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) is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County Metropolitan Statistical Area, which as of July 2007 had a population of 528,519. It is the largest city in East Central Georgia and the second largest city in the state. The City of Augusta and Richmond County governments merged operations in 1996; as of September 2008, the Augusta-Richmond county population was 192,851, not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.
Internationally, Augusta is best known for hosting The Masters golf tournament each spring, and for being the hometown of James Brown.
Augusta was first used by Native Americans as a place to cross the Savannah River, because of Augusta's location on the fall line. In 1735, two years after James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, he sent a detachment of troops on a journey up the Savannah River. He gave them an order to build at the head of the navigable part of the river. The job fell into the hands of Noble Jones, who created the settlement to provide a first line of defense against the Spanish and the French. Oglethorpe then named the town Augusta, in honor of Augusta, Princess of Wales, daughter-in-law of King George II of Great Britain and mother of King George III of Great Britain. Augusta was the second state capital of Georgia from 1785 until 1795 (alternating for a period with Savannah, the first).