Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the chair of Shelby County in the southwest share of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee after Nashville.

Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-most populous overall, as with ease as the largest city adjacent the Mississippi River and third largest Metropolitan statistical Place behind Saint Louis, MO and the Twin Cities upon the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan Place includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and certain neighborhoods.

The first European traveler to visit the Place of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississippi was contested by Spanish, French, and English colonizers as Memphis developed. By 1819, when protester Memphis was founded, it was part of the United States territory. John Overton, James Winchester, and Andrew Jackson founded the city. Based on the large quantity of cotton plantations and river traffic along the Mississippi, Memphis grew into one of the largest cities of the Antebellum South. After the American Civil War and the subside of slavery, the city continued to be credited with into the 20th century. It became in the midst of the largest world markets for cotton and lumber.

Home to Tennessee's largest African-American population, Memphis played a prominent role in the American Civil Rights Movement. Leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated there in 1968 after endeavors supporting a strike by the city's maintenance workers. The National Civil Rights Museum was acknowledged there and is a Smithsonian affiliate institution.

Since the civil rights era, Memphis has become one of the nation's leading classified ad centers in transportation and logistics. The largest employer is FedEx, which maintains its global freshen hub at Memphis International Airport. In 2021, Memphis was the world's second-busiest cargo airport. The International Port of Memphis along with hosts the fifth-busiest inland water port in the U.S. The Globalization and World Cities Research Network considers Memphis a "Sufficiency" level global city as of 2020.

Memphis is a center for media and entertainment, notably a historic music scene. With blues clubs upon Beale Street originating the unique Memphis blues sound, the city has been nicknamed the "Home of the Blues". Its music has continued to be shaped by a multicultural blend of influences: country, rock and roll, soul, and hip-hop.

The city is house to a major professional sports team, the Grizzlies of the NBA. Other attractions include Graceland, the Memphis Pyramid, Sun Studio, the Blues Hall of Fame and Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Memphis-style barbecue has achieved international prominence, and the city hosts the annual World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, which attracts on pinnacle of 100,000 visitors each year. Higher-level intellectual institutions adjoin the University of Memphis and Rhodes College.

Occupying a substantial bluff rising from the Mississippi River, the site of Memphis has been a natural location for human settlement by varying native cultures higher than thousands of years. In the first millennium A.D. people of the Mississippian culture were prominent; the culture influenced a network of communities throughout the Mississippi River Valley and its tributaries. The hierarchical societies built complexes subsequent to large earthwork ceremonial and burial mounds as expressions of their far along culture. The Chickasaw people, believed to be their descendants, later inhabited this site and a large territory in the Southeast.

French explorers led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and Spanish pioneer Hernando de Soto encountered the historic Chickasaw in this Place in the 16th century.

J. D. L. Holmes, writing in Hudson's Four Centuries of Southern Indians (2007), notes that this site was a third strategic point in the late 18th century through which European powers could rule United States encroachment exceeding the Appalachians and their interference gone Indian matters—after Fort Nogales (present-day Vicksburg) and Fort Confederación (present-day Epes, Alabama): "Chickasaw Bluffs, located on the Mississippi River at the present-day location of Memphis. Spain and the United States vied for control of this site, which was a favorite of the Chickasaws."

In 1795 the Spanish Governor-General of Louisiana, Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet, sent his lieutenant governor, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, to negotiate and safe consent from the local Chickasaw so that a Spanish fort could be erected on the bluff; Fort San Fernando De Las Barrancas was the result. Holmes notes that allow was reached despite antagonist from "disappointed Americans and a pro-American faction of the Chickasaws" when the "pro-Spanish faction signed the Chickasaw Bluffs Cession and Spain provided the Chickasaws as soon as a trading post".

Fort San Fernando de las Barrancas remained a focal narrowing of Spanish to-do until, as Holmes summarizes:

The Spanish dismantled the fort, shipping its lumber and iron to their locations in Arkansas.

In 1796, the site became the westernmost reduction of the newly admitted welcome of Tennessee, in what was next called the Southwest United States. The Place was nevertheless largely occupied and controlled by the Chickasaw nation. Captain Isaac Guion led an American force all along the Ohio River to allegation the land, arriving on July 20, 1797. By this time, the Spanish had departed. The fort's ruins went unnoticed 20 years difficult when Memphis was laid out as a city after the United States management paid the Chickasaw for land.

At the dawn of the century, as certified by the United States in 1786 Treaty of Hopewell, the land nevertheless belonged to the Chickasaw Nation. In the Treaty of Tuscaloosa, signed on October 1818 and ratified by Congress on January 7, 1819, the Chickasaw ceded their territory in Western Tennessee to the United States.

The city of Memphis was founded less than five months after the U.S. takeover of the territory, on May 22, 1819 (incorporated December 19, 1826), by John Overton, James Winchester and Andrew Jackson. They named it after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River.

The city had a tall proportion of African Americans, some of whom were release people of color and others enslaved in help to whites, predominately white Protestants of British ethnicity. Many African Americans worked along the river, and even more upon the outlying cotton plantations of the Delta. The city's demographics distorted dramatically in the 1850s and 1860s below waves of immigration and domestic migration. Due to increased immigration since the 1840s and the Great Famine, ethnic Irish made in the works 9.9% of the population in 1850, but 23.2% by 1860, when the total population was 22,623.

Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861, and Memphis briefly became a Confederate stronghold. Union ironclad gunboats captured it in the naval Battle of Memphis upon June 6, 1862, and the city and state were occupied by the Union Army for the duration of the war. Union Army commanders allowed the city to preserve its civil organization during most of this get older but excluded Confederate veterans from office. This shifted political dynamics in the city as the exploit went on.

The achievement years contributed to further dramatic changes in the city population. The Union Army's presence attracted many fugitive slaves who had escaped from surrounding rural plantations. So many sought sponsorship behind Union lines that the Army set in the works contraband camps to accommodate them. Memphis's black population increased from 3,000 in 1860, when the total population was 22,623, to approximately 20,000 in 1865, with most settling south of the city limits.

The quick demographic changes added to the make more noticeable of court case and pursuit and uncertainty approximately who was in charge, increasing tensions along with the city's ethnic Irish policemen and black Union soldiers after the war. In three days of rioting in early May 1866, the Memphis Riots erupted, in which white mobs made occurring of policemen, firemen, and supplementary mostly ethnic Irish Americans attacked and killed 46 blacks, wounding 75 and injuring 100; raped several women; and destroyed approximately 100 houses while intensely damaging churches and schools in South Memphis. Much of the black harmony was left in ruins. Two whites were killed in the riot. Many blacks for eternity fled Memphis afterward, especially as the Freedmen's Bureau continued to have difficulty in protecting them. Their population fell to nearly 15,000 by 1870, 37.4% of the sum population of 40,226.

Historian Barrington Walker suggests that the Irish rioted next to blacks because of their relatively recent start as immigrants and the indefinite nature of their own affirmation to "whiteness"; they were exasperating to distinguish themselves from blacks in the underclass. The main exploit participants were ethnic Irish, decommissioned black Union soldiers, and newly emancipated African-American freedmen. Walker suggests that most of the mob was not in direct economic engagement with the blacks, as by subsequently the Irish had attained better jobs, but were establishing social and political dominance higher than the freedmen.

