Located in the southeastern region of the US, Atlanta is in the northwestern quadrant of the state of Georgia (of which it is the capital). It's about 320km (200 mi) northwest of the Atlantic and about 440km (275mi) north of the Gulf of Mexico.

For many, Atlanta is just the bonfire background to one of cinema's most famous clinches. Long known as the 'Capital of the New South', Atlanta has benefited in recent years from a booming economy, the 1996 Olympics and a baseball dynasty.

Atlanta has suffered from overzealous college get-downs and the relentless development that has razed much of what it hasn't converted to shopping malls. But there are offbeat neighbourhoods to explore and old-fashioned towns nearby where you can still savour something of bygone days.

Since being rebuilt after the Civil War, downtown Atlanta has been transformed by waves of development and is now a thoroughly modern metropolis. For a glimpse of the past head to Fairlie-Poplar, which was the city's commercial centre 100 years ago. Its 20-odd blocks are lined with buildings constructed between the 1880s and WWI.

In the past two decades Atlanta has experienced unprecedented growth -- the official city population remains steady, at about 420,000, but the metro population has grown in the past decade by nearly 40%, from 2.9 million to 4.1 million people. A good measure of this growth is the ever-changing downtown skyline, along with skyscrapers constructed in the Midtown, Buckhead, and outer perimeter (fringing I-285) business districts. Since the late 1970s dozens of dazzling skyscrapers designed by such luminaries as Philip Johnson, I. M. Pei, and Marcel Breuer have reshaped the city's profile.