sourwood is also in its native range, and is easily identified by the fact that it turns fiery red in early October, much brighter and weeks earlier than most other trees (which usually peak in early November).


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Shrubby plants include blackberry, horsechestnut, sumac, and sometimes hawthorn. Virginia creeper, poison ivy, and briar are common vines. The Confederate yellow daisy is a wildflower native only to the area around Stone Mountain.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Common garden plants include dogwood, azalea, hydrangea, flowering cherry, maples, pin oak, red-tip photinia, holly, juniper, white pine, magnolia, Bradford pear, forsythia, liriope (mondograss), and English ivy. Lawns can be either cool-season grasses like fescue and rye, or warm-season like zoysia and bermudagrass which turn brown in late fall. A few homeowners associations actually prohibit green grass in the winter.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Native to the nearby mountains, maples are now one of the most common landscape trees for new homes and parking lots, giving their color in the fall instead of spring. When planted close to buildings (which provide shelter and radiate heat), they can retain some of their color into December, especially if November has been warm.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Common lawn weeds are mock strawberry, violet, wild onion, and of course the ubiquitous dandelion, crabgrass, and plantain.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: By far the most notorious introduced species is kudzu, a highly invasive species from Japan which climbs and smothers trees and shrubs. New effective herbicides as well as increased development of formerly rural areas has greatly reduced kudzu in the metro area (although still quite common elsewhere in Georgia). Wisteria planted decades ago by farmers in then-rural areas has become wild and is common in undeveloped forests. Some vines exceed 50 years of age and cover dozens of acres of forest, creating a dense, purple explosion each spring.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Japanese honeysuckle is extremely common, its fragrance an early summer delight. A common ornamental shrub, the Chinese privet, has escaped to become the state's most invasive non-native plant species.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Among mammals, the eastern gray squirrel is by far the most ubiquitous, stealing birdseed from the bird feeders which many locals maintain. Chipmunks and small brown rabbits are common, but it is relatively rare to hear of them doing any damage. Opossum, raccoons, foxes, coyotes and armadillos are frequently seen. Garden and meadow snakes are common; six venomous pit viper snakes (Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, timber rattlesnake, pygmy rattlesnake, coral snake, water moccasin and copperhead) are indigenous, but reports of bites are rare. Many types of frogs, including tree frogs and bullfrogs, are easily heard in early summer, as are cicadas in July and August. Black bears occasionally wander down from the mountains, and white-tailed deer are abundant; overpopulated in some areas. Homeowners in the outer suburbs are prone to landscaping damage due to scavenging deer.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The most common birds are the brown thrasher (the GA state bird), American crow, European (or common) starling, American robin, mourning dove, house sparrow, northern cardinal, house finch, Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, bluejay, white-breasted nuthatch, eastern bluebird, mockingbird, brown-headed nuthatch, and Carolina wren. Birds of prey thrive in the area, with three varieties of hawks common near open fields in even the most populated areas. Falcons roost on skyscrapers in downtown Atlanta and can be regularly seen feasting on pigeons. The American kestrel is sometimes seen. Late in the year, three species of owls can be heard nightly in wooded areas. Various woodpeckers can be seen in forested lots, including the red-bellied woodpecker, northern flicker (also known as the "yellow-shafted flicker"), and the downy woodpecker. The red-headed woodpecker is common in open fields and on golf courses. The American goldfinch is present mostly in winter, and the ruby-throated hummingbird only in summer.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: In geographic terms, Georgia has the smallest average county size of any state. This focuses government more locally but allows greater conflict between multiple jurisdictions, each with its own agenda.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The first significant intergovernmental agency in metro Atlanta was the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which runs the MARTA public transportation system. Alongside other factors such as race and class, as well as a lack of planning and perceived lack of need, problems associated with the inner city of Atlanta (crime, poverty, and poor public school performance) influenced Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton county voters to refuse to allow construction of MARTA into their respective counties during the 1970s. These decisions resulted in permanent effects on land development in the region, making use of private automobiles even more of a necessity.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Atlanta Regional Commission is so far the closest that the area has come to a metropolitan government. It approves only those projects deemed to have a positive effect beyond the immediate area in which they are to be constructed. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority is somewhat of a cross between ARC and MARTA, working to improve mobility, air quality, and land use practices in the region. GRTA also operates Xpress buses from 11 counties, and could operate commuter rail service in the future. Currently, plans for commuter rail and eventual intercity rail (including the long-proposed but still unfunded Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal) are the responsibility of the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority, which receives almost no funding.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Since 2007 proposals have been floated to allow new multi-county sales taxes, in addition to existing county sales taxes for roads, to pay for regional transportation initiatives.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The 2020 census counted 6,089,815 people in the 28-county metro area. This was an increase of 803,087 versus the same 28-county area in 2010. The population increased by 15.2% between 2010 and 2020, less than the 28.6% increase between 2000 and 2010.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: White Americans made up 55.4% of metro Atlanta's population in 2010, a relative decrease from 63.0% ten years earlier, but in absolute numbers their population increased by over 330,000. Non-Hispanic whites proportionally dropped from 59.5% to 50.7% of the metro's population, while increasing by about 224,000.