Travel Guide Knoxville

Knoxville is the third largest city in the state and the main city in East Tennessee. It has 185,000 intramural inhabitants and 455,000 residents in its agglomeration. It is a good starting point to discover the nearby Appalachians and Great Smoky Mountains. Founded in 1793 on the Tennessee River, Knoxville became the first capital of the state in 1796. In July 1861, when Tennessee joined Confederation, the city was first held by the Southerners before being occupied in 1863 by Unionist forces. After the war, Knoxville became prosperous, thanks in particular to textiles. After 1920, it suffered from several periods of industrial decline and de-urbanization that ended with the 1982 World's Fair. It was on this occasion that the Sunsphere was built. Since then, Downtown's brick warehouses have been converted into boutiques, cafés and small restaurants, and it's nice to stroll around Old City and Market Square. In terms of visits, the Museum of East Tennessee History and Sunsphere are the city's two main points of interest, which, like most urban centres in the region, are the home of a university, the University of Tennessee, founded in 1794.