Columbus is a city in and the county chair of Lowndes County, on the eastern be neighboring to of Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but as a consequence north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also portion of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. It is nearly 146 miles (235 km) northeast of Jackson, 92 miles (148 km) north of Meridian, 63 miles (101 km) south of Tupelo, 60 miles (97 km) northwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and 120 miles (193 km) west of Birmingham, Alabama.

The population was 25,944 at the 2000 census and 23,640 in 2010. The population in 2019 was estimated to be 23,573. Columbus is the principal city of the Columbus Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is share of the larger Columbus-West Point Combined Statistical Area. Columbus is also part of the area of Mississippi called The Golden Triangle, consisting of Columbus, West Point and Starkville, in the counties of Lowndes, Clay and Oktibbeha.

The first collection of the site of Columbus in Western history is found in the annals of the trailblazer Hernando de Soto, who is reputed to have crossed the simple Tombigbee River on his search for El Dorado. However, the site does not enter the main continuity of United States history until December 1810, when John Pitchlynn, the U.S. Indian agent and interpreter for the Choctaw Nation, moved to Plymouth Bluff, where he built a home, established a farm, and transacted Choctaw Agency business.

After the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson ascribed the urgent compulsion for roads to affix New Orleans to the descend of the country. In 1817 Jackson ordered a road be built to meet the expense of a take in hand route from Nashville to New Orleans. His surveyor, Captain Hugh Young, chose a place on the Tombigbee River where high ground approached the river on both sides as the location for a ferry to be used for crossing the river when high water prevented fording the river. A military bridge was build up where the present-day Tombigbee Bridge was forward-looking developed in Columbus, Mississippi. Jackson’s Military Road opened the mannerism for early payment in the area.