<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Lists of United States state symbols </Td> </Tr> <P> Tennessee (/ tɛnɪˈsiː / (listen); Cherokee: ᏔᎾᏏ, translit . Tanasi) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States . Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States . Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west . The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border . Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, with a population of 660,388 . Tennessee's second largest city is Memphis, which has a population of 652,717 . </P> <P> The state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians . What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory . Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796 . Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 . Occupied by Union forces from 1862, it was the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war . </P> <P> Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state besides Virginia, and more soldiers for the Union Army than the rest of the Confederacy combined . Beginning during Reconstruction, it had competitive party politics, but a Democratic takeover in the late 1880s resulted in passage of disenfranchisement laws that excluded most blacks and many poor whites from voting . This sharply reduced competition in politics in the state until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-20th century . In the 20th century, Tennessee transitioned from an agrarian economy to a more diversified economy, aided by massive federal investment in the Tennessee Valley Authority and, in the early 1940s, the city of Oak Ridge . This city was established to house the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities, helping to build the world's first atomic bomb, which was used during World War II . </P>

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