99 Fun Facts About Georgia

What is the capital of Georgia?

Atlanta replaced Milledgeville as capital in 1868, only four years after Union troops had burned much of the city; Savannah and Augusta had each held the role earlier.

Which British general founded the colony of Georgia, landing at Yamacraw Bluff?

James Oglethorpe led the first settlers ashore at Yamacraw Bluff to found Savannah; the Trustees planned the colony as a buffer against Spanish Florida and a fresh start for England's 'worthy poor'.

Georgia was named in honor of which British monarch?

George II granted the colony's charter in 1732 and the Trustees named it in his honour; two years later he received the Yamacraw chief Tomochichi, who had sailed to London with the colony's founder.

Which drink did Georgia's founding Trustees outlaw?

Rum was outlawed in Georgia by a 1735 act of the Trustees, but colonists chafed at the ban on strong liquor and the Trustees relaxed it in 1742, seven years later.

Which three states ratified the U.S. Constitution before Georgia, the fourth to do so?

Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all ratified in December 1787, Delaware's 30–0 vote earning it the nickname The First State; Georgia's convention followed on January 2, 1788, also without a dissenting vote.

Along with Tennessee, which state lies directly above Georgia on the map?

North Carolina sits beside Tennessee on Georgia's northern edge; an 1818 survey put the Tennessee stretch about a mile too far south, and Georgia lawmakers still dispute it because it cut the state off from the Tennessee River.

Georgia has 159 counties, more than any other state except which one?

Texas has 254 counties to Georgia's 159; by tradition Georgia drew them small so that a farmer could ride to the county seat, do his business and be home the same day.

Which Blue Ridge peak is the highest point in Georgia?

Brasstown Bald tops out at 4,784 feet near the state's northern edge, more than twice the elevation of Georgia's most famous summit, Stone Mountain.

What is Georgia's official state bird?

The brown thrasher was proclaimed state bird by the governor in 1935, but lawmakers made it official only in 1970, after the Garden Clubs of Georgia pressed them; the state's former NHL team, the Thrashers, took its name.

Georgia is nicknamed the Peach State, but which state grows the most peaches?

California grew about three-quarters of the U.S. peach crop in 2021, and South Carolina also out-produced Georgia, which earned its nickname during an orchard boom in the decades after the Civil War.

What is Georgia's official state vegetable?

The Vidalia onion owes its sweetness to a lack of sulfur, the element that makes onions pungent, and a 1986 state law lets only onions from a 20-county zone of south Georgia carry the name.

Which breakfast staple did Georgia name its official state prepared food in 2002?

Grits, ground corn or hominy boiled to a porridge, were first prepared by Native Americans centuries ago; Georgia made them its official prepared food in 2002.

Georgia grows nearly half of the U.S. output of which crop, named its official state crop in 1995?

Peanuts are not nuts at all but legumes native to South America; Georgia made them its official state crop in 1995 and grows almost half of the national harvest.

Which pharmacist invented Coca-Cola, first sold at Jacobs' Pharmacy in Georgia in 1886?

John Stith Pemberton marketed Coca-Cola as a patent medicine and temperance drink; he died in 1888, and druggist Asa Candler, who bought up the rights, turned it into a giant.

Georgia's Hartsfield-Jackson airport is named after two men who held which office?

Mayor is the office both held: William B. Hartsfield founded the airfield on an abandoned racetrack in 1925, and Maynard Jackson, the city's first Black mayor, had his name added in 2003, after his death.

Which north Georgia town, site of an 1829 gold rush, supplied the gold leaf on the State Capitol dome?

Dahlonega's rush drew thousands of miners and Congress opened a branch of the U.S. Mint there in 1838; the Capitol dome was gilded with local gold during a 1958 renovation.

Gold found in Georgia in 1828 hastened which nation's removal on the Trail of Tears?

The Cherokee were rounded up into stockades and marched west after gold was found on their land; an estimated 4,000 or more died before the survivors reached present-day Oklahoma.

