Shelby County, Tennessee

Shelby County, Tennessee
Shelby County Courthouse
Seal
Location in the U.S. state of Tennessee
Tennessee's location in the U.S.
Founded	November 24, 1819
Named for	Isaac Shelby
Seat	Memphis
Largest city	Memphis
Area
• Total	785 sq mi (2,033 km2)
• Land	763 sq mi (1,976 km2)
• Water	22 sq mi (57 km2), 2.8%
Population (est.)
• (2015)	938,069
• Density	1,216/sq mi (470/km²)
Congressional districts	8th, 9th
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	www.shelbycountytn.gov

Shelby County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 927,644. It is the state's largest county both in terms of population and geographic area. Its county seat is Memphis, the most populous city in Tennessee. The county was named for Governor Isaac Shelby (1750–1826) of Kentucky.

Shelby County is part of the Memphis, TN-MS-AR Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River. Within the Mississippi Delta, the county developed as a center of cotton plantations in the antebellum era, and cotton continued as an important commodity crop well into the 20th century. The economy has become more diversified.

From 1877-1950, the county had 20 lynchings, the highest number in the state. Obion and Lake counties, at the northwest border of the state, had 18 and 13 lynchings in this period, respectively, but with much smaller populations. The violence was part of racial terrorism to suppress blacks.

Shelby County was established by European-American migrants in 1819. The county was part of the lands acquired by the United States government from the Chickasaw as part of the Jackson Purchase of 1818. The county was named for Isaac Shelby, the former governor of Kentucky who had helped negotiate the land acquisition. From 1826 to 1868, the county seat was located at Raleigh, Tennessee on the Wolf River; after the American Civil War, in recognition of the growth of Memphis, it was moved there. (Raleigh is now within the city limits of Memphis.)

The lowlands in the Mississippi Delta, closest to the Mississippi River, were developed for large cotton plantations; their laborers were overwhelmingly enslaved African Americans, whom planters transported from the east in the domestic slave trade. Well before the American Civil War, the population of the county was majority black and mostly slaves. Memphis developed as a major cotton market, with many brokers. After the war, many freedmen stayed on the land by working as sharecroppers.