Athens is a city in and the county seat of Limestone County, in the U.S. state of Alabama; it is included in the Huntsville-Decatur-Albertville, AL Combined Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 21,897.

Founded in 1818 by John Coffee, Robert Beaty, John D. Carroll, and John Read, Athens is one of the oldest incorporated cities in the state, having been incorporated one year prior to the state’s get into to the Union in 1819. Limestone County was in addition to created by an stroke of the Alabama Territorial Legislature in 1818. The town was first called Athenson, but was incorporated as Athens after the ancient city in Greece. The town’s first mayor was Samuel Tanner, and the Tanner area, south of Athens, was named on his behalf.

The Athens Place was the house of William Wyatt Bibb, the first proprietor of Alabama, and its second governor, his brother Thomas Bibb, who succeeded him in office gone he died in a slip from his horse.

In 1822, local residents purchased 5 acres (20,000 m) of land and constructed a building to house the Athens Female Academy. The educational became affiliated later the Methodist church in 1842, and was eventually renamed Athens Female College. After becoming coeducational in 1932, the learned changed its name anew to Athens College. After subconscious taken beyond by the State of Alabama in 1974, the moot was converted to a “reverse junior college,” offering the last two years of counsel for former students of Place community colleges. It is today known as Athens State University.