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Black Americans are the largest racial minority with 32.4% of the population in 2010, up from 28.9% in 2000. The city of Atlanta has long been regarded as a "black mecca" for its role as a center of black education, political power, wealth, and culture. From 2000 to 2010, the geographic distribution of blacks in Metro Atlanta changed radically. Long concentrated in the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County, the black population there dropped as more than half a million African Americans settled across other parts of the metro area, including approximately 112,000 in Gwinnett County, 71,000 in Fulton outside Atlanta, 58,000 in Cobb, 50,000 in Clayton, 34,000 in Douglas, and 27,000 each in Newton and Rockdale counties. Due to its availability of jobs, Atlanta has been a destination for young college-educated blacks in the Reverse Great Migration of African Americans from the North since the turn of the 21st century, with many settling quickly into suburban locations. The metropolitan area has the second highest total African American population of any metropolitan area, with only the New York City metro area having more.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Hispanic Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group. At 10.4% of the metro's population in 2010, versus only 6.5% in 2000, the metro's Hispanic population increased an astounding 109.6%, or 298,459 people, in ten years. Major Hispanic groups include 354,351 Mexicans, 43,337 Puerto Ricans and 17,648 Cubans. All of those groups' populations increased by over 90% in the ten-year period. Of the metro's 299,000-person increase in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010, 98,000 were in Gwinnett County, 57,000 in Cobb, 55,000 in Fulton (all but 3,000 outside the city of Atlanta), 20,000 in Hall, and 15,000 in DeKalb County.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Asian-American population also increased rapidly from 2000 to 2010. There were 296,956 Asian-Americans in the metro area in 2010, making up 5.9% of the population. This represented an 87% increase over 2000. The largest Asian groups are 108,980 Indian-Americans, 93,870 Korean-Americans, 67,660 Chinese-Americans, and 66,554 Vietnamese-Americans.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Atlanta also has Georgia's largest Bosnian-American population, with approximately 10,000 in the metro area, mainly in Gwinnett County.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Metro Atlanta has an increasingly international population, with 716,434 foreign-born residents in 2010, a 69% increase since 2000, with suburban Gwinnnett County being one of the most diverse counties in the Southeastern United States. This was the fourth largest rate of growth among the nation's top 100 metros, after Baltimore, Orlando and Las Vegas. The foreign-born proportion of the population went up from 10.3% to 13.6%, and Atlanta moved up from 14th to 12th in ranking of U.S. metro areas with the largest immigrant population by sheer numbers. Still, its 13.6% proportion of immigrants is only the 29th highest of the nation's top 100 metros.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Metro Atlanta's immigrants are more suburban than those of most cities. Out of the top 100 U.S. metros, Atlanta has the 11th highest ratio of the foreign-born living in the suburbs and not in the core city. Atlanta has a few ethnic enclaves such as a Koreatown, and areas such as the Buford Highway Corridor in DeKalb County and parts of Gwinnett County are commercial centers for multiple ethnic communities.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: In 1990, greater Atlanta had the largest Japanese population in the Southeast United States. The Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta estimated that, during that year, 7,500 to 10,000 Japanese lived in greater Atlanta. Of the metropolitan areas in the Southeast United States, as of 1990 greater Atlanta had the most extensive education network for Japanese nationals.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: In 2008, approximately 83.3% of the population five years and older spoke only English at home, which is roughly 4,125,000 people. Over 436,000 people (8.8%) spoke Spanish at home, giving Metro Atlanta the 15th highest number of Spanish speakers among American metropolitan areas (MSAs). Over 193,000 people (3.9%) spoke other Indo-European languages at home. People who speak an Asian language at home numbered over 137,000 and made up 2.8% of the population.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is the sixth district of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States and is headquartered in midtown Atlanta. The Atlanta Fed covers the U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, the eastern two-thirds of Tennessee, the southern portion of Louisiana, and southern Mississippi as part of the Federal Reserve System.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The area is the world's largest toll-free calling zone spanning , has four active telephone area codes, and local calling extending into portions of two others. 404, which originally covered all of northern Georgia until 1992, now covers mostly the area inside the Perimeter (Interstate 285). In 1995 the suburbs were put into 770, requiring mandatory ten‑digit dialing even for local calls under FCC rules. This made Atlanta one of the US's first cities to employ ten-digit dialing, which was begun by BellSouth the year before the Centennial 1996 Olympic Games. In 1998, 678 was overlaid onto both of the existing 404 and 770 area codes. Mobile phones, originally only assigned to 404, may now have any local area code regardless of where in the region they were issued. Area code 470, the newest area code, was overlaid with 404 and 770 in the same fashion as 678. The local calling area also includes portions of 706/762 and a small area of 256 in Alabama on the Georgia border.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The city of Atlanta is the most wired city in the United States. Many residents access the internet on a high-speed broadband and/or WiFi connection. It is home to one of the world's largest fiber-optic bundles.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Major petroleum and natural gas pipelines cross the area, running from the Gulf coast, Texas, and Louisiana to the population centers of the Northeastern U.S. This includes Colonial Pipeline and Plantation Pipeline, both based in Alpharetta.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Metro Atlanta primarily uses natural gas for central heating and water heaters, with the major exception of heat pumps in apartments built during and since the 1980s. This is because winters are mild, and large apartment buildings usually require little energy to heat. Backup heat (also used during defrosting) is usually supplied by electric resistance heating, though some homes have hybrid heating units which use gas backup when it is cold. Exurban homes may also use all-electric instead of gas, if gas mains have not been extended to an area.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Cooktops and ovens are a mix of gas and electric, while gas clothes dryers are rather rare. with a manual-valve gas starter, and some are now equipped with permanent gas logs with electric switch start. Some homes also have natural gas barbecue grills, formerly sold at utility company stores.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Georgia Power is the main electric power company across the state and the metro area, beginning in 1902 as Georgia Railway and Power Company, Atlanta's streetcar (trolley) company. Several electric membership corporations also serve the suburbs. These include the second-largest EMC in the nation in Jackson EMC, Cobb EMC, Walton EMC, and Sawnee EMC. The city of Marietta operates its own electric utility, Marietta Power, under the Board of Lights & Water (BLW). It is also a member of the Municipal Electric Association of Georgia (MEAG).


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Atlanta Gas Light is the natural gas utility for the region, and has been so for over a century and a half, since it installed gas lamps in Atlanta in 1856. It operated as a regulated monopoly until November 1998, the after the state legislature voted in early 1997 to deregulate natural gas marketing, and make customers choose among nearly 20 different marketers still selling the same AGL-wholesaled gas, such as Gas South, Infinite Energy, SCANA and Georgia Natural Gas. Most of the gas comes via pipeline from Louisiana.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Water is provided by various county and a few city systems. Several of these systems actually serve parts of neighboring counties and cities as well. The Cobb-Marietta Water Authority serves not only Cobb, but also parts of neighboring Paulding and Cherokee counties, for example. During drought or other emergency, cities and counties can enact outdoor water-use restrictions, however some cross-jurisdiction water systems have also acted to put bans in place. In late September 2007, the state Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, stepped-in with its first-ever ban, covering most of the northern half of the state. While surface water is by far the primary source of water for the region, the drought had many systems (and a few wealthy homeowners) drilling new wells for ground water, though the local water table is around deep, on average.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Sewerage is also handled by the water utilities, but the various water and sewer networks may not conform to the same boundaries, resulting in interbasin water transfers. This is for practical reasons, because the area is hilly and divided by several watersheds, because the area has developed irregularly and erratically, and because water treatment plants are usually not near sewage treatment plants. Septic tanks are still used in the older homes of some exurbs.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Changes in house prices for the metro area are publicly tracked on a regular basis using the Case–Shiller index; the statistic is published by Standard & Poor's and is also a component of S&P's 20‑city composite index of the value of the U.S. residential real estate market.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: In May 2016, the City of Atlanta launched Atlanta City Studio, the city's first "pop-up urban design laboratory focused on shaping the future of city neighborhoods." The studio hosts "lectures, open forums, urban art presentations and other neighborhood and design components."


