Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later the Southwest Territory, before its admission to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Its name derives from ' Tanasi', a Cherokee town in the eastern part of the state that existed before the first European American settlement. Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachian Mountains. Tennessee's population as of the 2020 United States census is approximately 6.9 million.
Other major cities include Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clarksville. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of East, Middle, and West Tennessee. It is bordered by Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. Tennessee ( / ˌ t ɛ n ɪ ˈ s iː/ ⓘ TEN-ih- SEE, locally / ˈ t ɛ n ɪ s i/ TEN-iss-ee), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States.
