60 Fun Facts About Georgia

What is the capital of Georgia?

It is also the state's largest city. Savannah, Augusta, Louisville and Milledgeville all served as capital before the government moved there in 1868.

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

The colony was meant as a buffer against Spanish Florida and a fresh start for England's "worthy poor". Its charter originally banned slavery and rum.

Georgia was named in honor of which British monarch?

The colony's 1732 charter was issued by him. Georgia was the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies.

Georgia was the last of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. In what year?

That made it 126 years younger than Virginia. It became a royal colony in 1752 and the fourth state to ratify the Constitution in 1788.

Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Which three beat it?

Georgia ratified on January 2, 1788, unanimously. Rhode Island was last, in 1790.

Which of these states does NOT share a border with Georgia?

Georgia touches five states: Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Alabama, plus the Atlantic Ocean.

Georgia has more counties than any state except Texas. How many?

The old rule of thumb was that a farmer should be able to ride to the county seat and back in a day. Texas has 254.

What is the highest point in Georgia?

It rises 4,784 feet in the Blue Ridge, and on a clear day the observation deck shows four states.

What is Georgia's official state bird?

It was first named in 1935 and confirmed by law in 1970. The state's short-lived NHL team, the Thrashers, borrowed the name from 1999 to 2011.

Which flower is Georgia's official state flower?

Adopted in 1916, it is actually a climbing rose native to China that naturalised across the South.

Grown only in a legally defined 20-county patch of south Georgia, what is the official state vegetable?

The sweetness comes from unusually low-sulfur soil. Growing the onions outside the zone and using the name is illegal under a 1986 state law.

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

Ground hominy corn, cooked to porridge. South Carolina had already made it the official state food in 1976.

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

About 49 percent of the national acreage and output. Georgia is also the top pecan state, but the peanut got the official title in 1995.

Which pharmacist invented Coca-Cola, first sold in 1886 at Jacob's Pharmacy for five cents a glass?

He marketed it as a patent medicine and temperance drink. Two years later he sold the rights to Asa Candler, whose marketing made it a giant.

Which Georgia airport was the world's busiest every year from 1998 to 2024, except 2020?

It is named after two former mayors, William B. Hartsfield and Maynard Jackson, and handles more than 100 million passengers a year.

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

Congress opened a branch of the U.S. Mint there in 1838. The 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?

About 4,000 people died on the trek to present-day Oklahoma. Their capital, New Echota, was in what is now Gordon County.

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

The march began on November 15 and reached the coast on December 21. He telegraphed Lincoln offering the captured port as a Christmas gift.

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

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

Roughly how many of the 45,000 Union prisoners held at Georgia's Andersonville prison camp died there?

That is about 28 percent, mostly from disease, exposure and starvation. Commandant Henry Wirz was hanged for war crimes in November 1865.

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

He was Georgia's 76th governor from 1971 to 1975. Woodrow Wilson lived in Augusta as a boy but was born in Virginia.

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

He had first come for the warm mineral water as polio therapy in 1924. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage while sitting for a portrait.

Which two men founded Augusta National, the club that has hosted the Masters every year since 1934?

Jones, a Georgia lawyer and the greatest amateur golfer ever, designed the course with Alister MacKenzie; it opened for play in 1932.

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

Evander Holyfield, a Georgia native, carried the torch into the stadium and handed off before Ali, trembling from Parkinson's, lit the flame.

UGA dates its founding to a 1785 legislative act. What national distinction does it claim?

The College of William & Mary and UNC also claim "first public university" on different grounds; Georgia's charter came first, UNC's classes did.

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 at a friend's birthday party in a converted church there.

Which Albany-born singer performed 'Georgia on My Mind' in the state legislature after it became Georgia's song in 1979?

The song was written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell; his 1960 recording took it to No. 1.

Which 'Godfather of Soul' grew up shining shoes in Augusta, Georgia?

He was born in South Carolina but moved to Augusta at four or five. The city renamed a street and put up a statue for him.

Which 1936 Margaret Mitchell Civil War novel won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize?

It was the only novel she published in her lifetime. The 1939 film premiered in her home city with a three-day festival.

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

Her Savannah birthplace is now a museum and pilgrimage site; troops visit from across the country.

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

Founders Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner were neighbours. FEMA informally uses whether the chain is open as a gauge of disaster severity.

