Fountain City is a neighborhood in northern Knoxville, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Although not a census-designated place (it's grouped with Knoxville for census-purposes), the populations of the two zip codes that serve Fountain City— 37918 and 37912— were 36,815 and 18,695, respectively, as of the 2000 U.S. census. At the time of its annexation by the city of Knoxville in 1962, Fountain City was the largest unincorporated community in the United States.
Fountain City is located in the Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley region, which is characterized by long, narrow ridges that run in a northeast-southwest direction. The community is "hemmed in" by several such ridges, namely Blackoak Ridge and Beaver Ridge, which divide Fountain City from Halls Crossroads to the north, and Sharp's Ridge, which separates Fountain City from North Knoxville proper to the south. Along with Halls, adjacent communities include Powell, which is opposite Beaver Ridge to the west, Gibbs to the northeast, Beverly to the east, and Whittle Springs to the southeast. Fountain City is drained primarily by First Creek, which rises near the base of Blackoak Ridge and proceeds southward through downtown Knoxville, where is empties into the Tennessee River.
The main road in Fountain City is Broadway, a section of U.S. Highway 441 which connects Fountain City to Halls (where it becomes Maynardville Highway) to the north and downtown Knoxville to the south. Interstate 640 passes along Fountain City's southern boundary, and Interstate 75 passes through the western part of the community. Other important roads include Merchants Drive/Cedar Lane, which connects Broadway to I-75, and Tazewell Pike (part of State Highway 331), which connects Fountain City with Gibbs to the northeast.