Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-most populous overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River and third largest metropolitan statistical area behind Greater St. Louis and the Twin Cities on the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississippi was contested by European settlers as Memphis developed. By 1819, when modern Memphis was founded, it was part of the United States territory. John Overton, James Winchester, and