Nashville is the capital and the second most populous city of Tennessee, after Memphis. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. Nashville is a major hub for the health care, music, publishing, and transportation industries.

Nashville has a consolidated city-county government which includes seven smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The population of Nashville-Davidson County stood at 607,413 as of 2005, according to United States Census Bureau estimates.

The 2005 population of the entire 13-county Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area was 1,498,836, making it the largest and fastest-growing metropolitan area in the state.