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Nashville, Tennessee / United States

Nashville is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The city is the county seat of Davidson County and is located on the Cumberland River. It is the 23rd most-populous city in the United States. Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779. The city grew quickly due to its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River and, in the 19th century, a railroad center. Nashville seceded with Tennessee during the American Civil War; in 1862 it was the first state capital in the Confederacy to fall to Union troops. After the war, the city reclaimed its position and developed a manufacturing base. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government, which includes six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The city is governed by a mayor, a vice-mayor, and a 40-member metropolitan council; 35 of the members are elected from single-member districts, while the other five are elected at-large. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee, one of the state's three divisions. A major center for the music industry, especially country music, Nashville is commonly known as "Music City". It is also home to numerous colleges and universities, including Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Fisk University, Trevecca Nazarene University, and Lipscomb University, and is sometimes referred to as "Athens of the South" due to the large number of educational institutions. Nashville is also a major center for the healthcare, publishing, private prison, banking, automotive, and transportation industries. Entities with headquarters in the city include Asurion, Bridgestone Americas, Captain D's, CoreCivic, Dollar General, Hospital Corporation of America, LifeWay Christian Resources, Logan's Roadhouse, and Ryman Hospitality Properties.

Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art

Nashville, Tennessee / United States

Cheekwood is a 55-acre historic estate on the western edge of Nashville, Tennessee that houses the Cheekwood Estate & Gardens. Formerly the residence of Nashville's Cheek family, the 30,000-square-foot Georgian-style mansion was opened as a botanical garden and art museum in 1960.

Parthenon (Nashville)

Nashville, Tennessee / United States

The Parthenon in Centennial Park, in Nashville, Tennessee, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. It was designed by Confederate veteran William Crawford Smith and built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Today the Parthenon, which functions as an art museum, stands as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, a large public park just west of downtown Nashville. Alan LeQuire's 1990 re-creation of the Athena Parthenos statue in the naos is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. Since the building is complete and its decorations were polychromed as close to the presumed original as possible, this replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the Treasury Room are direct casts of the original sculptures which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon, dating back to 438 BC. The surviving originals are housed in the British Museum in London and at the Acropolis Museum in Athens.