Unlike the disturbances in some further cities, ex-Confederate veterans were generally not part of the attacks against blacks in Memphis. As a result of the riots in Memphis, and a thesame one in New Orleans, Louisiana in September, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In the 1870s, a series of orangey fever epidemics devastated Memphis, with the disorder carried by river passengers traveling by ships along the waterways. During the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, more than 5,000 people were listed in the recognized register of deaths in the middle of July 26 and November 27. The gigantic majority died of orangey fever, making the epidemic in the city of 40,000 one of the most traumatic and harsh in urban U.S. history. Within four days of the Memphis Board of Health's announcement of a orange fever outbreak, 20,000 residents fled the city. The ensuing terrify left the poverty-stricken, the keen classes, and the African-American community at the most risk from the epidemic. Those who remained relied upon volunteers from religious and physician organizations to tend to the sick. By the fade away of the year, more than 5,000 were stated dead in Memphis. The New Orleans health board listed "not less than 4,600" dead. The Mississippi Valley recorded 120,000 cases of ocher fever, with 20,000 deaths. The $15 million in losses caused by the epidemic bankrupted Memphis, and as a result, its charter was revoked by the divulge legislature.

By 1870, Memphis's population of 40,000 was something like double that of Nashville and Atlanta, and it was the second-largest city in the South after New Orleans. Its population continued to add after 1870, even next the Panic of 1873 hit the US hard, particularly in the South. The Panic of 1873 resulted in expanding Memphis's underclasses between the poverty and difficulty it wrought, giving extra credence to Memphis as a rough, shiftless city. Leading stirring to the outbreak in 1878, it had suffered two ocher fever epidemics, cholera, and malaria, giving it a reputation as sickly and filthy. It was unheard of for a city when a population as large as Memphis's not to have any waterworks; the city nevertheless relied for supplies entirely upon collecting water from the river and rain cisterns, and had no way to separate sewage. The combination of a pustule population, especially of humiliate and in force classes, and abysmal health and sanitary conditions made Memphis ripe for a earsplitting epidemic.

Kate Bionda, an owner of an Italian "snack house", died of a fever on August 13, 1878. Hers was officially reported by the Board of Health, on August 14, as the first fighting of yellowish-brown fever in the city. A massive distress ensued. The thesame trains and steamboats that had brought thousands into Memphis, in five days carried away higher than 25,000 refugees, more than half of the city's population. On August 23, the Board of Health finally stated a orange fever epidemic in Memphis, and the city collapsed, hemorrhaging its population. In July of that year, the city had a population of 47,000; by September, 19,000 remained, and 17,000 of them had orange fever. The unaccompanied people left in the city were the humiliate classes, such as German and Irish immigrant workers and African Americans. None had the means to make off the city, as did the middle and upper-class whites of Memphis, and hence they were subjected to a city of death.

Immediately similar to the Board of Health's declaration, a Citizen's Relief Committee was formed by Charles G. Fisher. It organized the city into refugee camps. The committee's main priority was to sever the poor from the city and estrange them in refugee camps. The Howard Association, formed specifically for tawny fever epidemics in New Orleans and Memphis, organized nurses and doctors in Memphis and throughout the country. They stayed at the Peabody Hotel, the deserted hotel to save its doors approach during the epidemic. From there they were assigned to their respective districts. Physicians of the epidemic reported seeing as many as 100 to 150 patients daily.

The Episcopal Community of St. Mary at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral played an important role during the epidemic in caring for the lower classes. Already supporting a girls' school and church orphanage, the Sisters of St. Mary next sought to have enough money care for the Canfield Asylum, a house for black children. Each day, they alternated caring for the orphans at St. Mary's, delivering kids to the Canfield Asylum, and taking soup and medicine on house calls to patients. Between September 9 and October 4, Sister Constance and three extra nuns fell victim to the epidemic and died. They innovative became known as the Martyrs of Memphis.

At long last, on October 28, a killing frost struck. The city sent out word to Memphians scattered whatever over the country to the front home. Though yellowish-brown fever cases were recorded in the pages of Elmwood Cemetery's burial LP as late as February 29, 1874, the epidemic seemed quieted. The Board of Health declared the epidemic at an grow less after it had caused higher than 20,000 deaths and financial losses of nearly $200 million. On November 27, a general citizen's meeting was called at the Greenlaw Opera House to have enough money thanks to those who had stayed astern to serve, of whom many had died. Over the adjacent year property tax revenues collapsed, and the city could not make payments upon its municipal debts. As a result, Memphis temporarily drifting its city charter and was reclassified by the let in legislature as a Taxing District from 1878 to 1893. But a additional era of sanitation was developed in the city, a new municipal giving out in 1879 helped form the first regional health organization, and during the 1880s Memphis led the nation in sanitary reform and improvements.

Perhaps the most significant effect of yellowish-brown fever upon Memphis was in demographic changes. Nearly whatever of Memphis's upper and middle classes vanished, depriving the city of its general leadership and class structure that dictated undistinguished life, similar to that in extra large Southern cities, such as New Orleans, Charleston, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. In Memphis, the poorer whites and blacks fundamentally made taking place the city and played the greatest role in rebuilding it. The epidemic had resulted in Memphis instinctive a less cosmopolitan place, with an economy that served the cotton trade and a population drawn increasingly from poor white and black Southerners.

The 1890 election was strongly contested, resulting in white opponents of the D. P. Hadden faction effective to deprive them of votes by disenfranchising blacks. The let in had enacted several laws, including the requirement of poll taxes, that made it more hard for them to register to vote and served to disenfranchise many blacks. Although political party factions in the cutting edge sometimes paid poll taxes to enable blacks to vote, African Americans floating their last positions on the city council in this election and were goaded out of the police force. (They did not recover the achievement to exercise the franchise until after the passageway of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.) Historian L. B. Wrenn suggests the heightened political bitterness of the Democratic contest and related social tensions contributed to a white mob lynching three black grocers in Memphis in 1892.

Journalist Ida B. Wells of Memphis investigated the lynchings, as one of the men killed was a friend of hers. She demonstrated that these and new lynchings were more often due to economic and social competition than any criminal offenses by black men. Her findings were considered as a result controversial and aroused appropriately much hostility that she was forced to move away from the city. But she continued to consider and broadcast the abuses of lynching.

Businessmen were in flames to accumulation the city population after the losses of 1878–79, and supported the annexation of other areas; this acquit yourself was passed in 1890 back the census. The annexation sham was finally qualified by the come clean legislature through a compromise achieved with genuine estate magnates, and the Place annexed was slightly smaller than first proposed.

In 1893 the city was rechartered with home rule, which restored its skill to enact taxes. The state legislature acknowledged a cap rate. Although the commission running was retained and bigger to five commissioners, Democratic politicians regained rule from the concern elite. The commission form of meting out was believed working in getting things done, but because whatever positions were elected at-large, requiring them to get majority votes, this practice edited representation by candidates representing significant minority diplomatic interests.

In terms of its economy, Memphis developed as the world's largest spot cotton announce and the world's largest hardwood lumber market, both commodity products of the Mississippi Delta. Into the 1950s, it was with the world's largest mule market. These animals were still used extensively for agriculture. Attracting workers from Southern rural areas as competently as further European immigrants, from 1900 to 1950 the city increased nearly fourfold in population, from 102,350 to 396,000 residents.

Racist molest continued into the 20th century, with four lynchings amid 1900 and the lynching of Thomas Williams in 1928.

