Tennessee

Most states have one official state song. Tennessee has seven.

Here, the folk music of the Scots-Irish mountain-dwellers in the east combined with the bluesy rhythms of the African Americans in the western Mississippi bottomlands to give birth to the modern country music that makes Nashville famous.

These three geographic regions, represented by the three stars on the Tennessee flag, have their own unique beauty: the heather-colored peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains descend into lush green valleys in the central plateau around ­Nashville and then onto the hot, sultry lowlands near Memphis.

In Tennessee, you can hike shady mountain trails in the morning, and by evening be stomping your feet in a Nashville honky- tonk or walking the streets of Memphis with Elvis’ ghost.

From country churches where snake handlers still speak in tongues to modern cities where record execs wear their sunglasses even at night, Tennesseans are a zesty lot.

Tennessee was the last Southern state to secede during the Civil War, and many important battles were fought here. Immediately following the war, six Confederate veterans from the town of Pulaski formed the infamous Ku Klux Klan to disenfranchise and terrorize the newly free blacks.

Major industries today are textiles, tobacco, cattle and chemicals, with tourism, especially in Nashville and Memphis, raking in hundreds of millions a year.
Land area 42,000 square miles
Population 5,700,000
State Capital Nashville
Largest City Memphis
Local Time CST from Memphis to Nashville – 6 hrs GMT nd EST in eastern part of state – 5 hrs GMT
Climate Hot summers, mild winters with snow in mountains. Moderate rainfall throughout the year
Ntl Parks Great Smoky Mountains and four others under National Parks Service administration.There are five parks
Tennessee