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Few American cities carry as much historical and cultural weight as Atlanta, the Georgia capital that rose from the ashes of the Civil War to become the commercial and civic engine of the modern South. Sherman's march left the city in ruins in 1864, yet within a generation Atlanta had rebuilt itself into a railway hub, and within a century it had become the birthplace of the civil rights movement, the home of Martin Luther King Jr., and the headquarters of some of the most recognisable brands in the world. That particular combination of resilience, reinvention, and outsized ambition runs through almost everything the city does.

The geography of Atlanta resists the tidy grid logic of many American cities. Built across a series of ridges in the Piedmont plateau, it sprawls across Fulton and DeKalb counties and beyond, with distinct neighbourhoods that each carry their own personality. Midtown is where the cultural institutions cluster, anchored by Peachtree Street and the green expanse of Piedmont Park. Buckhead sits to the north as the city's upscale commercial and residential quarter. Sweet Auburn, east of downtown, is the historic corridor most closely associated with the civil rights era, while the Old Fourth Ward and Inman Park to its south have become the addresses of choice for the city's creative and culinary communities. Ponce City Market, a converted Sears distribution warehouse on the Atlanta BeltLine, now draws visitors as much as any formal attraction.