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Atlanta City Studio will relocate twice per year in order for residents to interact with staff and share their ideas about improving city design. The studio is located on the second floor of Ponce City Market and in January 2017 will relocate "to a retail location on the Westside, possibly on MLK Jr. Drive or Cascade Road."


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The area is served by a network of healthcare facilities including private practice, urgent care, hospital systems, and specialty care facilities. There are approximately 37 hospitals serving the metro. There are both private for profit systems and community not-for-profit systems.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Former teams include the Atlanta Flames (now Calgary Flames) and Atlanta Thrashers (now Winnipeg Jets), both of the National Hockey League.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The Atlanta metropolitan area is also home to three NCAA Division I programs, with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Georgia State Panthers in Atlanta proper and the Kennesaw State Owls in Kennesaw. Both Georgia Tech and Georgia State are members of the Football Bowl Subdivision in the Atlantic Coast Conference and Sun Belt Conference, respectively, while Kennesaw State is a member of the ASUN Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision; however, Kennesaw State accepted an invitation to move up to the FBS level from Conference USA starting in 2024.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The U.S. Census Bureau has defined a metropolitan area for Atlanta which includes, but is not limited to, Roswell, Georgia and Sandy Springs, Georgia. According to the 2016 American Community Survey, about 78% of working metropolitan residents commuted by driving alone, 9% carpooled, 3% used public transportation, and 1% walked. Less than 1% of working residents commuted by bicycle, while about 2% of commuters travelled by all other means. About 7% of residents worked at home.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Atlanta has always been a rail town, and the city once had an extensive streetcar system, which also provided interurban service as far out as Marietta, to the northwest. The streetcars were replaced by an extensive trolleybus system, supplemented by buses, in the 1940s and 1950–52, and then converted to all buses in the 1950s and 1960–62. However, building a modern rapid transit system proved a difficult and drawn-out process and, compared to the original plans for a regional system, has only partially been accomplished.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: MARTA operates buses and a subway system in the city of Atlanta, Fulton, Clayton and Dekalb counties, while Cobb and Gwinnett counties operate their own independent Suburban Transit Systems that feed into MARTA. This is a result of those counties' refusal to join the MARTA system (although Gwinnett voted in March 2019 to join MARTA again), a situation which was originally closely related to white flight from the city. It is the only US system in which the state does not provide any funds for operation or expansion, instead relying entirely on a 1% sales tax in its three counties. Due to the passage of a 1% sales tax in Clayton County on November 4, 2014, MARTA replaced the defunct C-Tran system bringing buses and commuter rail to the county beginning March 2015, with full bus service in 2016. The Atlanta Streetcar, a light rail loop, connects Centennial Olympic Park and MARTA heavy rail subway to the Sweet Auburn district and points in between. Xpress GA, a suburban commuter bus service operated by the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority or GRTA, has over 32 routes running from the suburbs and exurbs to downtown Atlanta in 12 metropolitan counties.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Plans are underway for commuter rail and bus rapid transit (BRT), though these are some years away. The $20 billion Northwest Corridor HOV/BRT project appears to conflict with other plans, such as the metro-wide Concept 3 approved by the Transit Planning Board, and the no-barrier HOT lanes on I‑85 in Gwinnett. MARTA is also considering a BRT line of its own to the east.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The first commuter rail line would run south of the city, eventually extended to Lovejoy and possibly Hampton near Atlanta Motor Speedway. The "Brain Train" would likely be the second route, connecting the University of Georgia in Athens to Emory University and Georgia Tech in Atlanta.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: As planned, all commuter trains would arrive at the Atlanta Multimodal Passenger Terminal (MMPT), the long-delayed facility just across Peachtree Street from the Five Points MARTA station, where all of its lines meet. Planning for the system and its extension as intercity rail across the state are the responsibility of the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Another proposed plan that has received very strong grassroots support in recent years is the BeltLine, a greenbelt and transit system that takes advantage of existing and unused rail tracks to set up a light rail or streetcar circuit around the core of Atlanta, as well as establishing more green space and footpaths for pedestrians and bicyclists.