Growing Nashville Finally Passes Shrinking Memphis As Tennessee's Biggest City

NASHVILLE, TN — For the first time since the 1890 Census, Nashville is the biggest city in Tennessee, passing Memphis on the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. And this time, unlike the late 19th century, the folks on the fourth Chickasaw bluff can't blame yellow fever for falling behind.

The bureau's estimates released Thursday given Nashville's 2016 population as 660,388 and Memphis' at 652,717. The census estimates that Memphis' lost 1,737 in population from 2015 to 2016, while Nashville added 6,310.

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Nashville is now the nation's 24th largest city, pushing Memphis back into 25th.

As smart-phone location-services users know but perhaps don't realize they do: Nashville gets a bit of a boost because of metropolitan government. Though Nashville and Davidson County have been governed as a unified entity since 1962, the Census Bureau doesn't equate Nashville with all of Davidson County for census purposes, instead that 660,388 population estimate is for "Nashville-Davidson County (balance)," which is Davidson County except for the satellite cities of Belle Meade, Oak Hill, Forest Hills, Berry Hill and Goodlettsville, and the small Davidson County portion of Ridgetop. Memphis' Shelby County is still the state's largest county, though Nashville's entire metropolitan statistical area is No. 1.

The last time the city of Nashville was larger than Memphis was in the 1890 census, but a terrible stretch of epidemics ran through Memphis in the late 1870s, including an infamous yellow fever outbreak, during which 25,000 people — roughly half the population — fled the city in five days. In July 1878, Memphis' population was roughly 47,000. In August, the first case of yellow fever was confirmed. By September, the city's population was 19,000, 17,000 of whom had yellow fever. Even though many people returned by 1880, its population was 33,592. It grew to 64,495 by 1890, still roughly 12,000 behind Nashville.

By 1900, though, Memphis took its place as the biggest city in Tennessee — 102,320 against Nashville's 80,000 or so — and would hold the title until 2016.

Image via Flickr user Ryan McGilchrist, used under Creative Commons