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

The chain is headquartered in College Park and every restaurant closes on Sundays, a policy Cathy set at the first diner.

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

The stores were in leased former Treasure Island spaces in Doraville and Decatur. Marcus later bankrolled the Georgia Aquarium; Blank owns the Falcons.

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

It was funded mostly by a $250 million gift from Bernie Marcus, on land donated by Coca-Cola.

Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Georgia, began in 1925 in Macon as what kind of business?

Huff Daland Dusters was the world's first aerial crop-dusting company, formed to fight the boll weevil. It moved to Louisiana within months.

The Confederate carving on Stone Mountain, the largest bas-relief sculpture in the world, depicts Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and who else?

All three are on horseback. The carving is 90 feet tall and cut 42 feet into the granite; work began in 1923 and finished in 1972.

Which Georgia-Florida wetland is North America's largest blackwater wetland and source of the Suwannee River?

The name is usually translated from Hitchiti as "trembling earth", after the peat mats that quiver underfoot. The St. Marys River rises there too.

Providence Canyon, nicknamed Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon", was created by what?

The gullies, some more than 150 feet deep, are erosion scars from settlers' ploughing. They started forming in the 1800s and are still growing.

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

Access is by ferry only and visitor numbers are capped. John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in a tiny chapel there in 1996.

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

Paul Warburg and J.P. Morgan's partners travelled under first names only, posing as duck hunters. 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 7,600-pound Mark 15 was jettisoned to allow an emergency landing. Searches failed and it is still somewhere in Wassaw Sound.

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

From there it runs almost 2,200 miles to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Roughly three quarters of thru-hikers who start in Georgia never finish.

Cabbage Patch Kids are "born" at BabyLand General Hospital in which north Georgia town?

Creator Xavier Roberts sold his hand-stitched "Little People" there before the dolls became the toy craze of 1983.

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

He grew up in Royston, where a small museum stands. His .366 career batting average is still the highest in major league history.

Off which Dodgers pitcher did Hank Aaron hit home run 715 on April 8, 1974?

Two fans ran onto the field and jogged beside him between second and third. Aaron had received death threats all winter as he approached the record.

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

They won in Boston in 1914, Milwaukee in 1957 and in Georgia in 1995 and 2021, and took 14 straight division titles from 1991 to 2005.

By what score did Heisman's Georgia Tech beat Cumberland in 1916, college football's most lopsided result?

Cumberland had dropped its football program and fielded a scratch team to avoid a forfeit fee. Heisman was avenging a 22-0 baseball loss.

Which Georgia running back won the 1982 Heisman after a 1980 national title as a freshman?

He later ran for the U.S. Senate from Georgia in 2022. Fran Tarkenton was a Georgia quarterback two decades earlier.

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

When the company considered demolishing it after storm damage in 1993, complaints from locals and pilots saved it. Its eyes and beak still move.

Which Georgia-set zombie series used downtown Senoia as the town of Woodbury?

Georgia's film tax credit turned the state into "Y'allywood"; Senoia's main street is now a fan destination.

What name honouring the governor's daughter did Georgia's future capital briefly bear before 1847?

It began as Terminus, the end of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Its official motto is Resurgens, "rising again", with a phoenix for its symbol.

Not to be confused with the state: what is the capital of the country of Georgia, in the Caucasus?

The two share a name by coincidence. The country sits on the Black Sea at the meeting point of Eastern Europe and West Asia.

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

The Census Bureau estimated 11.3 million residents in 2025; the state is 24th by area.

Roughly what share of Georgia's population lives in the Atlanta metropolitan area?

With more than 6.3 million people in 2023, metro Atlanta is the eighth-largest in the United States.

Georgia was the last Confederate state readmitted to the Union. In which year?

It had seceded on January 19, 1861, as one of the original seven Confederate states.

Which journalist promoted the 'New South' ideology of reconciliation and industrialisation in Georgia?

The post-Reconstruction coalition he fronted reshaped the state's economy in the late 19th century.

Which mound-building polities governed Georgia before European settlement?

The Province of Georgia was established in 1732 and Savannah founded the following year.

In which year did Georgia become a British royal colony?

That transition made it the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies.

Which delivery giant moved its headquarters to the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs in 1991?

The IOC had picked Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics a year earlier, cementing the city's status as a transport hub.

What is Georgia's official state reptile?

Other symbols include the right whale as marine mammal, staurolite as mineral and the live oak as tree.