The Ford Motor Company built cars in Memphis from 1913 until 1958/59.

A Firestone Tire and Rubber Company reforest made tires in North Memphis from 1936 to 1982. The forest made 100 million tires.

A Tennessee Powder Company built an explosives powder plant to make TNT and gunpowder upon a 6,000-acre site in Millington in 1940. The plant was built to make smokeless gunpowder for the British forces in World War II. In May 1941, DuPont (1802–2017) took higher than the plant, changed the broadcast to the Chickasaw Ordnance Works, and made powder for the US Army. There were 8,000 employees. The reforest was dismantled after the warfare in 1946.

From the 1910s to the 1950s, Memphis was a place of machine politics under the organization of E. H. "Boss" Crump. He gained a state play in 1911 to pronounce a little commission to manage the city. The city retained a form of commission executive until 1967 and patronage flourished below Crump. Per the publisher's summary of L.B. Wrenn's psychiatry of the period, "This centralization of political power in a small commission aided the efficient transaction of municipal business, but the public policies that resulted from it tended to benefit upper-class Memphians though neglecting the less successful residents and neighborhoods." The city installed a revolutionary sewer system and upgraded sanitation and drainage to prevent other epidemic. Pure water from an artesian with ease was discovered in the 1880s, securing the city's water supply. The commissioners developed an extensive network of parks and public works as ration of the national City pretty movement, but did not put going on to heavy industry, which might have provided substantial employment for the working-class population. The nonexistence of representation in city management resulted in the poor and minorities innate underrepresented. The majority controlled the election of whatever the at-large positions.

Memphis did not become a home rule city until 1963, although the declare legislature had amended the constitution in 1953 to provide house rule for cities and counties. Before that, the city had to get state bills qualified in order to fiddle with its charter and supplementary policies and programs. Since 1963, it can modify the charter by popular approval of the electorate.

During the 1960s, the city was at the center of the Civil Rights Movement, as its large African-American population had been affected by give access segregation practices and disenfranchisement in the at the forefront 20th century. African-American residents drew from the civil rights hobby to complement their lives. In 1968, the Memphis sanitation strike began for living wages and better dynamic conditions; the workers were overwhelmingly African American. They marched to get public preparedness and support for their plight: the harsh conditions of their work, and the struggles to support families when their low pay. Their get-up-and-go for augmented pay had been met similar to resistance by the city government.

Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, known for his leadership in the non-violent movement, came to lend his maintain to the workers' cause. King stayed at the Lorraine Motel in the city, and was assassinated by James Earl Ray upon April 4, 1968, the hours of daylight after giving his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech at the Mason Temple.

After learning of King's murder, many African Americans in the city rioted, looting and destroying businesses and extra facilities, some by arson. The official ordered Tennessee National Guardsmen into the city within hours, where small, roving bands of rioters continued to be active. Fearing the violence, more of the middle-class began to leave the city for the suburbs.

In 1970, the Census Bureau reported Memphis's population as 60.8% white and 38.9% black. Suburbanization was attracting wealthier residents to newer housing external the city. After the riots and court-ordered busing in 1973 to accomplish desegregation of public schools, "about 40,000 of the system's 71,000 white students abandon the system in four years." Today, the city has a majority African-American population.

Memphis is with ease known for its cultural contributions to the identity of the American South. Many well-known musicians grew taking place in and re Memphis and moved to Chicago and extra areas from the Mississippi Delta, carrying their music later than them to influence new cities and listeners more than radio airwaves.

Former and current Memphis residents count up musicians Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Robert Johnson, W. C. Handy, Bobby Whitlock, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. Jones, Eric Gales, Al Green, Alex Chilton, Justin Timberlake, Three 6 Mafia, the Sylvers, Jay Reatard, Zach Myers, and Aretha Franklin.

The International Harvester Company manufacturing tree-plant opened in 1947 and closed in 1985. The tree-plant made cotton harvesting equipment and Farm Tillage equipment. It later had 1,000 employees.

CBI Nuclear Company operated in Memphis for greater than 20 years. Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, CBI, and General Electric built large nuclear reactor pressure vessels and extra large structures in Memphis.

On December 23, 1988, a tanker truck hauling liquefied propane crashed at the I-40/I-240 different in Midtown and exploded, starting combined vehicle and structural fires. Nine people were killed and ten were injured. It was one of Tennessee's deadliest motor vehicle accidents and eventually led to the reconstruction of the vary where it occurred.

Schering-Plough Corporation became defunct in 2009. It is now a auxiliary of Merck & Co. Abe Plough founded Plough, Incorporated in Memphis in 1908. In 1971, the Schering Corporation merged bearing in mind Plough, Inc.

On June 2, 2021, the remains of Confederate General and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest were removed from a Memphis park.

On January 7, 2023, after a routine traffic stop, five African American police officers brutally beat a 29-year-old African American man, Tyre Nichols. Nichols died from his injuries in the hospital three days later. Officer body cam footage and local surveillance cameras captured the altercations, which were described as "heinous" and showed "a total lack of regard for human life", according to Memphis police chief Cerelyn "CJ" Davis. The officers were afire and charged in imitation of second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and new crimes. The relatively curt dismissal and charge of the offending officers were positively perceived by Nichols's family, and Davis called it a "blueprint" for complex incidents of police brutality nationwide. The incident after that resulted in the disbanding of the city's "SCORPION" unit, which had been mandated as soon as directly combating the most violent crimes in the city. All the officers charged similar to involvement in Nichols's death were members of the unit.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total Place of 324.0 square miles (839.2 km), of which 315.1 square miles (816.0 km) is estate and 9.0 square miles (23.2 km), or 2.76%, is water.

Downtown Memphis rises from a bluff along the Mississippi River. The city and metro area spread out through suburbanization, and encompass southwest Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and eastern Arkansas. Several large parks were founded in the city in the to the front 20th century, notably Overton Park in Midtown and the 4,500-acre (18 km) Shelby Farms. The city is a national transportation hub and Mississippi River crossing for Interstate 40, (east-west), Interstate 55 (north-south), barge traffic, Memphis International Airport (FedEx's "SuperHub" facility) and numerous freight railroads that facilitate the city.

The Memphis Riverfront stretches along the Mississippi River from the Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park in the north, to the T. O. Fuller State Park in the south. The River Walk is a park system that connects downtown Memphis from Mississippi River Greenbelt Park in the north, to Tom Lee Park in the south.

In recent years, the city has decided to deannex some of its territory. It has in the atmosphere of through a three-phase process to deannex five areas within the city limits, returning them to unincorporated Shelby County. The first phase of deannexation occurred upon January 1, 2020, when the Eads and River Bottoms areas returned to county jurisdiction. As a result, the Shelby County Sheriff is blamed for patrolling these former parts of Memphis. The first phase of the deannexation process abbreviated the city's size by 5% and its population by 0.03%.

Shelby County is located beyond four natural aquifers, one of which is approved as the "Memphis Sand Aquifer" or clearly as the "Memphis Aquifer". Located 350 to 1,100 feet (110 to 340 m) underground, this artesian water source is considered soft and estimated by Memphis Light, Gas and Water to contain more than 100 trillion US gallons (380 km) of water.