Which Union general's 1864 'March to the Sea' cut across Georgia to Savannah?

William Tecumseh Sherman's army set out on November 15, 1864 and reached the coast on December 21; he telegraphed Lincoln offering captured Savannah as a Christmas gift.

Which September 1863 Georgia battle had the Civil War's second-highest casualty count, after Gettysburg?

Chickamauga was a Confederate victory, but the Union army fell back to Chattanooga and held it, opening the road into Georgia the following year.

What became of Henry Wirz, commandant of Georgia's Andersonville prison camp, in 1865?

Hanged for war crimes in November 1865 on the verdict of a military court in Washington, Wirz had run a camp where nearly 13,000 of some 45,000 Union prisoners died.

Which U.S. president was born in Plains, Georgia, and served as the state's governor?

Jimmy Carter stunned his own supporters at his 1971 inauguration as governor by declaring that the time for racial discrimination was over; five years later he won the presidency.

Which president died at his "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia, in April 1945?

Franklin D. Roosevelt first came to Warm Springs for its mineral water as polio therapy in 1924; he died there of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945 while sitting for a portrait.

Which two men founded Augusta National, home of the Masters since 1934?

Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts built Augusta National on a former plant nursery, which is why each hole carries the name of a tree or shrub; Jones designed the course with Alister MacKenzie.

Which boxing great lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Games in Georgia?

Muhammad Ali, trembling from Parkinson's, lit the flame after Evander Holyfield carried the torch into the stadium and swimmer Janet Evans ran the final leg up to him.

Dating to 1785, the University of Georgia claims which national distinction?

The University of Georgia calls itself the first state-chartered public university, its charter dating to January 1785; UNC, chartered in 1789, counters that it held classes first.

R.E.M. formed in 1980 in which Georgia college town, also the home of the B-52's?

Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry played their first show in Athens in April 1980, at a friend's birthday party in a converted church.

Which Albany-born singer's 1960 hit version of 'Georgia on My Mind' became the state song in 1979?

Ray Charles left Albany as a baby and grew up in Florida, yet his No. 1 recording of the 1930 Hoagy Carmichael tune became Georgia's official state song.

Which soul singer grew up in Augusta, Georgia, where a statue of him stands?

James Brown, the 'Godfather of Soul', was born in South Carolina and moved to Augusta at four or five; he shined shoes there as a boy and later bought a local radio station.

Which Georgia author published only one novel in her lifetime, the Pulitzer-winning Gone with the Wind?

Margaret Mitchell, a former newspaper reporter, began the book in 1926 to relieve the boredom of being laid up with a broken ankle; it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937.

Juliette Gordon Low founded which organization in Savannah in March 1912, starting with 18 girls?

Girl Scouts of the USA began after Low met Scouting's founder, Robert Baden-Powell, in Britain in 1911 and brought the idea home to Savannah the following year.

Which 24-hour breakfast chain opened its first location in Avondale Estates, Georgia, in 1955?

Waffle House founders Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner were neighbours in Avondale Estates; FEMA informally uses whether the chain is open, the 'Waffle House Index', as a gauge of disaster severity.

S. Truett Cathy's Dwarf Grill, opened in 1946 in Hapeville, Georgia, grew into which fast-food chain?

Chick-fil-A still closes every restaurant on Sundays, a reflection of founder Truett Cathy's faith; he developed his pressure-cooked chicken sandwich at the Dwarf Grill.

Which hardware chain, co-founded by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, opened its first stores in Georgia in 1979?

The Home Depot opened its first two stores on the same day in June 1979; Marcus later gave $250 million to build the Georgia Aquarium, and Blank bought the Falcons.

The Georgia Aquarium opened in 2005 around a 6.3-million-gallon tank built for which animal?

Whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, were the reason for the giant Ocean Voyager tank; businessman Bernie Marcus's $250 million gift paid for most of the aquarium.

