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Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it officially merged in 1970. Columbus is the third-largest city in Georgia and anchors the fourth-largest metropolitan area. According to the 2019 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, Columbus has a population of 195,769 residents, with 321,048 in the Columbus metropolitan area. The metro area joins the nearby Alabama cities of Auburn and Opelika to form the Columbus–Auburn–Opelika Combined Statistical Area, which has a 2019 estimated population of 485,590.

Columbus lies 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Atlanta. Fort Benning, the United States Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence and a major employer, is located south of the city in southern Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties. Columbus is home to museums and tourism sites, including the National Infantry Museum, dedicated to the United States Army's Infantry Branch. It has the longest urban whitewater rafting course in the world constructed on the Chattahoochee River.

This was for centuries and more the traditional territory of the Creek Indians, who became known as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast after European contact. Those who lived closest to white-occupied areas conducted considerable trading and adopted some European-American ways.

Founded in 1828 by an act of the Georgia Legislature, Columbus was situated at the beginning of the navigable portion of the Chattahoochee River and on the last stretch of the Federal Road before entering Alabama. The city was named for Christopher Columbus. The plan for the city was drawn up by Dr. Edwin L. DeGraffenried, who placed the town on a bluff overlooking the river. Across the river to the west, where Phenix City, Alabama, is now located, Creeks still lived until they were forcibly removed in 1836 by the federal government to make way for European-American settlers.

The river served as Columbus's connection to the world, particularly enabling it to ship its commodity cotton crops from the plantations to the international cotton market via New Orleans and ultimately Liverpool, England. The city's commercial importance increased in the 1850s with the arrival of the railroad. In addition, textile mills were developed along the river, bringing industry to an area reliant upon agriculture. By 1860, the city was one of the more important industrial centers of the South, earning it the nickname "the Lowell of the South", referring to an important textile mill town in Massachusetts.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the industries of Columbus expanded their production; this became one of the most important centers of industry in the Confederacy. During the war, Columbus ranked second to Richmond in the manufacture of supplies for the Confederate army. The Eagle Manufacturing Company made textiles of various sorts, but especially woolens for Confederate uniforms. The Columbus Iron Works manufactured cannons and machinery, Greenwood and Gray made firearms, and Louis and Elias Haimon produced swords and bayonets. Smaller firms provided additional munitions and sundries. As the war turned negative, each faced exponentially growing struggled shortages of raw materials and skilled labor, as well as worsening financial opportunities. In addition to textiles, the city had an ironworks, a sword factory, and a shipyard for the Confederate Navy.

Unaware of Lee's surrender to Grant and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Union and Confederates clashed in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia, on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865, when a Union detachment of two cavalry divisions under Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson attacked the lightly defended city and burned many of the industrial buildings. John Stith Pemberton, who later developed Coca-Cola in Columbus, was wounded in this battle. Col. Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar, owner of the last slave ship in America, was also killed here. A historic marker erected in Columbus notes that this was the site of the "Last Land Battle in the War from 1861 to 1865."

Reconstruction began almost immediately and prosperity followed. Factories such as the Eagle and Phenix Mills were revived and the industrialization of the town led to rapid growth; the city outgrew its original plan. The Springer Opera House was built on 10th Street, attracting such notables as Irish writer Oscar Wilde. The Springer is now the official State Theater of Georgia.

By the time of the Spanish–American War, the city's modernization included the addition of trolleys extending to outlying neighborhoods such as Rose Hill and Lakebottom, and a new water works. Mayor Lucius Chappell also brought a training camp for soldiers to the area. This training camp named Camp Benning grew into present-day Fort Benning, named for General Henry L. Benning, a native of the city.

In the spring of 1866, the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus passed a resolution to set aside one day annually to memorialize the Confederate dead. The secretary of the association, Mrs. Charles J. (Mary Ann) Williams, was directed to write a letter inviting the ladies of every Southern state to join them in the observance. The letter was written in March 1866 and sent to representatives of all of the principal cities in the South, including Atlanta, Macon, Montgomery, Memphis, Richmond, St. Louis, Alexandria, Columbia, and New Orleans. This was the beginning of the influential work by ladies' organizations to honor the war dead.