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Before Atlanta was even a city, it was a railroad hub. From this came the joke, popular among other Southerners, that "regardless of whether one goes to heaven or hell, everyone must go through Atlanta first". Many of its suburbs pre-date it as depots or train stations along the major lines in and out of town.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Many of these historic stations, including Atlanta's Union Station and Terminal Station, were demolished like many county courthouses and other historic buildings. Many have been saved however, including the L&N station in Woodstock, and the stations along the main W&A line in Marietta and Smyrna.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Through mergers, the main railroads in the area are now Norfolk Southern and CSX. The Georgia Northeastern Railroad is a short line that also services part of the area. There are also several railyards of Atlanta and vicinity, as well as the Southeastern Railway Museum and the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, more commonly known as Amtrak, runs the intercity rail line Crescent through metro Atlanta twice daily, with one train heading towards New Orleans and the other headed towards New York. All trains make a scheduled stop at Peachtree Station in northern Midtown Atlanta, but it is also possible for arrange for trains to stop in Gainesville, Georgia as well.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport and is the only international airport for the region (and only major international airport for the state), and as with rail travel, it became the ubiquitous place through which everyone must travel at some point. Atlanta's second airport is in the very preliminary discussion and study phase.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Other airports (maintained by local counties) include Charlie Brown Field (Fulton), McCollum Field (Cobb), Cartersville Airport (Bartow), DeKalb Peachtree Airport (DeKalb), Briscoe Field (Gwinnett), Coweta County Airport (Coweta), Cherokee County Airport (Cherokee), Atlanta Speedway Airport (Henry), and Paulding County Airport (Paulding). Former local airports were Stone Mountain Airport and Parkaire Field, among others.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: DeKalb Peachtree Airport is the primary business jet airport. This is due to its proximity to Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead, and the Perimeter office areas.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Interstate 75 passes through from Macon to the south, and from Chattanooga to the north. Interstate 575 is a spur which merges with I‑75 near Kennesaw. I‑575 serves northeast portions of Cobb County and a large portion of Cherokee County. It ends in Ball Ground. Interstate 675 is a route which connects I‑75 in Henry County to I‑285 in southern Dekalb County. Most of the corridor is within Clayton County.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Interstate 85 passes through from Montgomery on the southwest and from Greenville on the northeast. I-75 merges with I-85 to form the Downtown Connector from the Brookwood Interchange, just north of Midtown Atlanta, to just south of the Lakewood Freeway in south Atlanta. Interstate 185 is a spur which merges with I‑85 in LaGrange and stretches southward to Columbus. Interstate 985 is a spur which merges with I‑85 in Suwanee and serves the northern suburbs of Gwinnett and Hall Counties. It terminates just northeast of Gainesville.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Interstate 285 is the beltway which encircles the city and its immediate eastern suburbs. It is commonly known as the Perimeter. I‑285 passes through Clayton, Cobb, Fulton, and DeKalb Counties.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Interstate 20 passes through from Birmingham to the west and from Augusta to the east. It serves Douglasville, the major suburb west of Atlanta. It serves Lithonia and Conyers to the east.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Georgia 400 is the main corridor serving the north-central suburbs, and was the only toll road in the metropolitan Atlanta area. As of November 23, 2013, the tolls ended and the toll plazas were demolished. It reaches into the northern portion of Fulton County and gradually turns northeast before entering Forsyth County. The controlled-access portion terminates just northeast of the city of Cumming. To the south, it terminates and merges into southbound I‑85 just south of the Buckhead business district. Cumming/Dahlonega is used on I‑285 as the northbound sign, and Atlanta/Buckhead as the southbound. From I‑85 northbound, it uses Buckhead/Cumming.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Stone Mountain Freeway, or U.S. 78, is an 8‑mile corridor east of Downtown Atlanta and the neighboring suburb of Decatur. It serves northeast portions of Dekalb County, including the city of Stone Mountain. It continues east as a divided highway into south Gwinnett County, including the suburb of Snellville. U.S. 78 also stretches east to Athens.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Lakewood Freeway, or Georgia 166, extends between Lakewood Park in south Atlanta and Campbellton Road, just west of I‑285.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Peachtree Industrial Blvd, or Georgia 141, is a route north-northeast of Atlanta which begins on the north side of I‑285 and runs parallel to I‑85 for about four miles until it terminates when it splits into GA‑141 and Peachtree Industrial (continuing as a normal divided highway).