Which airline began in the 1920s as a crop-dusting operation in Macon, Georgia, fighting the boll weevil?

Delta Air Lines grew out of Huff Daland Dusters, which soon left Macon for Monroe, Louisiana; it flew its first passengers in 1929 and moved its headquarters to Georgia only in 1941.

Which general rides beside Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee on Georgia's giant Confederate mountain carving?

Stonewall Jackson completes the Stone Mountain trio; first sculptor Gutzon Borglum left in a 1925 dispute with only Lee's head carved and went on to make Mount Rushmore, and the work was finished in 1972.

Which river, made famous by Stephen Foster's 'Old Folks at Home', rises in Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp?

The Suwannee River flows from the Okefenokee to the Gulf of Mexico; Foster never saw it, and is said to have picked 'Swanee' from an atlas because its two syllables fit his tune.

Which Georgia landmark, nicknamed the 'Little Grand Canyon', was carved largely by erosion from poor 1800s farming?

Providence Canyon was cut not by a river but by rainwater running off cleared farm fields; gullies that began as ditches in the early 1800s are now as deep as 150 feet.

Which is the largest of Georgia's barrier islands, known for feral horses and the ruins of the Carnegies' Dungeness?

Cumberland Island has no bridge and is reached only by ferry; John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in its tiny First African Baptist Church in 1996.

A secret 1910 meeting of financiers at the Jekyll Island Club drafted plans for what?

The Federal Reserve grew out of the plan drafted there: Senator Nelson Aldrich and his guests travelled under first names only, posing as duck hunters, and the Federal Reserve Act followed in 1913.

What did the US Air Force lose off Tybee Island, near Savannah, after a 1958 mid-air collision?

The Air Force lost a hydrogen bomb, a Mark 15 jettisoned from the damaged B-47 so that the bomber would not crash; searches failed, and the weapon still lies somewhere in Wassaw Sound.

The Appalachian Trail's southern terminus is on which Georgia peak?

Springer Mountain has been the trail's southern end only since 1958, when development around the original terminus farther south forced a move; from there it runs almost 2,200 miles to Maine.

Which dolls are "born" at BabyLand General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia?

Cabbage Patch Kids began as Xavier Roberts's hand-stitched 'Little People', which he sold with adoption papers from a converted medical clinic in his hometown before Coleco made them the toy craze of 1983.

Ty Cobb, nicknamed "the Georgia Peach" after his home state, spent 22 seasons with which team?

Ty Cobb played for the Detroit Tigers from 1905 to 1926, managing them for his last six seasons there; he later gave $100,000 to build a hospital in Royston, where he grew up, in his parents' memory.

Which Braves slugger broke Babe Ruth's career home run record in Georgia on April 8, 1974?

Hank Aaron hit number 715 off Dodgers pitcher Al Downing after a winter of death threats so serious that he had hired a bodyguard.

Which city did the Braves, World Series winners in three home cities, leave for Georgia in 1966?

Milwaukee kept the Braves a year longer than planned: a Wisconsin injunction forced a lame-duck 1965 season there before the move, and the franchise has since won the World Series in a third home city.

Which coach led Georgia Tech to a record 222-0 win over Cumberland in 1916?

John Heisman's team ran up the most lopsided score in college football history, partly to avenge a 22-0 beating by Cumberland's baseball team that spring, amid claims Cumberland had used professionals.

Which Georgia running back won college football's top individual award in 1982, after a national title as a freshman?

Herschel Walker led Georgia to the 1980 national title in his first season and ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022, losing a runoff to Raphael Warnock.

The 56-foot 'Big Chicken' in Marietta, Georgia, sits atop what kind of business?

It tops a KFC restaurant; when the company considered demolishing it after storm damage in 1993, complaints from locals and pilots who used it as a landmark saved it, and its eyes and beak move.

Which TV series turned downtown Senoia, Georgia, into the fortified town of Woodbury?

The Walking Dead filmed Woodbury on Senoia's main street for its third season, and with its studio base just outside town the production stayed in the area for the rest of its run.

