Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central connect of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies upon the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county chair of Muscogee County, with which it officially complex in 1970. Columbus is the second-largest city in Georgia (after Atlanta), and fields the state’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. At the 2020 census, Columbus had a population of 206,922, with 328,883 in the Columbus metropolitan area. The metro Place joins the manageable Alabama cities of Auburn and Opelika to form the Columbus–Auburn–Opelika Combined Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 486,645 in 2019.

Columbus lies 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Atlanta. Fort Benning, the United States Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence and a major employer, is located south of the city in southern Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties. Columbus is house to museums and tourism sites, including the National Infantry Museum, dedicated to the U.S. Army’s Infantry Branch. It has the longest urban whitewater rafting course in the world build up on the Chattahoochee River.

This was for centuries the standard territory of the Creek Indians, who became known as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast after European contact. Those who lived closest to white-occupied areas conducted considerable trading and adopted some European-American ways.

Founded in 1828 by an battle of the Georgia Legislature, Columbus was situated at the coming on of the navigable part of the Chattahoochee River and on the last stretch of the Federal Road before entering Alabama. The city was named for Christopher Columbus. The take aim for the city was drawn taking place by Dr. Edwin L. DeGraffenried, who placed the town upon a bluff overlooking the river. Across the river to the west, where Phenix City, Alabama, is now located, lived several tribes of the Creek and extra Georgia and Alabama indigenous peoples. Most Creeks moved west later the 1826 Treaty of Washington. Those who stayed and made raid were forcibly removed in 1836.