Atlanta, Georgia.

It's home to one of the world's busiest airports and a number of Fortune 500 companies.

It's the largest and most well-known city in Georgia, and it's fairly centrally located in the state.

It only makes sense that Atlanta serves as Georgia's capital, right?

Well, there are actually no requirements when it comes to deciding a state's capital.

Some capitals, like Carson City, Nevada are far from the state's geographic center, and others like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania are relatively small cities.

So if there aren't any set rules for picking a capital, then why did Atlanta get chosen as Georgia's?

(quirky music) Simply put, a capital is home to the offices and meeting places of a state's government.

That includes the state's legislative branch, the executive branch, which includes the governor, and the state's Supreme Court.

When it comes to Georgia, Atlanta hasn't always been its capital city.

Georgia has had five different capitals.

We've already named Atlanta, but can you think of what the other four capital cities were?

An easy way to remember Georgia's five capitals is the acronym SALMA which stands for Savannah, Augusta, Louisville, Milledgeville, and Atlanta.

Let's take a look at each.

Before it was a state, Georgia was a British colony.

In 1733, the colonists established the first settlement in Georgia-Savannah.

With it being along a river and right by the Atlantic Ocean, Savannah was the perfect place for travel and trade, so it only made sense that it was also home to the colony's government.

But then came the Revolutionary War.

Now, Savannah's coastal location made it an easy target for British soldiers.

(gun blasting) When British military forces captured the city in 1778, Georgia's government fled Savannah and reorganized 127 miles upriver in Augusta.

Eventually, it switched again, and, for years, war activities caused the seat of government to rotate between Savannah and Augusta.

It was hard to keep up.

Ultimately, in 1785, after the end of the Revolutionary War, officials settled on Augusta as Georgia's new official capital city, but it wouldn't last long.

As the state's population expanded westward, there was growing concern that Augusta was located too far east.

So Georgia needed a new location for its capital city, one that was more central and accessible.

In 1796, Georgia's new capital city would be (drum rolling) Louisville!

Many agreed that it was the perfect spot for the capital because Louisville had roads that conveniently led to all the important cities in Georgia at the time.

But it didn't last long as the capital either.

That's because Georgia's population continued to rapidly move westward, no longer making Louisville the most central or convenient location in the state.

Plus, there were yearly outbreaks of malaria, so Georgia needed a new capital fast.

(mosquito buzzing) (hand slapping) In 1807, they found it in Milledgeville.

New government buildings were constructed including a Gothic Revival state capitol.

For a while, things were pretty good in Milledgeville, but two things would soon challenge its status as the capital city.

First was the continued forced removal of American Indians from their lands.

In 1830, the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act.

This legislation forced tens of thousands of Indigenous people, including the Cherokee, to leave their homeland and move west of the Mississippi River.

After their removal, settlers moved onto these former Cherokee lands in western Georgia.

As a result, Milledgeville was no longer geographically central.

The second challenge was the introduction of the railroad.

This new method of transportation led to the development of a town nicknamed Terminus where a major railroad connected Georgia to the Midwest.

Later renamed Marthasville and then Atlanta, the town known as the rail center of Georgia experienced rapid growth in the mid 1800s.

Pretty soon, Atlanta's rail accessibility and growing population were touted as reasons for moving the state capital there.

Despite Atlanta's speedy development, Milledgeville remained Georgia's capital for 60 years, even during the Civil War.

But after the war, Milledgeville struggled to recover.

Meanwhile, Atlanta was rapidly rebuilding and modernizing, so calls were made to move the capital to Atlanta.

The move was ratified in 1868, making Atlanta the fifth state capital of Georgia all in less than 100 years.

The reasons for relocating the capital to Atlanta: its central location, high population, and transportation access are still true today.

Well over half of the state's population calls Metro Atlanta home, and the city remains a transportation mecca.

Today, it seems unimaginable that Georgia would move its capital city again, but it's not impossible.

What do you think?

If it were to relocate, what other city do you think would serve as a good capital?

The choice might be harder than you think.

(gentle music)