Georgia's future capital was first named Terminus, the end of what?

A railroad line the state was building from Chattanooga was to end there, so the settlement was called Terminus; in 1843 it became Marthasville, after a former governor's daughter, and two years later it took its present name.

Where did Georgia rank among US states by population in the 2025 Census estimate?

Georgia ranked eighth, with about 11.3 million residents in the Census Bureau's 2025 estimate, yet it is only the 24th-largest state by area.

Which civil rights leader was born on Auburn Avenue in Georgia's capital?

Martin Luther King Jr. was born Michael King; his father, pastor of nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church, renamed them both in 1934 after a trip to Europe, in honour of the reformer Martin Luther.

Georgia's 1868 readmission was reversed after its legislature did what?

Expelled its Black members: white legislators voted them out in September 1868, so Congress refused to seat Georgia's delegation and put the state back under military rule the following year.

Which Georgia journalist sold the 'New South' creed in an 1886 New York speech?

Henry W. Grady, a newspaper managing editor, preached industry and reconciliation to northern investors; his programme also championed white supremacy.

Which Spanish conquistador's army crossed Georgia in 1540, visiting the mound-building chiefdoms of Ocute and Coosa?

Hernando de Soto marched into Georgia from Florida in March 1540, seizing local people as guides and hostages to keep his army supplied on the way to Ocute and Coosa.

Which practice did Georgia's founding Trustees ban, only to legalise it in 1751?

Slavery was barred so Georgia would be a colony of small farmers able to guard the frontier; settlers envious of South Carolina's rice plantations lobbied until the Trustees relented, a year before royal rule began.

Which delivery giant moved its headquarters to Sandy Springs, Georgia, in 1991?

UPS began in Seattle in 1907 as a messenger service started on a borrowed $100; it left Greenwich, Connecticut, for Georgia in 1991.

What is Georgia's official state reptile?

The gopher tortoise digs burrows up to 40 feet long that shelter many other animals, which is why biologists call it a keystone species; Georgia named it state reptile in 1989.

Which film's hero tells his life story from a bench in Savannah's Chippewa Square?

Forrest Gump sat on a fiberglass prop placed on the square's north side, not a real park bench. One of the prop benches is now on display at the Savannah History Museum.

Which famous Roman sculpture did Benito Mussolini send to Rome, Georgia, as a bronze replica in 1929?

The Capitoline Wolf replica, with Romulus and Remus nursing, arrived after an Italian firm helped build the city's rayon plant. In 1940 the city moved the statue into storage to protect it from vandals.

Which Netflix series uses downtown Jackson, Georgia, as the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana?

Stranger Things began filming in Jackson in 2016, with the Georgia town's intact downtown standing in for the early-1980s Midwest.

The giant statue inside which Washington, D.C. landmark was carved from white marble quarried in Georgia?

Lincoln Memorial sculptor Daniel Chester French had the Piccirilli brothers carve the figure from Georgia stone, and the 175-ton statue was shipped to the capital in 28 pieces.

What do fans call Savannah's barnstorming baseball team, whose players perform dance routines during games?

Bananas games follow the team's own Banana Ball rules. After winning its college summer league in 2022, the club quit that league to play the fast, showy format full time.

Which federal health agency was sited in Georgia in 1946 because malaria was endemic in the South?

CDC began as the Communicable Disease Center, successor to a wartime malaria-control programme. In 1947 it paid Emory University a token $10 for the land where its headquarters were built.

Which mythical creature appears at the centre of Atlanta's city seal and flag?

Phoenix imagery marks Atlanta's rebuilding after Union troops burned much of the city in 1864. The seal carries the dates 1847 and 1865 and the Latin motto Resurgens, meaning rising again.

Atlanta-born Martin Luther King Jr. enrolled at age 15 at which historically Black school in his home city?

Morehouse College had begun admitting high school juniors who passed its entrance exam, which let King start in 1944. His father and maternal grandfather had both studied there.