Memphis has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa, Trewartha Cf), with four certain seasons, and is located in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 8a in downtown, cooling to 7b for much of the surrounding region. Winter weather comes alternately from the upper Great Plains and the Gulf of Mexico, which can benefit to drastic swings in temperature. Summer weather may come from Texas (very warm and humid) or the Gulf (hot and unquestionably humid). July has a daily average temperature of 82.8 °F (28.2 °C), with high levels of humidity due to moisture encroaching from the Gulf of Mexico. Afternoon and evening thunderstorms are frequent during summer, but usually brief, lasting no longer than an hour. Early autumn is jovially drier and mild, but can be hot until late October. Late autumn is rainy and cooler; precipitation peaks anew in November and December. Winters are mild to chilly, with a January daily average temperature of 42.1 °F (5.6 °C). Snow occurs sporadically in winter, with an average seasonal snowfall of 2.7 inches (6.9 cm). Ice storms and freezing rain pose a greater danger, as they can often tug tree limbs down upon power lines and make driving hazardous. Severe thunderstorms can occur at any mature of the year even though mainly during the spring months. Large hail, strong winds, flooding, and frequent lightning can accompany these storms. Some storms spawn tornadoes.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Memphis was −13 °F (−25 °C) on December 24, 1963, and the highest temperature ever was 108 °F (42 °C) on July 13, 1980. Over the course of a year, there is an average of 4.4 days of highs below freezing, 6.9 nights of lows below 20 °F (−7 °C), 43 nights of lows below freezing, 64 days of highs above 90 °F (32 °C), and 2.1 days of highs above 100 °F (38 °C).

Memphis temperatures dropped to -4 F during the 1985 North American cold wave and during the December 1989 United States cold wave.

Annual precipitation is high (54.94 inches [1,400 mm]) and relatively evenly distributed throughout the year. Average monthly rainfall is especially tall in March through May, and December, while August and September are relatively drier.

For historical population data, see: History of Memphis, Tennessee. According to the 2020 United States Census, the racial composition of the city of Memphis was:

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 652,078 people and 245,836 households in the city. The population density was 2,327.4 people per sq mi (898.6/km). There were 271,552 housing units at an average density of 972.2 per square mile (375.4/km). The racial makeup of the city was 63.33% African American, 29.39% White, 1.46% Asian American, 1.57% Native American, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 1.45% from supplementary races, and 1.04% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.49% of the population.

The median allowance for a household in the city was $32,285, and the median pension for a intimates was $37,767. Males had a median allowance of $31,236 versus $25,183 for females. The per capita pension for the city was $17,838. About 17.2% of families and 20.6% of the population were under the poverty line, including 30.1% of those under age 18, and 15.4% of those age 65 or over. In 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked the Memphis area as the poorest large metro area in the country. Dr. Jeff Wallace of the University of Memphis noted that the burden was combined to decades of segregation in supervision and schools. He said that it was a low-cost job market, but new places in the world could come going on with the money for cheaper labor, and the workforce was undereducated for today's challenges.

The Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), the 42nd largest in the United States, has a 2010 population of 1,316,100 and includes the Tennessee counties of Shelby, Tipton and Fayette; as with ease as the northern Mississippi counties of DeSoto, Marshall, Tate, and Tunica; and Crittenden County, Arkansas, all allocation of the Mississippi Delta.

The total metropolitan Place has a forward-thinking proportion of whites and a superior per capita allowance than the population in the city. The 2010 census shows that the Memphis metro Place is near to a majority-minority population:

In a reverse trend of the Great Migration, numerous African Americans and further minorities have moved into DeSoto County, and blacks have followed suburban trends, moving into the suburbs of Shelby County.

An 1870 map of Memphis shows religious buildings of the Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and supplementary Christian denominations, and a Jewish congregation. In 2009, places of adulation exist for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims.

The international headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States, is located in Memphis. Its Mason Temple was named after the denomination's founder, Charles Harrison Mason. This arena is where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his noted "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech in April 1968, the night in the past he was assassinated at his motel. The National Civil Rights Museum, located in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel and further buildings, has an annual ceremony at Mason's Temple of Deliverance where it honors people once Freedom Awards.

Bellevue Baptist Church is a Southern Baptist megachurch in Memphis that was founded in 1903. Its current link is all but 30,000. For many years, it was led by Adrian Rogers, a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Other notable and/or large churches in Memphis improve Second Presbyterian Church (EPC), Highpoint Church (SBC), Hope Presbyterian Church (EPC), Evergreen Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Colonial Park United Methodist Church, Christ United Methodist Church, Idlewild Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), GraceLife Pentecostal Church (UPCI), First Baptist Broad, Temple of Deliverance, Calvary Episcopal Church, the Church of the River (First Unitarian Church of Memphis), First Congregational Church (UCC) and Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church.

Memphis is house to two cathedrals. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Memphis, and St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral is the chair of the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee.

Memphis is home to Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue that has approximately 7,000 members, making it one of the largest Reform synagogues in the country. Baron Hirsch Synagogue is the largest Orthodox shul in the United States. Jewish residents were allocation of the city since the Civil War, but more Jewish immigrants came from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and before 20th centuries.

Memphis is home to an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Muslims of various cultures and ethnicities.

A number of seminaries are located in Memphis and the metropolitan area. Memphis is home to Memphis Theological Seminary and Harding School of Theology. Suburban Cordova is home to Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

In the 21st century, Memphis has struggled to edit crime. In 2007, it ranked as the second-most risky city by the Morgan Quitno rankings. In 2004, violent crime in Memphis reached a decade photograph album low. The bordering year, it was ranked the fourth-most dangerous city in the publicize of a population of 500,000 or cutting edge in the U.S. Crime increased again in the first half of 2006. By 2014, Memphis crime had substantially decreased, bringing the city's ranking happening to eleventh in violent crime. Nationally, cities follow thesame trends, and crime numbers tend to be cyclical. Nationally, other moderate-sized cities were also problem large rises in crime, although crime in the largest cities continued to end or increased much less.

In the first half of 2006, robbery of businesses increased 52.5%, robbery of individuals increased 28.5%, and homicides increased 18% over the thesame period of 2005. The Memphis Police Department responded considering the inauguration of Operation Blue C.R.U.S.H. (Crime Reduction Using Statistical History), which targets crime hotspots and repeat offenders.

Memphis curtains 2005 gone 154 murders, and 2006 ended taking into account 160; in 2007 there were 164 murders, 2008 had 138, and 2009 had 132. Violent crimes dropped from 12,939 in 2008 to 12,047. Robbery dropped from 4,788 in 2008 to 4,137 in 2009. Aggravated invasion dropped 53,870 in 2008 to 47,158 in 2009 (FBI's UCR). In 2006 and 2007, the Memphis metropolitan area ranked second-most dangerous in the nation accompanied by cities gone a population greater than 500,000. In 2006, the Memphis metropolitan Place ranked number one in violent crimes for major cities going on for the U.S., according to the FBI's annual crime rankings, whereas it had ranked second in 2005.

Between 2006 and 2008, the crime rate fell by 16%, while the first half of 2009 proverb a reduction in colossal crime of on top of 10% from 2008. The Memphis Police Department's use of the FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System, a more detailed method of reporting crimes than what is used in many supplementary major cities, has been cited as a explanation for Memphis's frequent appearance on lists of most dangerous U.S. cities. Homicide statistics released by the city in more recent years take effect another dramatic rise in murders in Memphis. There were 140 homicides in the city in 2014 and 161 in 2015. In 2016, police officials recorded 228 murders, a 63% increase previously 2014. According to Michael Rallings, the director of the Memphis Police Department, investigations distinct that one third of the murder victims in 2016 had been operational in gang activity.

