Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home to a large number of colleges and universities. It is most notably known as a center of the music industry, earning it the nickname "Music City".
Nashville has a consolidated city–county government which includes seven smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The population of Nashville-Davidson County stood at 635,710 as of the 2009 census estimates, according to United States Census Bureau. This makes it the second largest city in Tennessee, after Memphis. This also makes Nashville the fourth largest city in the Southeastern United States. The 2009 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,582,264, making it the largest Metropolitan Statistical Area in the state. The 2009 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was estimated at 1,666,210.
Nashville was founded by James Robertson, John Donelson, and a party of Wataugans in 1779, and was originally called Fort Nashborough, after the American Revolutionary War hero Francis Nash. Nashville quickly grew because of its strategic location, accessibility as a river port, and its later status as a major railroad center. In 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee.