Tennessee is a state located in the Southern United States. In 1796, it became the sixteenth state to join the Union. The capital city is Nashville, and the largest city is Memphis.
Major outputs for the state include textiles, cotton, cattle, and electrical power. As proof of interest in beef production, Tennessee has over 82,000 farms, and beef cattle are found in roughly 59 percent of the farms in the state. Although cotton was an early crop in Tennessee, large-scale cultivation of the fiber did not begin until the 1820s with the opening of the land between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. The upper wedge of the Mississippi Delta extends into southwestern Tennessee, and it was in this fertile section that cotton took hold. Currently West Tennessee is also heavily planted in soybeans, focusing on the northwest corner of the state.
Major corporations with headquarters in Tennessee include FedEx Corporation, AutoZone Incorporated and International Paper, all based in Memphis; Pilot Corporation Regal Entertainment Group, based in Knoxville; Eastman Chemical Company, based in Kingsport, the North American headquarters of Nissan, based in Franklin; and the head-quarters of Caterpillar Financial (the fiance division of the well know mining company Caterpillar) based in Nashville
The capital is Nashville, though Knoxville, Kingston, and Murfreesboro have all served as state capitals in the past. Memphis has the largest population of any city in the state, but Nashville has had the state's largest metropolitan area since circa 1990; Memphis formerly held that title. Chattanooga and Knoxville, both in the eastern part of the state near the Great Smoky Mountains, each has approximately one-third of the population of Memphis or Nashville. The city of Clarksville is a fifth significant population center, some 45 miles (70 km) northwest of Nashville. Murfreesboro is the sixth-largest city in Tennessee, consisting of some 100,500 residents.
The State of Tennessee maintains two dedicated law enforcement entities, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), as well as the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and the Tennessee State Parks department.
The Highway Patrol is the primary law enforcement entity that concentrates on highway safety regulations and general non-game state law enforcement and is under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Department of Safety. The TWRA is an independent agency tasked with enforcing all wild game, boating, and fisheries regulations outside of state parks. The TBI maintains state-of-the-art investigative facilities and is the primary state-level criminal investigative department. Tennessee State Park Rangers are responsible for all activities and law enforcement inside the Tennessee State Parks system.
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