The city's central geographic location has aided its issue development. On the Mississippi River and intersected by five major freight railroads and two Interstate Highways, I-40 and I-55, Memphis is with ease positioned for commerce in the transportation and shipping industry. Its permission by water was key to its initial development, with steamboats plying the Mississippi river. Railroad construction strengthened its relationship to supplementary markets to the east and west.

Since the second half of the 20th century, highways and interstates have played major roles as transportation corridors. A third interstate, I-69, is under construction, and a fourth, I-22, has recently been designated from the former High Priority Corridor X. River barges are unloaded onto trucks and trains. The city is home to Memphis International Airport, the world's busiest cargo airport, surpassing Hong Kong International Airport in 2021. Memphis serves as a primary hub for FedEx Express shipping.

As of 2014, Memphis was the house of three Fortune 500 companies: FedEx (no. 63), International Paper (no. 107), and AutoZone (no. 306).

Other major corporations based in Memphis swell Allenberg Cotton, American Residential Services (also known as ARS/Rescue Rooter); Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz; Cargill Cotton, City Gear, First Horizon National Corporation, Fred's, GTx, Lenny's Sub Shop, Mid-America Apartments, Perkins Restaurant and Bakery, ServiceMaster, True Temper Sports, Varsity Brands, and Verso Paper. Corporations subsequently major operations based in Memphis add up Gibson guitars (based in Nashville), and Smith & Nephew.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis plus has a branch in Memphis.

The entertainment and film industries have discovered Memphis in recent years. Several major endeavor pictures, most of which were recruited and assisted by the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission, have been filmed in Memphis, including Making the Grade (1984), Elvis and Me (1988), Great Balls of Fire! (1988), Heart of Dixie (1989), Mystery Train (1989), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Trespass (1992), The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992), The Firm (1993), The Delta (1996), The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996), The Rainmaker (1997), Cast Away (2000), 21 Grams (2002), A Painted House (2002), Hustle & Flow (2005), Forty Shades of Blue (2005), Walk the Line (2005), Black Snake Moan (2007), Nothing But the Truth (2008), Soul Men (2008), and The Grace Card (2011). The Blind Side (2009) was set in Memphis but filmed in Atlanta. The 1992 television movie Memphis, starring Memphis original Cybill Shepherd, who as well as served as doling out producer and writer, was plus filmed in Memphis.

One of the largest celebrations of the city is Memphis in May. The month-long series of events promotes Memphis's pedigree and outreach of its people far beyond the city's borders. The four main endeavors are the Beale Street Music Festival, International Week, The World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, and the Great River Run. The World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest is the largest pork barbecue-cooking contest in the world.

In April, downtown Memphis celebrates "Africa in April Cultural Awareness Festival", or conveniently Africa in April. The festival was intended to celebrate the arts, history, culture, and diversity of the African diaspora. Africa in April is a three-day festival subsequently vendors' markets, fashion showcases, blues showcases, and an international diversity parade.

During late May-early June, Memphis is house to the Memphis Italian Festival at Marquette Park. The 2019 festival will be its 30th and has hosted musical acts, local artisans, and Italian cooking competitions. It also presents cook demonstrations, the Coors Light Competitive Bocce Tournament, the Galtelli Cup Recreational Bocce Tournament, a volleyball tournament, and pizza tossing demonstrations. This festival was started by Holy Rosary School and Parish and began inside the School parking lot in 1989. The Memphis Italian Festival is run around completely by former and current Holy Rosary School and Church members and begins as soon as a 5K direct each year.

Carnival Memphis, formerly known as the Memphis Cotton Carnival, is an annual series of parties and festivities in June that salutes various aspects of Memphis and its industries. An annual King and Queen of Carnival are secretly chosen to reign beyond Carnival activities. From 1935 to 1982, the African-American community staged the Cotton Makers Jubilee; it has merged taking into consideration Carnival Memphis.

A promote and arts festival, the Cooper-Young Festival, is held annually in September in the Cooper-Young district of Midtown Memphis. The business draws artists from whatever over North America and includes local music, art sales, contests, and displays.

Memphis sponsors several film festivals: the Indie Memphis Film Festival, Outflix, and the Memphis International Film and Music Festival. The Indie Memphis Film Festival is in its 14th year and was held April 27–28, 2013. Recognized by MovieMaker Magazine as one of 25 "Coolest Film Festivals" (2009) and one of 25 "Festivals Worth the Entry Fee" (2011), Indie Memphis offers Memphis year-round independent film programming, including the Global Lens international film series, IM Student Shorts student films, and an uncovered concert film series at the historic Levitt Shell. The Outflix Film Festival, also in its 15th year, was held September 7–13, 2013. Outflix features a full week of LGBT cinema, including curt films, features, and documentaries. The Memphis International Film and Music Festival is held in April; it is in its 11th year and takes place at Malco's Ridgeway Four.

Mid-South Pride is Tennessee's second-largest LGBT arrogance event.

On the weekend before Thanksgiving, the Memphis International Jazz Festival is held in the South Main Historic Arts District in Downtown Memphis. This festival promotes the important role Memphis has played in shaping Jazz nationally and internationally. Acts such as George Coleman, Herman Green, Kirk Whalum and Marvin Stamm anything come out of the wealthy musical descent in Memphis.

Formerly titled the W. C. Handy Awards, the International Blues Awards are presented by the Blues Foundation (headquartered in Memphis) for Blues music achievement. Weeklong playing competitions are held, as with ease as an awards banquet including a night of behave and celebration.

Memphis is the home of founders and pioneers of various American music genres, including Memphis soul, Memphis blues, gospel, rock n' roll, rockabilly, Memphis rap, Buck, crunk, and "sharecropper" country music (in contrast to the "rhinestone" country hermetically sealed historically united with Nashville).

Many musicians, including Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Shawn Lane, Al Green, Bobby Whitlock, Rance Allen, Percy Sledge, Solomon Burke, William Bell, Sam & Dave and B.B. King, got their Begin in Memphis in the 1950s and 1960s.

Beale Street is a national historical landmark, and shows the impact Memphis has had upon American blues, particularly after World War II as electric guitars took precedence greater than the native acoustic unquestionable from the Mississippi Delta. Sam Phillips's Sun Studio still stands, and is entry for tours. Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison whatever made their first recordings there, and were "discovered" by Phillips. Many great blues artists recorded there, such as W. C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues."

Stax Records created a eternal 1960s soul music sound, much grittier and horn-based than the better-known Motown from Detroit. Booker T. and the M.G.s were the label's promotion band for most of the perpetual hits that came from Stax, by Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and many more. The hermetically sealed was revisited in the 1980s in the Blues Brothers movie, in which many of the musicians starred as themselves.

Memphis is after that noted for its influence upon the talent pop musical genre in the 1970s. Notable bands and musicians include gigantic Star, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, Tommy Hoehn, The Scruffs, and Prix.

Several notable singers are from the Memphis area, including Justin Timberlake, K. Michelle, Kirk Whalum, Ruth Welting, Kid Memphis, Kallen Esperian, Julien Baker, and Andrew VanWyngarden. The Metropolitan Opera of New York had its first tour in Memphis in 1906; in the 1990s it settled to tour without help larger cities. Metropolitan Opera performances are now market in HD at local movie theaters across the country.