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Georgia State Route 316 is a four-mile-long route that branches from I‑85 and stretches eastward into Gwinnett County. It continues east as a normal divided highway through the suburb of Lawrenceville and on to Athens.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: There are many historic roads across the area, named after its mills and early ferries, and the bridges later built to replace the ferries. Pace's Ferry is perhaps the best known.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Owing to the area's long history of settlement and uneven terrain, most arterial roads are not straight but meander instead, which can be confusing as much as the famed proliferation of Atlanta streets with "Peachtree" in the name. It is also often joked that half the streets are named Peachtree, while the other half have several names to make up for it.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Partly, confusion is because the region maintains the historic nomenclature of each county naming its roads for the towns they connect with in surrounding counties. Thus, from Dallas to Roswell, Georgia 120 is Marietta Highway to the Paulding/Cobb county line, is Dallas Highway to the city of Marietta, Whitlock Avenue to the town square, South Park Square for just one city block, Roswell Street to Cobb Parkway (at the Big Chicken), Roswell Road to the Cobb/Fulton county line, and finally Marietta Street to the town square in Roswell. Further confusion is from the arbitrary location of state routes by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), so that they travel an erratic path requiring several turns by drivers instead of traveling the original straight route; and the renaming of roads by state legislators to honor their friends.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: There are many roads like this throughout the area, leading to duplication of names in different counties. In Fulton, "Roswell Road" refers to Georgia 9 through northern Atlanta and across Sandy Springs, in addition to the above-mentioned use in Cobb, for example. Numeric street addressing is done by county as well, with the origin usually being at one corner of the town square in the county seat. The U.S. Postal Service ignores these actual and logical boundaries however, overlapping ZIP codes and their associated place names across counties. The Cumberland/Galleria area has Cobb's numbers and an "SE" suffix, but is called "Atlanta" by the USPS (despite being Vinings, which the USPS ironically calls "unacceptable"), which can confuse visitors to think it is far away in southeast Atlanta.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Where more than one town in the same county has a road to the same place, the smaller towns have their own name prefixed to it, while the county seat does not. The road need not go directly to the other place, but may connect through other roads. Examples include Due West Road west from Marietta, Kennesaw Due West Road southwest from Kennesaw, and Acworth Due West Road south from Acworth. Some are usually hyphenated, like Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, and Chamblee-Tucker Road.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: There are also several roads named for communities which have been overwhelmed by the urban and suburban sprawl, and so are somewhat odd to newcomers. These include Sandy Plains, Crabapple, Toonigh, Luxomni, and Due West. Some of these communities are in the middle of the road, while some are at or very near one end. Some areas are renamed, either over time (Sandy Plains gradually became "Sprayberry" when Sprayberry High School moved there and similarly named shopping centers popped up around it); by the USPS (Toonigh is identified as "Lebanon"), or after rapid development. In such cases, the roads usually maintain their historic names even if the neighborhoods do not.


