One of the central States of the American Union, lies S. of Kentucky, and stretches from the Mississippi (W.) to North Carolina (E.); is one-third larger than Ireland; politically it is divided into three districts with characteristic natural features; East Tennessee, mountainous, with ridges of the Appalachians, possessing inexhaustible stores of coal, iron, and copper; Middle Tennessee, an undulating, wheat, corn, and tobacco-growing country; and West Tennessee, with lower-lying plains growing cotton, and traversed by the Tennessee River, the largest affluent of the Ohio; Nashville is the capital and largest city; became a State in 1796.