Which charity did Millard and Linda Fuller found in Americus, Georgia, after three years of mission work in Africa?

Habitat for Humanity grew out of a housing fund the Fullers started at Koinonia Farm, a Christian farming community in Sumter County where 42 homes went up for families in need.

In the Charlie Daniels Band's 1979 hit set in Georgia, the Devil loses a contest played on which instrument?

Fiddle solos carry the story of The Devil Went Down to Georgia, in which the Devil stakes a golden instrument against young Johnny's soul and loses.

Which river rises in the Blue Ridge, runs through Atlanta's suburbs and forms half of Georgia's Alabama border?

Chattahoochee is thought to come from a Muskogee word for marked or painted rocks. At the Florida line it meets the Flint River and the two become the Apalachicola.

Which tree, known for limbs draped in Spanish moss, was named Georgia's official state tree in 1937?

Live oak cut on St. Simons Island framed the frigate USS Constitution, and the dense timber helped the ship shrug off cannon fire and earn the nickname Old Ironsides.

Atlanta's Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10-kilometre run, is traditionally held on which holiday?

Fourth of July has been the race's date since 110 runners started the first one in 1970. Its T-shirt became a prize because early organisers ordered too few and gave them only to the first finishers.

What name is shared by every live English bulldog mascot at University of Georgia football games since 1956?

Uga has always lived with the Seiler family of Savannah and watches games from an air-conditioned doghouse. Past holders of the title lie in a mausoleum at Sanford Stadium.

What nickname is given to the stretch of holes 11, 12 and 13 at Augusta National, home of the Masters?

Amen Corner first appeared in print in Herbert Warren Wind's 1958 Sports Illustrated report on the Masters. Strictly it covers the second shot at 11, all of 12 and the first two shots at 13.

Which Savannah-raised billboard heir founded the first 24-hour cable news channel and owned baseball's Atlanta Braves?

Ted Turner took over his father's outdoor advertising firm in 1963 and launched CNN in 1980. He later amassed the world's largest privately owned bison herd.

Which filmmaker turned 330 acres of Atlanta's former Fort McPherson army base into his own studio lot?

Tyler Perry became the first African American to own a major film studio outright. The lot's standing sets include a replica White House and a 1950s diner moved from a town 100 miles away.

Which Atlanta-born singer, nicknamed the Empress of Soul, took Midnight Train to Georgia to number one in 1973?

Gladys Knight and the Pips scored their first Hot 100 chart-topper with a song its writer, Jim Weatherly, had first recorded as Midnight Plane to Houston.

Which Macon-born pioneer, called the Architect of Rock and Roll, broke through with Tutti Frutti in 1955?

Little Richard had settled for work as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines before the song crossed over to the pop charts in both the United States and Britain.

Which machine did Eli Whitney devise in 1793 while a guest at Mulberry Grove, a Georgia rice plantation?

Cotton gin work began after the widow of a Revolutionary War general invited Whitney to her estate and introduced him to businessmen who wanted a machine to clean the crop.

Which Macon-raised soul singer died in a 1967 plane crash, weeks before the release of his biggest hit?

Otis Redding re-recorded (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay three days before the crash. Released in January 1968, it became the first posthumous number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which Atlanta hip-hop duo, formed by two high school students in 1992, won the 2004 Grammy for Album of the Year?

Outkast, the pairing of André 3000 and Big Boi, won for the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The two met at the Lenox Square shopping mall when both were 16.

Which author, born to sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Color Purple?

Alice Walker was the first African-American woman to win the fiction prize. She had attended the only high school open to Black students in her segregated hometown.

Which 1972 Burt Reynolds thriller shot its canoe scenes on the Chattooga River in Georgia's Rabun County?

Deliverance was adapted by James Dickey from his own 1970 novel, and the author appears on screen as Sheriff Bullard.

Which 1991 film was shot in nearly deserted Juliette, Georgia, where locals later opened a real Whistle Stop Cafe?

