List of counties in Tennessee

This is a list of the 95 counties in the State of Tennessee. A county is a local level of government smaller than a state and typically larger than a city or town, in a U.S. state or territory.

As of 2000, Shelby County was both Tennessee's most populous county, with 897,472 residents, and the largest county in area, covering an area of . The least populous county was Pickett County (4,945) and the smallest in area was Trousdale County, covering . As of the same year, Davidson County, in which the capital Nashville is located, covers with a population of 569,891. The population of the state of Tennessee as of the 2000 census was 5,689,283 in an area of . The center of population pinpoints the location at which the population of the state, as placed on a map of the state where they reside, would balance out the map. The geographic center, the point where the map of Tennessee would balance without the population, is located northeast of Murfreesboro. In 1976, the Rutherford County Historical Society marked the geographic center of Tennessee with an obelisk.

Some of the counties were formed in part or completely from lands previously controlled by Native Americans. The "Indian lands" were territories that Native Americans had occupied from pre-Columbian times and to which they were granted the legal right of occupancy in an act of the United States government. In cases where counties had been formed from that territory, the legal right of Native American occupancy was revoked in a federal act prior to the formal establishment of the county. For Tennessee, ten treaties were negotiated between 1770 and 1835, defining the areas assigned to European settlers and to Native Americans, regulating the right of occupancy regarding the lands. The remaining native population was eventually removed from Tennessee to what became the state of Oklahoma.

The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code, which is used by the United States government to uniquely identify counties, is provided with each entry. FIPS codes are five digit numbers, for Tennessee the codes start with 47 and are completed with the three digit county code. The FIPS code for each county in the table links to census data for that county. | style="vertical-align:center;" | County Seat | style="vertical-align:center;" | Founded | style="vertical-align:center;" | Population(2000) | style="vertical-align:center;" | Area | style="vertical-align:center;" class="unsortable" | Map |}

Defunct counties

Consolidated counties

See also

References

External links

* Tennessee * Tennessee Counties