Rome, Georgia

Rome is the largest city in and the county seat of Floyd County, Georgia, United States. Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, it is the principal city of the Rome, Georgia, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Floyd County. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 37,713. It is the largest city in Northwest Georgia and the 26th-largest city in the state.

Rome was founded in 1834, after Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, and the federal government committed to removing the Cherokee and other Native Americans from the Southeast. It developed on former indigenous territory at the confluence of the Etowah and the Oostanaula rivers, which together form the Coosa River. Because of its strategic advantages, this area was long occupied by the historic Creek. Later the Cherokee people expanded into this area from their traditional homelands to the east and northeast. National leaders such as Major Ridge and John Ross resided here before Indian Removal in 1838.

The city has developed on seven hills with the rivers running between them, a feature that inspired the early European-American settlers to name it for Rome, that was also built on seven hills. The American Rome developed in the antebellum period as a market and trading city due to its advantageous location on the rivers. It shipped the rich regional cotton commodity crop downriver to markets on the Gulf Coast and export overseas.

In the late 1920s, a United States company built a rayon plant in a joint project with an Italian company. This project and the American city of Rome were honored by Italy in 1929, when Benito Mussolini sent a replica of the statue of Romulus and Remus nursing from a mother wolf, a symbol of the founding myth of the original Rome.

It is the largest city near the center of the triangular area defined by the Interstate highways between Atlanta, Birmingham, and Chattanooga. It has developed as a regional center for the fields of medical care and education. In addition to its public school system, it has several private schools. Higher-level institutions include private Berry College and Shorter University, and the public Georgia Northwestern Technical College and Georgia Highlands College.

The Abihka tribe of Creek in the area of Rome later became part of the Upper Creek people (who occupied the Northern Creek territory, called themselves the Muscogee). They merged with other Creek tribes to become the Ulibahali, who later migrated westward into Alabama in the general region of Gadsden. By the mid-18th century, the Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee had moved into this area and occupied it. They had moved down from areas of Tennessee, under pressure from settlement by Americans migrating across the Appalachians from eastern territories.

A Cherokee village named Etowah (Cherokee: ᎡᏙᏩ, romanized: Etowa), which means "Head of Coosa", was settled in this area during the late 18th century, in the period of the Cherokee–American wars (1776–94) during and after the American Revolutionary War. Several Cherokee national leaders settled here and developed their own cotton plantations, including chiefs Major Ridge and John Ross. Some of the Cherokee planters and others among the Southeast tribes bought enslaved African Americans to use as laborers on such plantations.

In the 20th century, Ridge's home here was preserved as Chieftain's House. It has been adapted by the state for use as the Chieftains Museum. It is used to interpret the history of the Cherokee in this area, especially Major Ridge.