Georgia: The Peach State

Georgia is located in the southeastern United States along the Atlantic Ocean seacoast, just north of Florida. Initially explored by the Spanish in 1540, Georgia was the subject of contention between Britain and Spain until the early 1700’s. Georgia was admitted to the United States on January 2, 1788. In 1861, Georgia joined the Confederate States of America and sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War. It was reinstituted into the Union in 1870. Over time, Georgia has become virtually synonymous with the peach. While peaches were originally planted in St. Augustine, Florida, they were planted on St. Simons and Cumberland Islands along Georgia's coast in 1571 by Franciscan monks. By the mid-1700s, the Cherokee Indians were cultivating peaches and plums in Georgia. Significant expansion of peach planting and harvesting occurred in Georgia the 1800’s and 1900’s.

Economy: Georgia Looks Peachy

Today Georgia’s economy is highly diverse, with agriculture, communications, financial services, food production, general services, government, lumber, manufacturing, mining, and tourism all contributing. Atlanta, Georgia’s largest city, is home to a number of large American companies, such as Aflac, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, and United Parcel Service.

Education: Mindful of Georgia

Educational attainment among the Georgia population is roughly equivalent to that of the U.S. as a whole. As of 2000, roughly 80% of Georgia’s residents aged 25 and older had completed high school and 22% had completed college. There are 3,239 institutions of higher learning in Georgia. Prominent among these are Eckerd College, University of Miami, and the State University System of Georgia. The State University of Georgia System enrolls over 300,000 students within eleven institutions, including: Georgia State University, Georgia A&M University, and the University of Central Georgia.

The Crime Scene in Georgia: Trending Down Sharply

While having one of the higher overall rates of crime in the country, Georgia’s crime rate has been declining sharply over the past several decades. All major types of crime have seen declines from their peaks in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In 2006, Georgia ranked 4th among U.S. states for violent crimes with 712 per 100,000 population.

The Georgia Population – Growing Like a Peach Tree

Georgia has a population of roughly 9.8 million people. Its population has grown steadily over the past decade, at a rate of 2.1% per year. Georgia had a Democratic political orientation for much of the 1900’s, though recently its political representation at the state level has been fairly balanced. Of roughly 3.9 million votes cast in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Georgia voters chose Republican candidate John McCain over Democratic candidate Barack Obama by a slim margin, 51%-48%.