Few states of the Deep South have met the challenges of change with the resourcefulness and success of Georgia. For decades the state remained heavily dependent upon a single crop--cotton. Before the American Civil War, the landscape had been dominated by the lavish plantations of slaveholders. Gradually they were either abandoned or broken up into much smaller, and less efficient, tenant farms. As the numbers of mules and slave laborers diminished, machinery was introduced and the cotton fields steadily became more expensive to maintain. Many people, including some of the emancipated blacks, became sharecroppers, who paid the owners for use of their land with some portion of the cotton crop--a system that encouraged larger harvests and, consequently, robbed the soil of fertility. Even before the Great Depression, a major devastation of the plants by boll weevils precipitated the collapse of Georgia's cotton industry.
Georgia farmers are now revitalizing their depleted soil with new conservation methods. The restored lands support large herds of cattle, and many acres have been reforested to supply raw materials to lumber and pulp mills. Peanuts, corn, tobacco, pecans, and peaches are among modern Georgia's crops.
Georgia was first settled along its Atlantic coast in 1733. The new colony was established as a haven for England's poor and as a buffer between the Northern colonies and Spanish Florida. The waterpower of Georgia's rivers first attracted industry. Following the rivers, the early Georgians spread inland. They crossed the Coastal Plain and the rolling uplands, venturing as far as the Blue Ridge Mountains in the north. The largest state east of the Mississippi River, Georgia plays a major role in the economy of the southeastern part of the United States. Atlanta, the state capital and largest city, is the commercial, transportation, and financial center of the entire Southeast. Thousands of national concerns have offices in Atlanta, and one of the city's downtown intersections is called the Wall Street of the South. Although many people think of Georgia as a state of small towns and rural areas, the urban manufacturing centers are more truly representative of the modern state.
Georgia is the only state whose name honors an English king. King George II of England granted the original charter for the land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers in 1732. Over the years it has had such nicknames as Buzzard State, Cracker State, Goober State, Peach State, and Yankee Land of the South. The preferred nickname, Empire State of the South (an allusion to New York's Empire State label), reflects both Georgia's size and its rapid industrial and agricultural growth.
Georgia's area is 58,910 square miles (152,576 square kilometers), including 854 square miles (2,219 square kilometers) of water surface. Nearly as large as all New England, it ranks 21st in the nation in size. From the Florida border on the south to the Tennessee-North Carolina border on the north, Georgia's greatest length is 320 miles (515 kilometers). Its greatest width, from Alabama on the west to South Carolina on the east, is 260 miles (418 kilometers). In the southeast it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 100 miles (161 kilometers).
