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Nashville metropolitan area

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Nashville metropolitan area

The Nashville metropolitan area (officially the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area) is a metropolitan statistical area in north-central Tennessee. Its principal city is Nashville, the capital of and largest city in Tennessee. With a population of over 2 million, it is the most populous metropolitan area in Tennessee. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Tennessee in terms of land area.

The Office of Management and Budget defines the metro area for statistical use by the United States Census Bureau and other agencies. The area is the 35th largest metropolitan area in the United States. The metropolitan statistical area was first designated in 1950 and initially included only Davidson County. As surrounding counties increased in population and densities and in the number of their residents employed in Davidson County, the OMB added new counties to the MSA. Today, the metro area includes Davidson and 13 other counties.

The Nashville metropolitan area is located in the central part of the state of Tennessee, entirely within the Grand Division of Middle Tennessee, as defined by state law. Both the geographical center and population center of Tennessee are found in Murfreesboro, the second-largest city in the metropolitan area. Geologically, the metropolitan area covers most of the Nashville Basin, a geological dome. Parts of the region extend onto the Highland Rim, an elevated plain which completely surrounds the Nashville Basin. Both of these physiographic provinces are part of the Interior Low Plateaus of the Interior Plains. The highest point in the metropolitan area is Cannon County's Short Mountain, a monadnock that is an outlier of the Cumberland Plateau. The region is characterized by a combination of uneven rolling hills and relatively level plains, and is underlain with porous sedimentary bedrock such as limestone, sandstone, and shale, which form karst. As a result, the region contains many caves, underground streams, and depressions, and sinkholes are a common problem in the region.

Nashville is located in the northwestern corner of the basin, and most of Nashville's suburban growth has occurred to the south, southeast, east, and northeast of the city, due to the more level terrain of the basin. Much of the metro area contains extremely fertile soils, and crops such as corn and tobacco are commonly grown in the more rural parts of the metropolitan area. The Cumberland River passes through central part of the region, and is served by several tributaries, including the Stones, Harpeth, Caney Fork, and Red rivers. A small portion of the southern part of the metropolitan area, including most of Maury County, is within the drainage basin of the Tennessee River. A small part of the northern part of the region is within the Green River watershed. The Nashville metropolitan area is one of the most biodiverse inland regions in the United States, and is home to extremely rare ecosystems known as cedar glades, which are found in areas with shallow limestone bedrock that is largely barren of overlying soil, and are also one of the most endangered ecosystems in the nation, due to the rapid growth of the region.

Hickman County was removed in 2018, but was restored in 2023.

The Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro, TN, Combined Statistical Area (CSA) is the result of the addition of the Micropolitan Statistical Areas of Shelbyville (Bedford County), Lawrenceburg (Lawrence County) and Lewisburg (Marshall County) to the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population of the CSA as of the 2020 United States census was 2,143,158.

Politically, the Nashville metropolitan area leans Republican compared to many other large metropolitan regions in the United States. Although Davidson County, which contains the city of Nashville, is a Democratic stronghold and has trended increasingly blue in recent election cycles, it is significantly outvoted by the surrounding suburban and exurban counties, which are overwhelmingly Republican.

Counties surrounding Davidson such as Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, and Sumner have consistently voted Republican in both state and federal elections. Williamson County, one of the wealthiest in Tennessee, is particularly strong in its Republican support. While there have been modest Democratic gains in certain precincts, the GOP maintains a wide advantage in overall turnout and margins in the suburbs.

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