Savannah's downtown area, which includes the Savannah Historic District, the Savannah Victorian Historic District, and 22 parklike squares, is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the United States (designated by the U.S. These buildings include the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA), the Georgia Historical Society (the oldest continually operating historical society in the South), the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences (one of the South's first public museums), the First African Baptist Church (one of the oldest African-American Baptist congregations in the United States), Temple Mickve Israel (the third-oldest synagogue in the U.S.), and the Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse complex (the oldest standing antebellum rail facility in the U.S.). Įach year Savannah attracts millions of visitors to its cobblestone streets, parks, and notable historic buildings. The Savannah metropolitan area, Georgia's third-largest, had a 2020 population of 404,798. It is Georgia's fifth-largest city, with a 2020 U.S.
A strategic port city in the American Revolution and during the American Civil War, Savannah is today an industrial center and an important Atlantic seaport. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia.
state of Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County. Savannah ( / s ə ˈ v æ n ə/ sə- VAN-ə) is the oldest city in the U.S.