<Tr> <Th> FIPS code </Th> <Td> 13 - 03440 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Website </Th> <Td> athensclarkecounty.com </Td> </Tr> <P> Athens (formally known as Athens - Clarke County) is a consolidated city--county in the U.S. state of Georgia, in the northeastern part of the state about an hour's drive from the global city of Atlanta . It comprises the former city of Athens proper (the county seat) and Clarke County . The University of Georgia, the state's flagship public research university, is located in this college town, and contributed to its initial growth . In 1991, after a vote the preceding year, the original city abandoned its charter to form a unified government with Clarke County, referred to jointly as Athens - Clarke County . As of the 2010 census, the consolidated city - county (including all of Athens - Clarke County except Winterville and a portion of Bogart) had a total population of 115,452; all of Clarke County had a population of 116,714 . Athens is the sixth - largest city in Georgia, and the principal city of the Athens - Clarke County, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 192,541 as of the 2010 census . Athens - Clarke County has the smallest geographical area of a county in Georgia . </P> <P> In the late 18th century, a trading settlement on the banks of the Oconee River called Cedar Shoals stood where Athens is located today . On January 27, 1785, the Georgia General Assembly granted a charter by Abraham Baldwin for the University of Georgia as the first state - supported university . Sixteen years later, in 1801, a committee from the university's board of trustees selected a site for the university on a hill above Cedar Shoals, in what was then Jackson County . On July 25, John Milledge, one of the trustees and later governor of Georgia, bought 633 acres (256 ha) from Daniel Easley and donated it to the university . Milledge named the surrounding area Athens after the city that was home to the Platonic Academy of Plato and Aristotle in Greece . </P>

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