Do you know were the Norris Dam is? It is in Tennessee. The location of Tennessee is southeast central United States. Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi border it on the south side. Arkansas and Missouri lie on the west.

The climate of Tennessee is humid and subtropical. The size of the state is 42,146,059 square miles. It is ranked 36 in the United States. The population is large, too. There are 4,590,750 people in the state. Fifty-nine percent of the people live in urban areas, and forty-one percent of the people live in rural areas. The capital is Nashville. It was settled in 1779. Some other important cities are Knoxville, Chattanooga, Jackson and Johnson City.

The landforms of Tennessee include rocky areas, 13,612,000 acres of forestlands, the Cumberland Plateau, and the Eastern Gulf Coastal. Isn’t that a lot?

The state of Tennessee has many symbols. The state bird is the Mockingbird. The Iris is the state flower. For the tree, they have the Tulip Poplar tree. The raccoon is the state animal, and the ladybug and lightning bug are the state insects.

The history of Tennessee begins with the Creek and Yuchi people. They lived in the area where the European explorers arrived. The state seceded from the Union in 1861. Then the state came back in 1866. Many Revolutionary and Civil War battles were fought there. In the Civil War, Tennessee voted to join the South and fight against the North. Four hundred and fifty four battles were fought in Tennessee. In the Battle of Shiloh, 28,000 men were killed or wounded. The North won the Battles of Murfreesboro where about 23,000 men were killed or wounded. The southern soldiers were beaten in Tennessee. One famous person is James K. Polk U.S. President who annexed Texas, California, Oregon, and New Mexico Territory. Tennessee became a state in 1866.

Some recreation activities of Tennessee include football games. They also have three zoos with exotic animals. More music is recorded in Nashville than anywhere else in the world. You can also do shark watching. You can see the sharks in tanks three stories high at the Tennessee Aquarium. Fishing is a popular sport, too.

They have customs in Tennessee that we do not have in New York. Their customs are country western music, Annual World's Biggest Fish Fry, Strawberry Festival, Cotton Carnival, Tennessee State Fair, Catfish Derby, One Gallus Fox Hunt and lastly, Bench Show.

They manufacture food, transportation equipment, industrial machinery, fabricated metal products, rubber/plastic, paper,  printing products and publishing. They have natural resources that are above ground and below ground. Natural resources above ground are timber and lumber. The below ground natural resources are coal, stone, zinc, cement, sand and gravel. The farmers of Tennessee grow and raise products, too. They grow cotton, crops, tobacco, lint, soybeans, grain, and corn. The animals they raise are hogs and pigs.

If you are interested in Civil War history you should go to Tennessee. It is the home of many historic battles.