Although it is best known for its association with the Country Music industry, the capital of Tennessee is also a regional hub of business, transportation, and tourism. Nashville was founded in 1779 and the area has produced two U.S. presidents - Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk.  Jackson's home, the Hermitage, remains a popular tourist attraction to this day.

The city stands along the banks of the Cumberland River, which drew the first prehistoric settlers to the region as early as 10,000 B.C., shortly after the end of the last ice age. Prehistoric people inhabited the area that would become Nashville for thousands of years, culminating with the great moundbuilders of the Mississippian culture. Later, tribes including the Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Shawnees used the area as hunting grounds.

In the late 1600s, French fur traders came to the area and built a trading post near a salt lick just north of downtown. On Christmas Day, 1779 James Robertson established a permanent settlement called Nashborough after General Francis Nash. In 1784 the name Nashborough was changed to Nashville.

Tennessee become the sixteenth state in 1796. In 1828 General Andrew Jackson was elected seventh president of the United States, and in 1843 Nashville became the permanent capital of Tennessee.

Throughout the 1800s, steamboat traffic along the Cumberland River brought prosperity to Nashville and the region. As a result of the steamship and railroad, the city became the principal distribution point for goods traded throughout the Mid-South. In addition, this period saw the growth of large farms and plantations including Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, Travellers Rest, and Belle Meade Plantation. These farms and mansions are still counted among the city’s tourist attractions .

The first recorded church in Nashville was a small stone structure built on the Public Square. It was commonly known as the "Methodist Church." Baptists and Presbyterians were also among those who established the earliest congregations and were followed by Episcopalians, Catholics, Jews, and others. By the beginning of the Civil War there were also several African American congregations, including two Methodist Episcopal churches and one Christian church. Clergymen and church leaders established many educational institutions.

Tennessee sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 1862 the Union army took Nashville and held it until the end of the Civil War. The Confederates attempted to retake the city in 1864 at the
Battle of Nashville, but were turned back.

In the mid-1800s, Nashville's reputation for fine colleges and educational facilities had earned it the nickname "The Athens of the South." Fisk University was founded in 1866 as one of the first private schools dedicated to the education of African Americans. Vanderbilt University was founded in 1873. Meharry Medical College was established in 1876 for the education of black doctors.

In 1897 the Tennessee Centennial Exposition was held in Nashville, it what is now Centennial Park. A wood and stucco replica of the Greek Parthenon from that event was rebuilt in concrete during the 1920s. It is now the only full-scale facsimile of the Parthenon in existence.

Nashville's reputation as a country music center began in the 1920s, when WSM radio launched the WSM Barn Dance. That regional radio program eventually evolved into the Grand Ole Opry.

During the twentieth century Nashville's business economy has become increasingly diversified and service oriented. Following World War I, insurance, banking, and securities dominated the economic scene, and Union Street became known as the "Wall Street of the South." In 1968, the Hospital Corporation of America was founded. Subsequently, health care services have emerged as Nashville's largest industry. Music and entertainment, printing and publishing, education, and tourism follow close behind. Nashville is presently home to eighteen institutions of higher education, a tourism industry of eight million visitors a year, and is the largest automobile production center in the southern United States.