title: Atlanta metropolitan area

text: Other arterials are completely new, like much of Barrett Parkway, Sugarloaf Parkway and South Fulton Parkway, constructed by their counties but partly covered with a state route number. Occasionally, roads are realigned or extended to meet each other directly at a cross-road, leading to odd curves and name changes.


title: Trails (series)

text: Trails, known as in Japan, is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Nihon Falcom. It is a part of their larger "The Legend of Heroes" franchise and began with the release of "Trails in the Sky" in 2004. Set on the continent of Zemuria, "Trails" features a large cast of characters and consists of several games split into the "Trails in the Sky", "Crossbell", "Trails of Cold Steel", and "Kuro no Kiseki" story arcs. The series was conceived as a goal by Falcom to create the most ambitious story in video games, with company president Toshihiro Kondo considering it to be his life's work.


title: Trails (series)

text: The games were released exclusively in Asia until the 2010s, with Xseed Games handling its English localization until NIS America took over in 2019. "Trails" games primarily feature turn-based combat, with a few spinoffs and more recent entries featuring other styles of gameplay. It is commonly praised for its worldbuilding and character arcs. It has also seen adapted and original manga, audio drama, and anime works, with the games selling over seven million copies .


title: Trails (series)

text: "Trails" is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Nihon Falcom. It began as the sixth entry in Falcom's "The Legend of Heroes" franchise with the release of "" in 2004. Despite that, it had no narrative connection with prior "Legend of Heroes" games and has since been considered its own distinct franchise. The "Trails" games are set within a few years of each other and follow an overarching narrative, with the events of a few entries crossing over into another. The series was created as a goal by Falcom to have the most ambitious story in video games, with company president and series producer Toshihiro Kondo considering it to be his life's work. The games are made using proprietary game engines by Falcom, with the exception being Sony's PhyreEngine used for the "Trails of Cold Steel" games. The series is heavily influenced by anime and features several archetypes and tropes common to it.


title: Trails (series)

text: "Trails" is set across several locations on the continent of Zemuria, such as the Liberl Kingdom, the city-state of Crossbell, the Erebonian Empire, and the Calvard Republic, among others. Zemuria is home to several groups, factions, and organizations, such as the Bracer's Guild, the Septian Church, and the secret society of Ouroboros. The games are set half a century after the discovery of orbal energy, an analog to electric power. This led to a technological revolution caused by the invention of Orbments, mechanical devices varying greatly in size and scope that run off orbal energy, powering things from everyday appliances to mecha and other weaponry. "Trails" features sociopolitical elements, with issues such as imperialism, classism, and immigration being causes of conflict in its society. In contrast with many other role-playing games, every minor non-playable character in the series has a name, with several having their own character arcs with varying degrees of importance to the main plot.