147 articles
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama: state capital and Montgomery County seat on the Alabama River, incorporated 1819, first Confederate capital, site of the 1955-56 bus boycott and 1965 Selma march terminus; population about 195,000, mayor Steven L. Reed.
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Rutherford County seat near the geographic center of the state, founded 1811 as Cannonsburgh, state capital 1818-1826, site of the 1862-63 Battle of Stones River, home of MTSU, population about 171,000 in 2025.
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Muskogee, Oklahoma: county seat of Muskogee County, founded January 1872 as a Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway station in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation; federal seat of Indian Territory, 2020 population 36,878.
Nacogdoches, Texas
Nacogdoches is a city and the county seat of Nacogdoches County in Deep East Texas, named for a Caddoan tribe and founded in 1779.
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee: capital of Tennessee and seat of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, the first fully unified US city-county government (1963). Founded 1779 as Fort Nashborough; Music City; 689,447 residents (2020 census).
Natchez, Mississippi
Natchez, Mississippi: oldest municipality in the state (incorporated 1803), founded as French Fort Rosalie in 1716 on a bluff above the Mississippi River; antebellum cotton and slave-trade wealth, Natchez Trace terminus, population about 14,500.
Natchitoches, Louisiana
Natchitoches, Louisiana: city in Natchitoches Parish founded 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, on Cane River Lake, home to Northwestern State University.
New Braunfels, Texas
New Braunfels, Texas: Comal County seat city founded March 21, 1845 by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels' Adelsverein colonists on the Comal and Guadalupe rivers; about 122,500 residents (2025), tubing on the 2.5-mile Comal, Wurstfest, Schlitterbahn, $1.3 billion hospitality economy.
New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana: Gulf Coast port city founded 1718 by Bienville, capital of French Louisiana, later Spanish and American. Known for Mardi Gras, jazz, Creole culture, subsidence and flood risk, and a tourism-driven economy.
Norman
Norman, Oklahoma: third most populous Oklahoma city (128,026 in 2020 census), county seat of Cleveland County, home of the University of Oklahoma and the National Weather Center, founded 1889, incorporated 1891.
Odessa, Texas
Odessa, Texas: Ector County city in the Permian Basin oil region, founded 1886 by the Odessa Land and Townsite Company, incorporated 1927, council-manager government, 2020 population 114,428.
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City, capital and largest city of Oklahoma, founded in the Land Run of April 22, 1889; became state capital by a June 11, 1910 vote, boomed on 1928 oil, and rebuilt downtown through the MAPS sales-tax program from 1993.
Oxford, Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi: Lafayette County college town, home of the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) and William Faulkner's Rowan Oak; founded 1837, population about 26,800, site of the 1962 integration crisis.
Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah, Kentucky: county seat of McCracken County on the Ohio-Tennessee river confluence, founded by William Clark in 1827, population 27,137 (2020), a UNESCO Creative City known for quilting, floodwall murals, and river heritage.
Palestine, Texas
Palestine, Texas: county seat of Anderson County in East Texas, founded 1846 and named for Palestine, Illinois. Railroad town, oil at Boggy Creek 1928, population 18,544 (2020), Texas State Railroad terminus.
Paris, Texas
Paris, Texas: county seat of Lamar County in northeast Texas, founded 1844 by George W. Wright and named for Paris, France. Known for its 65-foot Eiffel Tower replica with a red cowboy hat; population about 25,000 with a manufacturing-heavy economy.
Pasadena, Texas
Pasadena, Texas is a Harris County city of about 148,500 bordering the Houston Ship Channel, named after Pasadena, California, incorporated in 1928, near the 1836 San Jacinto battle site, and anchored by petrochemical industry.
Pascagoula, Mississippi
Pascagoula is a city on the Gulf of Mexico in southeastern Mississippi, the seat of Jackson County, home to Ingalls Shipbuilding and Chevron's largest U.S. refinery.
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
Pawhuska, Oklahoma: county seat and largest city of Osage County, founded 1872 at the Osage Agency, site of the Million Dollar Elm oil lease auctions, population 2,984 (2020).
Pearland, Texas
Pearland, Texas: fast-growing Houston suburb of about 130,000 in Brazoria, Harris, and Fort Bend counties; founded 1882 as a railroad siding, once a fig-farming town, now a diverse bedroom community with 32.7-minute commutes.
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Pigeon Forge, Tennessee: city in Sevier County near Great Smoky Mountains National Park, named for Isaac Love's 1820 iron forge and extinct passenger pigeons; home to Dollywood, with $2 billion-plus annual tourism gross receipts.
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Pine Bluff, Arkansas: county seat of Jefferson County and largest city of southeast Arkansas's Delta region, founded 1819 on the Arkansas River, once a cotton and railroad center, now home to UAPB and the Pine Bluff Arsenal.
Plano, Texas
Plano, Texas, a city in southwestern Collin County on U.S. Highway 75 fifteen miles north of Dallas; incorporated 1873, named from Spanish for "flat," now a Dallas suburb of about 293,000 with major corporate offices.
Port Arthur, Texas
Port Arthur, Texas: Gulf Coast city in Jefferson County, founded 1895 by Arthur Stilwell, incorporated 1898; population about 56,000. Oil refining city since Spindletop 1901, now home to the Sempra Port Arthur LNG export terminal (Phases 1 and 2, 26 Mtpa).
Pulaski, Tennessee
Pulaski, Tennessee: county seat of Giles County in southern Middle Tennessee, founded 1809 and named for Count Pulaski. Known as the 1865 birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan; population 8,397 (2020), home of UT Southern.
Richardson, Texas
Richardson, Texas: a Dallas–Collin County suburb about 14 miles north of downtown Dallas on US 75, founded 1873 as a railroad town, incorporated 1925, population 119,469 (2020), known as the Telecom Corridor.
Rogers, Arkansas
Rogers, Arkansas: a Benton County city founded in 1881 as a Frisco Railroad stop, named for railroad manager Charles Warrington Rogers; 69,908 residents in 2020, growing fast in Northwest Arkansas.
Round Rock, Texas
Round Rock, Texas: Williamson County city 15 miles north of Austin, named for a round rock in Brushy Creek on the Chisholm Trail; founded 1851, population about 143,000, home of Dell.
San Angelo, Texas
San Angelo, Texas: county seat of Tom Green County in West Central Texas, founded across the Concho River from Fort Concho (1867). About 100,000 residents; home to Goodfellow Air Force Base and Angelo State University.
San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas: city founded in 1718 as Presidio San Antonio de Béxar, Mission San Antonio de Valero, and Villa de Béxar; five Spanish colonial missions (UNESCO 2015); 2025 population 1,548,422, seventh-largest US city.