Memphis is home to Memphis-style barbecue, which is one of four predominant regional styles of barbecue in the United States. Memphis-style barbecue has become skillfully known due to the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest held each May, which has been listed in Guinness World Records as the largest pork barbecue contest in the world.

In complement to barbecue, the cuisine of Memphis is moreover defined by:

Notable Memphis restaurants include:

In addition to the Brooks Museum and Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis plays host to two burgeoning visual art areas, one city-sanctioned, and the new organically formed.

The South Main Arts District is an arts neighborhood in south downtown. Over the taking into consideration 20 years, the Place has morphed from a derelict brothel and juke joint neighborhood to a gentrified, well-lit area sponsoring "Trolley Night", when arts patrons stroll by the side of the street to see blaze spinners, DJs playing in front of clubs, specialty shops and galleries. Not far afield from South Main Arts district is Medicine Factory, an artist-run organization.

Another developing arts district in Memphis is Broad Avenue. This east–west avenue is undergoing neighborhood revitalization from the influx of craft and visual artists taking up domicile and studios in the area. An art professor from Rhodes College holds small openings upon the first floor of his house for local students and professional artists. Odessa, another art space on Broad Avenue, hosts student art shows and local electronic music. Other gallery spaces spring stirring for semi-annual artwalks.

Memphis furthermore has non-commercial visual arts organizations and spaces, including local painter Pinkney Herbert's Marshall Arts gallery, on Marshall Avenue near Sun Studios, another arts neighborhood characterized by affordable rent.

Well-known writers from Memphis enhance Shelby Foote, the noted Civil War historian. Novelist John Grisham grew happening in user-friendly DeSoto County, Mississippi, and sets many of his books in Memphis.

Many works of fiction and literature are set in Memphis. These include The Reivers by William Faulkner (1962), September, September by Shelby Foote (1977); Peter Taylor's The Old Forest and Other Stories (1985), and his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Summons to Memphis (1986); The Firm (1991) and The Client (1993), both by John Grisham; Memphis Afternoons: a Memoir by James Conaway (1993), Plague of Dreamers by Steve Stern (1997); Cassina Gambrel Was Missing by William Watkins (1999); The Guardian by Beecher Smith (1999), "We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon" by Corey Mesler (2005), The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, and The Architect by James Williamson (2007).

Memphis as a Location for Several Films

A diversity of films were filmed afterward Memphis as a location, ranging from The Firm (1993) with Tom Cruise to Cast Away (2000) to Walk the Line (2005) with Joaquin Phoenix portraying Johnny Cash.

Other Memphis attractions count up the Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, FedExForum, and Mississippi riverboat daylight cruises.

The Memphis National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located in northeastern Memphis.

Historic Elmwood Cemetery is one of the oldest rural garden cemeteries in the South, and contains the Carlisle S. Page Arboretum. Memorial Park Cemetery is noted for its sculptures by Mexican artiste Dionicio Rodriguez.

Elvis Presley was originally buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, the resting place of his sponsorship band's bassist, Bill Black. After an attempted grave robbing, Elvis's body was moved and reinterred at the grounds of Graceland.

The Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association is the abandoned team from one of the "big four" major sports leagues in Memphis. The Memphis Redbirds of the Triple-A East are a Minor League Baseball affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Memphis 901 FC is a professional soccer team that plays in the USL Championship unfriendliness and plays their home matches at AutoZone Park

The University of Memphis scholarly basketball team, the Memphis Tigers, has a strong following in the city due to a history of competitive success. The Tigers have competed in three NCAA Final Fours (1973, 1985, 2008), with the latter two appearances mammal vacated. The current coach of the Memphis Tigers is Penny Hardaway. Memphis is home to Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, the site of University of Memphis football, the Liberty Bowl and the Southern Heritage Classic.

The annual St. Jude Classic, a regular allowance of the PGA Tour, is as a consequence held in the city. Each February the city hosts the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup, which are men's ATP World Tour 500 series and WTA events, respectively.

Memphis has a significant archives in gain wrestling. Jerry "The King" Lawler and Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart are accompanied by the sport's most well-known figures who came out of the city. Sputnik Monroe, a wrestler of the 1950s, like Lawler, promoted racial integration in the city. Ric Flair afterward noted Memphis as his birthplace.

In the 1970s and to come 1980s, the former WFL franchise Memphis Southmen / Memphis Grizzlies sued the NFL in an try to be fashionable as an evolve franchise. In 1993, the Memphis Hound Dogs was a proposed NFL improve that was passed on summit of in favor of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers. The Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in addition to served as the temporary house of the former Tennessee Oilers (now the Titans) while the city of Nashville worked out stadium issues.

The city is in addition to the site of Memphis International Raceway, which held NASCAR comings and goings from 1998 to 2009, when Dover Motorsports closed it. In 2011 it reopened under different ownership. It no longer holds NASCAR races, but the Arca Menards Series returned to the track in 2020.

Major Memphis parks add together W.C. Handy Park, Tom Lee Park, Audubon Park, Overton Park including the Old Forest Arboretum, the Lichterman Nature Center (a plants learning center), the Memphis Botanic Garden, and Jesse H Turner Park.

Shelby Farms park, located at the eastern edge of the city, is one of the largest urban parks in the United States.

Beginning in 1963, Memphis adopted a mayor-council form of government, with 13 City Council members, six elected at-large from throughout the city and seven elected from geographic districts. Following pathway of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, civil rights activists challenged the at-large electoral system in court because it made it more hard for the minority to elect candidates of their choice; at-large voting favored candidates who could command a majority across the city. In 1995, the city adopted a further plan. The 13 Council positions are elected from nine geographic districts: seven are single-member districts and two elect three members each.

Jim Strickland, a Democrat, is the city's mayor, elected upon October 8, 2015. He is a former Memphis city councilman.

Since the late 20th century, regional discussions have recurred upon the concept of consolidating unincorporated Shelby County and Memphis into a metropolitan government, as Nashville-Davidson County did in 1963. Consolidation was a referendum item upon the 2010 ballots in both the city of Memphis and Shelby County, under the state act out for dual-voting on such measures. The referendum was controversial in both jurisdictions. Black leaders, including then-Shelby County Commissioner Joe Ford and national civil rights leader Al Sharpton, opposed the consolidation. According to the plaintiffs' expert, Marcus Pohlmann, these leaders "tried to aim that referendum into a civil rights issue, suggesting that for blacks to vote for consolidation was to renounce hard-won civil rights victories of the past".

In October 2010 back the vote, eight Shelby County citizens had filed a accomplishment in federal court next to the confess and the Shelby County Elections Commission neighboring the dual-voting requirement. Plaintiffs argued that sum votes for the referendum should have been counted together, rather than as remove elections. City voters narrowly supported the law for consolidation next 50.8% in favor; county voters overwhelmingly voted neighboring the accomplish with 85% against. The own up argued that subsequent to the election decided, the conflict should be dismissed, but the federal court disagreed.

By late 2013, in pre-trial actions, both sides were aggravating to disqualify the other's experts, in discussions of whether regional voting revealed racial polarization, and whether voting on the referendum demonstrated racial bloc voting. "The experts for both sides have clashed upon whether racial bloc voting is inevitable in local elections and whether that would require some kind of court remedy."

