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GAGeorgia Fun Facts
Georgia launched in 1732 as the only British colony in America that outlawed slavery. The trustees also banned rum, lawyers and Catholics, hoping to build a settlement of small farmers. The slavery ban held until 1751, when planter pressure ended it, and the colony became one of the largest slaveholding states in the South.
Facts most people get wrong
- The Peach State is third in peaches. California and South Carolina both grow more. Georgia does lead the nation in peanuts, pecans and broiler chickens, none of which made it onto the license plate.
- Coca-Cola's cocaine is a half truth. John Pemberton's 1886 syrup used an extract of coca leaf, and the company removed the active alkaloid by about 1903. It first sold at Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta for five cents a glass.
- Atlanta exists because of a railroad, not a river. The settlement was called Terminus in 1837 for the end of the rail line, renamed Marthasville in 1843, then Atlanta in 1847. It is one of very few major American cities not built on navigable water.
- Atlanta is Georgia's fifth capital. Savannah, Augusta, Louisville and Milledgeville came first. Atlanta took the job in 1868.
- The state and the country do not share a namesake. The state honors King George II. The country's name traces back through Persian and Greek roots, and the Saint George story is folk etymology attached to it later.
- Stone Mountain is not a volcano. It is a dome of quartz monzonite that formed deep underground and was exposed as the softer rock above it eroded away.
Records and firsts
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International is the busiest airport on earth, moving more than 100 million passengers a year. A large share never leave the terminal, since it is Delta's main connecting hub.
- The first American gold rush started near Dahlonega in 1829, two decades before California. The gold leaf on the state capitol dome came from those same hills, hauled to Atlanta by wagon train in 1958.
- Georgia ratified the Constitution on January 2, 1788, the fourth state to do so.
- Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts in Savannah on March 12, 1912, with 18 girls at the first meeting.
- Only onions grown inside a legally defined production zone of about 20 counties may be sold as Vidalias. Georgia wrote the rule into state law in 1986 and a federal marketing order followed in 1989.
- A film tax credit passed in 2008 turned the state into one of the busiest production centers in the world, anchored by the studio complex in Fayetteville where much of the Marvel slate was shot.
Geography that surprises
- Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River, covering about 57,906 square miles of land.
- It has 159 counties, more than any state except Texas, a legacy of drawing county lines so every farmer could reach a courthouse and return home in one day.
- The coast is only about 100 miles long, but it holds roughly a third of all the salt marsh remaining on the Atlantic seaboard.
- The Tennessee border is in the wrong place. An 1818 survey put the line about a mile south of the intended 35th parallel, and Georgia legislators still file resolutions to move it north so the state can tap the Tennessee River.
- Elevation runs from sea level on the barrier islands to 4,784 feet at Brasstown Bald, and the Appalachian Trail begins at Springer Mountain before running more than 2,190 miles to Maine.
Where the name comes from
James Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees received their charter in 1732 from King George II and named the colony Georgia in his honor, using the Latin feminine form of George. The country of Georgia in the Caucasus arrived at a similar sounding name by a completely separate road, through Persian and Greek terms for the region, and the two have no shared origin. Atlanta's name is a coined one, generally credited to a railroad engineer who shortened Atlantica-Pacifica or adapted the Western and Atlantic Railroad. The Okefenokee Swamp, 438,000 acres in the southeast corner and the source of the Suwannee River, carries a Native name usually read as "trembling earth," a reference to the floating peat islands that shift underfoot.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Georgia known for?
Georgia is known for Coca-Cola, invented in Atlanta in 1886, for Hartsfield-Jackson, the busiest airport in the world at more than 100 million passengers a year, and for leading the nation in peanuts, pecans and broiler chickens. It is also the largest state east of the Mississippi River at about 57,906 square miles of land.
Why is Georgia called the Peach State?
Growers built the nickname through marketing after the Civil War, and the peach became the official state fruit in 1995. Production tells a different story: California and South Carolina both grow more peaches than Georgia does.
What is the weirdest law in Georgia?
It is illegal to sell an onion as a Vidalia unless it was grown inside a production zone of about 20 counties that state law defined in 1986, with a federal marketing order following in 1989. Same seed, same variety, wrong county, different name.
When did Georgia become a state?
Georgia ratified the US Constitution on January 2, 1788, becoming the fourth state. It began as a British colony chartered in 1732, the only one that banned slavery at its founding, a prohibition that lasted until 1751.
Was there a gold rush in Georgia?
Yes. The first American gold rush began near Dahlonega in 1829, twenty years before California. A federal branch mint operated there from 1838 until 1861, and gold from those hills was hauled to Atlanta by wagon train in 1958 to gild the state capitol dome.