Fried Green Tomatoes drew so many tourists to the town that residents, encouraged by director Jon Avnet, recreated the film's cafe set as a working restaurant.

Which north Georgia logging town revived itself by rebuilding as a replica Bavarian alpine village?

Helen has required the southern German style by zoning since 1969, so even the few national chain outlets in town wear alpine trim.

The insurer Aflac, known for its quacking duck mascot, was founded in 1955 in which west Georgia city?

Columbus was once part of the name: the Amos brothers founded the American Family Life Insurance Company of Columbus. An ad agency art director later noticed the short form sounded like a duck's quack.

Which soft drink brand began in 1905 after Georgia grocer Claud Hatcher fell out with his syrup supplier?

RC Cola grew from a grudge: Hatcher wanted a bulk discount on Coca-Cola syrup, the salesman would not budge, and Royal Crown Ginger Ale became the first of his own drinks.

Which Georgia-born gambler fought beside Wyatt Earp at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?

Doc Holliday practised as a dentist in Georgia until tuberculosis sent him west, in the hope that a drier, warmer climate would slow the disease.

Which Oscar-winning actress grew up in Smyrna, Georgia, after her parents ran an acting workshop in Atlanta?

Julia Roberts arrived with a famous favour: her parents had taught Martin Luther King Jr.'s children at their integrated workshop, and Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bill for her birth.

Which north Georgia city passed a 1982 ordinance requiring every head of household to keep a firearm and ammunition?

Kennesaw acted in response to a handgun ban passed in Morton Grove, Illinois. The ordinance exempts conscientious objectors and residents unable to use a gun.

Which south Georgia town, named after a foreign capital, is the birthplace of baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson?

Cairo, nicknamed the Syrup City, was the Robinson family's home only briefly. After his father left in 1920, the sharecropping family moved to Pasadena, California.

Which region of rolling hills covers central Georgia between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Coastal Plain?

Piedmont means at the foot of the mountains. The region ends at the fall line, where rivers stopped being navigable, so inland ports sprang up along its edge.

Which bomber of Atlanta's 1996 Olympics was caught in 2003 after five years on the FBI's Most Wanted list?

Eric Rudolph was arrested by a rookie police officer in Murphy, North Carolina, while looking through a dumpster behind a grocery store.

What was the name of the blue, computer-generated mascot of Atlanta's 1996 Summer Olympics?

Izzy, first unveiled as Whatizit, was the first computer-generated mascot in Olympic history. Organising chief Billy Payne picked the blob because he felt computer animation was taking over the entertainment industry.

Which Savannah-born author of A Good Man Is Hard to Find raised some 100 peafowl at Andalusia, her Georgia farm?

Flannery O'Connor also kept ducks, ostriches, emus and toucans, and she worked peacock imagery into her fiction. Andalusia later became a museum devoted to her work.

Which Savannah-born lyricist of Moon River co-founded Capitol Records and wrote the words to more than 1,200 songs?

Johnny Mercer won four Best Original Song Oscars, one of them for Moon River. One of his first jobs, at ten, was sweeping floors at Leopold's Ice Cream in his hometown.

Which anesthetic did Dr. Crawford Long first use in surgery in Jefferson, Georgia, in 1842, to remove a neck tumor?

Ether on a towel did the job, but Long did not publish his results until 1849. William Morton, who demonstrated the method in Boston in 1846, is generally credited with its first public use.

Which Atlanta druggist bought the Coca-Cola recipe from its inventor and later served as the city's mayor?

Asa Candler turned the tonic into a heavily advertised national drink: by 1911 the company's yearly advertising budget had reached $1 million. He was mayor from 1916 to 1919.

Central Georgia holds the main US deposits of which white clay, nicknamed white gold and used to coat paper?

Kaolin is mined from a thirteen-county belt along the fall line between Augusta and Macon, and the town of Sandersville calls itself the Kaolin Capital of the World.