Decatur is a city in, and the county seat of, DeKalb County, Georgia, which is ration of the Atlanta metropolitan area. With a population of 24,928 in the 2020 census, the municipality is sometimes assumed to be larger since multiple ZIP Codes in unincorporated DeKalb County bear Decatur as the address. The city is served by three MARTA rail stations (Decatur, East Lake, and Avondale). The city is located nearly five miles (eight kilometers) northeast of Downtown Atlanta and shares its western affix with both the city of Atlanta (the Kirkwood and Lake Claire neighborhoods) and unincorporated DeKalb County. The Druid Hills neighborhood is to the northwest of Decatur. The unofficial axiom of Decatur used by some residents is “Everything is Greater in Decatur.”^{[citation needed]}

Prior to European settlement, the Decatur Place was largely forested (a remnant of old-growth forest close Decatur is preserved as Fernbank Forest). Decatur was established at the intersection of two Native American trails: the Sandtown, which led east from the Chattahoochee River at Utoy Creek, and the Shallowford, which follows today’s Clairmont Road, and eventually crossed close Roswell. A site for the DeKalb County courthouse was designated in 1822 in what would become downtown Decatur; the city of Decatur was incorporated upon December 10, 1823. It was named for United States Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur.

During the American Civil War, Decatur became a strategic site in Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign. In July 1864, Major-General James McPherson occupied the town to clip off the Confederates’ supply lineage from Augusta. On July 22, during the Battle of Atlanta, Confederate cavalry under Major-General Joseph Wheeler attacked McPherson’s supply wagons and the Union troops left to defend the wagons. A historical marker at the archaic courthouse marks the site of this skirmish.

In the second half of the twentieth century the metropolitan Place of Atlanta expanded into unincorporated DeKalb County, eventually surrounding two sides of the town of Decatur. Concurrently many booming and middle class white Americans fled the Place to more distracted suburbs. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed dramatic drops in property values. However, more recently the city has regained economic vigor, partially thanks to several long-term downtown enhancement plans that have enter upon fruition, making Decatur a trendy little mixed-use district with simple transit to downtown Atlanta. Over the afterward twenty years, it has gained a local and national reputation as a well ahead city in the circulate of a high level of citizen involvement that retains a small-town tone despite its proximity to Atlanta.