The defendants' expert, Todd Donovan, did not think that polarized voting as revealed for diplomatic candidates intended that "African-American voters and white voters have polarized interests subsequent to it comes to referendum choices on government administration, taxation, service provision and new policy questions." He noted, "In the malingering of certain political interests that Make polarized blocs of referendum voters defined by race, there is no cohesive racial minority voting inclusion that can be diluted by a referendum."

In 2014, the federal district court dismissed the lawsuit, on the grounds that the referendum would have unsuccessful when both jurisdictions' votes were counted together. (In total voting, 64% of voters opposed the consolidation.) In the last week of December 2014, the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals upheld that decision, ruling that, ""In this election, the referendum for consolidation did not pass and would not have passed though there had been no dual-majority vote requirement (with the vote counts combined)."

Before the referendum, the decision was made by the city and county to exclude public university management and operations from the proposed consolidation. As noted below, in 2011 the Memphis city council voted to end its city scholastic board and consolidate past the Shelby County School System, without the collaboration or succession of Shelby County. The city had authority for this action under Tennessee disclose laws that differentiate in the midst of city and county powers.

The city is served by Shelby County Schools. On March 8, 2011, residents voted to terminate the charter for Memphis City Schools, effectively merging it as soon as the Shelby County School District. After issues later state feat and court challenges, the merger took effect the Begin of the 2013–14 university year. In Shelby County, six incorporated cities voted to support separate teacher systems in 2013.

The Shelby County School System operates on top of 200 elementary, middle, and tall schools.

The Memphis Place is also house to many private, college-prep schools: Briarcrest Christian School (co-ed), Christian Brothers High School (boys), Evangelical Christian School (co-ed), First Assembly Christian School (co-ed), St. Mary's Episcopal School (girls), Hutchison School (girls), Lausanne Collegiate School (co-ed), Memphis University School (boys), Saint Benedict at Auburndale (co-ed), St. Agnes Academy (girls), Immaculate Conception Cathedral School (girls), and Elliston Baptist Academy (co-ed). Also included in this list is Memphis Harding Academy, a co-ed learned affiliated subsequent to the Churches of Christ.

Colleges and universities in the city total the University of Memphis, Rhodes College, Christian Brothers University, Memphis College of Art, LeMoyne–Owen College, Baptist College of Health Sciences, Memphis Theological Seminary, Harding School of Theology, Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Worldwide (Memphis campus), Reformed Theological Seminary (satellite campus), William R. Moore College of Technology, Southern College of Optometry, Southwest Tennessee Community College, Tennessee Technology Center at Memphis, Visible Music College, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Memphis also has campuses of several for-profit post-secondary institutions, including Concorde Career College, ITT Technical Institute, Vatterott College, and University of Phoenix. Remington College is a local nonprofit post-secondary institution.

The University of Tennessee College of Dentistry was founded in 1878, making it the oldest dental theoretical in the South, and the third oldest public scholastic of dentistry in the United States.

The Christian Brothers High School Band is the oldest tall school band in the U.S., founded in 1872.

Nielsen Media Research currently defines Memphis and its surrounding metropolitan Place as the 51st largest American media market. Despite Memphis proper's large size, Memphis has always been a medium-sized market; the within reach suburban and rural areas are not much larger than the city itself.

Major push television affiliate stations in the Memphis Place include, but are not limited to:

Terrestrial shout out radio stations in the Memphis area include, but are not limited to:

Memphis is the subject of numerous pop and country songs, including "The Memphis Blues" by W. C. Handy, "Memphis, Tennessee" by Chuck Berry, "Night Train to Memphis" by Roy Acuff, "Goin' to Memphis" by Paul Revere and the Raiders, "Queen of Memphis" by Confederate Railroad, "Memphis Soul Stew" by King Curtis, "Maybe It Was Memphis" by Pam Tillis, "Graceland" by Paul Simon, "Memphis Train" by Rufus Thomas, "All the Way from Memphis" by Mott the Hoople, "Wrong Side of Memphis" by Trisha Yearwood, "Stuck Inside of Mobile afterward the Memphis Blues Again" by Bob Dylan, "Memphis Skyline" by Rufus Wainwright, "Sequestered in Memphis" by The Hold Steady and "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn.

In addition, Memphis is mentioned in scores of new songs, including "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones, "Dixie Chicken" by Little Feat, "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes" by George Jones, "Daisy Jane" by America, "Life Is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane, "Black Velvet" by Alannah Myles, "Cities" by Talking Heads, "Crazed Country Rebel" by Hank Williams III, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" by U2, "M.E.M.P.H.I.S." by the Disco Biscuits, "New New Minglewood Blues" and "Candyman" by the Grateful Dead, "You Should Be Glad" by Widespread Panic, "Roll With Me" by 8Ball & MJG, "Someday" by Steve Earle and popularly recorded by Shawn Colvin, and many others.

More than 1,000 poster recordings of exceeding 800 determined songs contain "Memphis" in them. The Memphis Rock N' Soul Museum maintains an ever updated list of these upon their website.

Many films are set in the American city including, Black Snake Moan, The Blind Side, Cast Away, Choices: The Movie, The Client, Elvis, The Firm, Forty Shades of Blue, Great Balls of Fire!, Hustle & Flow, Kill Switch, Making the Grade, Memphis Belle, Mississippi Grind, Mystery Train, N-Secure, The Rainmaker, The Silence of the Lambs, Soul Men, and Walk the Line.

Many of those and other films have moreover been filmed in Memphis including, Black Snake Moan, Walk the Line, Hustle & Flow, Forty Shades of Blue, 21 Grams, A Painted House, American Saint, The Poor and Hungry, Cast Away, Woman's Story, The enormous Muddy, The Rainmaker, Finding Graceland, The People vs. Larry Flynt, The Delta, Teenage Tupelo, A Family Thing, Without Air, The Firm, The Client, The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag, Trespass, The Silence of the Lambs, Great Balls of Fire!, Elvis and Me, Mystery Train, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Heart of Dixie, The Contemporary Gladiator, U2: Rattle and Hum, Making the Grade, The River Rat, The River, Hallelujah!, Elizabethtown, 3000 Miles to Graceland, A Face in the Crowd, Undefeated, Man on the Moon, Nothing But the Truth, Sore Losers, Soul Men, I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I., I'm From Hollywood, The Grace Card, This is Elvis, Cookie's Fortune, Open Five, The Open Road, In the Valley of Elah, Walk Hard, My Blueberry Nights, Savage Country, and Two-Lane Blacktop.

The television series Greenleaf, Memphis Beat, Quarry and Bluff City Law are set in the city.

Literature

Many works of fiction and literature are set in Memphis. These include The Reivers by William Faulkner (1962), September, September by Shelby Foote (1977); Peter Taylor's The Old Forest and Other Stories (1985), and his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Summons to Memphis (1986); The Firm (1991) and The Client (1993), both by John Grisham; Memphis Afternoons: a Memoir by James Conaway (1993), Plague of Dreamers by Steve Stern (1997); Cassina Gambrel Was Missing by William Watkins (1999); The Guardian by Beecher Smith (1999), "We are Billion-Year-Old Carbon" by Corey Mesler (2005), The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, and The Architect by James Williamson (2007).

Interstate 40, Interstate 55, Interstate 22, Interstate 240, Interstate 269, and State Route 385 are the main expressways in the Memphis area. Interstates 40 and 55 incensed the Mississippi River at Memphis from the own up of Arkansas. Interstate 69 is a proposed interstate that, upon completion, would affix Memphis to Canada and Mexico.

