Clarksville, Tennessee

Montgomery County's seat is Clarksville, Tennessee. Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga are larger. The 2020 US census counted 166,722 people in the city.

The Clarksville, TN–KY metropolitan statistical area, which includes Montgomery and Stewart counties in Tennessee and Christian and Trigg counties in Kentucky, is centered on it. The city was founded in 1785 and incorporated in 1807 after General George Rogers Clark, a frontier fighter and Revolutionary War hero and brother of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Austin Peay State University, The Leaf-Chronicle, and Fort Campbell are in Clarksville. Fort Campbell, home to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), is 10 miles (16 km) from Clarksville on the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

Geography

The city covers 95.5 square miles (247 km2), 94.9 of which are land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km2) (0.71%) is water, according to the US Census Bureau.

Clarksville is 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Nashville on the northwest edge of the Highland Rim, which surrounds the Nashville Basin.

Fort Campbell North is a Christian County, Kentucky CDP. It houses most Fort Campbell Army base housing. Population was 14,338 in 2000. The Clarksville, TN–KY MSA includes Fort Campbell North.

Climate

Due to its location between the Gulf of Mexico and the Midwest, its humid subtropical (Köppen: Cfa) climate has hot summers and cold winters with milder periods. Freezing temperatures are common in January (around 2 °C) and July (25 °C). Winter snowfall is common, but large amounts are rare. The soil is usually covered by a thin layer. May has the most rain, 142 mm, but precipitation is abundant year-round. The dry season lasts from August to January, with a September nadir of 85 mm and a secondary December peak of 125 mm.

Government

Clarksville was one of several Tennessee cities that received legislative approval to adopt a board of commission government with at-large commissioners in 1907. Population: 9,000. Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, and Jackson, Tennessee adopted boards of commission in 1911, 1913, and 1915. This change favored city-majority candidates. It prevented minorities from electing local government representatives.

In the 21st century, Clarksville elected a 12-member city council from single-member districts, expanding representation. Four are black and eight are white in 2015. Mayors are at-large. In 2019, Mayor Joe Pitts defeated former Mayor Kim McMillan, the first woman mayor of a Tennessee city over 100,000.

Population

Montgomery County, Tennessee's Clarksville. Montgomery County's seat. It ranks 5th in Tennessee and 159th in the US with 176,859 residents in 2023. Clarksville is growing at 1.95% annually and has grown by 6.08% since the 2020 census, which recorded 166,722 residents. Clarksville has 1,790 people per square mile over 99 miles.

Clarksville has a 17.45% poverty rate and a $65,458 average household income. In recent years, the median rent was and the median house value was. Clarksville's median age is 30, 29.4 for men and 30.7 for women.

Clarksville, Montgomery County's county seat, is Tennessee's fifth largest city after Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. Clarksville, named after Revolutionary War hero General George Rogers Clark, anchors the four-county Clarksville TN-KY metro area, which had 268,000 residents in 2009.