The date for the holiday was selected by Elizabeth "Lizzie" Rutherford Ellis. She chose April 26, the first anniversary of Confederate General Johnston's final surrender to Union General Sherman at Bennett Place, North Carolina. For many in the South, that act marked the official end of the Civil War.

In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Union Civil War Veterans Fraternity called the Grand Army of the Republic, launched the Memorial Day holiday that has become observed in the entire United States. General Logan's wife said he had borrowed from practices of Confederate Memorial Day. She wrote that Logan "said it was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South in perpetuating the memory of their friends who had died for the cause they thought just and right."

While two dozen cities across the country claim to have originated the Memorial Day holiday, Bellware and Gardiner firmly establish that the holiday began in Columbus. In The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America, they show that the Columbus Ladies Memorial Association's call to observe a day annually to decorate soldiers’ graves inaugurated a movement first in the South and then in the North to honor the soldiers who died during the Civil War.

With the expansion of the city, leaders established a university, founded Columbus College, a two-year institution, which later was developed as Columbus State University, now a comprehensive center of higher learning.

The city government became consolidated with the county in 1971, the first of its kind in Georgia (and one of only 16 in the U.S. at the time).

Expanding on its industrial base of textile mills, the city is the home of the headquarters for Aflac, Synovus, and TSYS.

During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the subsidized construction of highways and suburbs resulted in drawing off the middle and upper classes, with urban blight, white flight, and prostitution in much of downtown Columbus and adjacent neighborhoods. Early efforts to halt the gradual deterioration of downtown began with the saving and restoration of the Springer Opera House in 1965. It was designated as the State Theatre of Georgia, helping spark a historic preservation movement in the city. This has documented and preserved various historic districts in and around downtown.

Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, large residential neighborhoods were built to accommodate the soldiers coming back from the Vietnam War and for those associated with Ft. Benning. These range from Wesley Woods to Leesburg to Brittney and Willowbrook and the high-end Sears Woods and Windsor Park. Large tracts of blighted areas were cleaned up. A modern Columbus Consolidated Government Center was constructed in the city center. A significant period of urban renewal and revitalization followed in the mid- to late 1990s.

With these improvements, residents and businesses have been attracted to formerly blighted areas. Municipal projects have included construction of a softball complex, which hosted the 1996 Olympic softball competition; construction of the Chattahoochee RiverWalk; construction of the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus, construction of the Coca-Cola Space Science Center, the expansion of the Columbus Museum, and road improvements to include a new downtown bridge crossing the Chattahoochee River to Phenix City. During the late 1990s, commercial activity expanded north of downtown along the I-185 corridor.

During the 2000s, expansion and historic preservation continued throughout the city. South Commons has been revitalized. This area combines the 1996 Olympic softball competition complex, A. J. McClung Memorial Stadium, Golden Park, the Columbus Civic Center, and the recently added Jonathan Hatcher Skateboard Park. The National Infantry Museum has been constructed in South Columbus, located outside the Fort Benning main gate.

Columbus has a center for the fine and performing arts. RiverCenter for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2002, houses Columbus State University's music department. In 2002, Columbus State's art and drama departments moved to downtown locations. Such initiatives have provided Columbus with a cultural niche and with vibrant and modern architecture mixed among older brick facades.

The "Ready to Raft 2012" campaign is a project that created an estimated 700 new jobs and is projected to bring in $42 million annually to the Columbus area. The project resulted in the longest urban whitewater rafting venue in the world. This, in addition to other outdoor and indoor tourist attractions, led to around 1.8 million visitors coming to Columbus during fiscal 2015, according to the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In upcoming years, the city predicts that an additional 30,000 soldiers will be trained annually at Fort Benning due to base realignment and closure of other facilities. As a result of this, Columbus is expected to incur a major population increase.

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