I-40 is a coast-to-coast freeway that connects Memphis to Nashville and upon to North Carolina to the east, and Little Rock, Arkansas, Oklahoma City, and the Greater Los Angeles Area to the west. I-55 connects Memphis to St. Louis and Chicago to the north, and Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans to the south. I-240 is the inner beltway which serves areas including Downtown, Midtown, South Memphis, Memphis International Airport, East Memphis, and North Memphis. I-269 is the larger, outer interstate loop snappishly serving the suburbs of Millington, Eads, Arlington, Collierville, and Hernando, Mississippi. It was completed in 2018.

Interstate 22 connects Memphis taking into account Birmingham, Alabama, via northern Mississippi (including Tupelo) and northwestern Alabama. While technically not entering the city of Memphis proper, I-22 ends at I-269 in Byhalia, Mississippi, connecting it to the get off of the Memphis interstate system.

Interstate 69 is proposed to follow I-55 and I-240 through the city of Memphis. Once completed, I-69 will associate Memphis when Port Huron, Michigan via Indianapolis, Indiana, and Brownsville, Texas via Shreveport, Louisiana and Houston, Texas.

A extra spur, Interstate 555, also serves the Memphis metro area connecting it to Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Other important federal highways even if Memphis combine the east–west U.S. Route 70, U.S. Route 64, and U.S. Route 72; and the north–south U.S. Route 51 and U.S. Route 61. The former is the historic highway north to Chicago via Cairo, Illinois, while the latter just about parallels the Mississippi River for most of its course and crosses the Mississippi Delta region to the south, with the Delta in addition to legendary for Blues music.

Roadways

Memphis maintains 6,800 lane-miles of city roadways. The city collaborated past Google Cloud Platform and SpringML in February 2019 to exam machine learning (ML) to supplement public services. A key focus is pothole identification using TensorFlow technology. Public Works personnel completed 63,000 repairs, with in version to 7,500 of those reported by citizens to 311.

The Memphis Area Transit Authority provides local transit services roughly speaking Memphis, including the MATA Trolley lineage streetcar system. Intercity bus help to the city is provided by Flixbus, Greyhound Lines, and Jefferson Lines.

A large volume of railroad freight moves through Memphis, because of its two heavy-duty Mississippi River railroad crossings, which carry several major east–west railroad freight lines, and as a consequence because of the major north–south railroad lines through Memphis which affix with such major cities as Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Mobile, and Birmingham.

By the prematurely 20th century, Memphis had two major passenger railroad stations, which made the city a regional hub for trains coming from the north, east, south and west. After passenger railroad service declined heavily through the center of the 20th century, the Memphis Union Station was demolished in 1969. The Memphis Central Station was eventually renovated, and it yet serves the city. The unaccompanied inter-city passenger railroad minister to to Memphis is the daily City of New Orleans train, operated by Amtrak, which has one train northbound and one train southbound each morning between Chicago and New Orleans.

Amtrak (AMTK)

Memphis International Airport is the global "SuperHub" of FedEx Express, and has the largest cargo operations by volume of any airport worldwide, surpassing Hong Kong International Airport in 2021.

Memphis International ranks as the 41st busiest passenger airdrome in the US and served as a hub for Northwest Airlines (later Delta Air Lines) until September 3, 2013. and had 4.39 million boarding passengers (enplanements) in 2011, an 11.9% decrease higher than the previous year. Delta has edited its flights at Memphis by nearly 65% since its 2008 merger taking into account Northwest Airlines and operates an average of 30 daily flights as of December 2013, with two international destinations (Cancún – seasonally; Toronto year-round). Delta Air Lines announced the closing of its Memphis pilot and crew base in 2012. Other airlines providing passenger serve are: Southwest Airlines; American Airlines; United Airlines; Allegiant; Frontier; Air Canada; and Southern Vacations Express.

There are in addition to general aviation airports in the Memphis Metropolitan Area, including the Millington Regional Jetport, located at the former Naval Air Station in Millington, Tennessee.

Memphis has the second-busiest cargo port on the Mississippi River, which is then the fourth-busiest inland port in the United States. The International Port of Memphis covers both the Tennessee and Arkansas sides of the Mississippi River from river mile 725 (km 1167) to mile 740 (km 1191). A focal dwindling of the river port is the industrial park on President's Island, just south of Downtown Memphis.

Four railroad and highway bridges gnashing your teeth the Mississippi River at Memphis. In order of their foundation years, these are the Frisco Bridge (1892, single-track rail), the Harahan Bridge (1916, a road-rail bridge until 1949, currently carries double-track rail), the Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge (Highway, 1949; later incorporated into Interstate 55), and the Hernando de Soto Bridge (Interstate 40, 1973). A bicycle/pedestrian passageway opened along the Harahan Bridge in late 2016, utilizing the former westbound roadway.

Memphis's primary promote provider is the Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division (MLGW). This is the largest three-service municipal further in the United States, providing electricity, natural gas, and unquestionable water utility to everything residents of Shelby County. Prior to that, Memphis was served by two primary electric companies, which were combination into the Memphis Power Company.

The City of Memphis bought the private company in 1939 to form MLGW, which was an yet to be customer of electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In 1954 the Dixon-Yates conformity was proposed to make more talent available to the city from the TVA, but the accord was cancelled; it had been an thing for the Democrats in the 1954 Congressional elections.

MLGW still buys most of its facility from TVA, and the company pumps its own vivacious water from the Memphis Aquifer, using beyond 180 water wells.

The Memphis and Shelby County region supports numerous hospitals, including the Methodist and Baptist Memorial health systems, two of the nation's largest private hospitals. Until the 1960s and the decline of segregation, most hospitals forlorn served white patients. One of the few hospitals for African Americans in Memphis in those become old was Collins Chapel Connectional Hospital, whose historic building now houses a homeless shelter.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, the largest healthcare provider in the Memphis region and the fourth largest employer as of 2018, operates seven hospitals and several rural clinics. Methodist Healthcare operates, among others, the Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, which offers primary level 1 pediatric trauma care, as well as a nationally official pediatric brain tumor program. Methodist Healthcare in addition to operates Methodist University Hospital, a 617-bed power 1 mile southeast of Le Bonheur.

Baptist Memorial Healthcare operates fifteen hospitals (three in Memphis), including Baptist Memorial Hospital, and subsequent to a combination in 2018 became the largest healthcare system in the mid-South. According to Health Care Market Guide's annual studies, Mid-Southerners have named Baptist Memorial their "preferred hospital substitute for quality".

The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, leading pediatric treatment and research power focused on children's catastrophic diseases, resides in Memphis. The institution was conceived and built by gymnast Danny Thomas in 1962 as a tribute to St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of impossible, hopeless, and difficult causes.

Memphis is also home to Regional One Healthcare, which is locally referred to as "The Med". In recent years, the hospital has experienced rude funding difficulties that nearly led to a tapering off or abstraction of emergency room services. In July 2010, The Med conventional approximately $40.6 million in federal and local funding to save the Elvis Presley Trauma Center operational.

Memphis is house to Delta Medical Center of Memphis, which is the forlorn employee-owned medical facility in North America.

Individual health insurance marketplace insurers are limited, with Bright Health and Cigna offering coverage in the area.

Memphis has three sister cities, as per Sister Cities International: