Memphis Map
Memphis sits on a bluff above the Mississippi at the far southwestern corner of Tennessee, where three states meet, with about 611,000 residents in 2024.
Where is Memphis?
Memphis is the western anchor of Tennessee, hard against the Arkansas line with Mississippi a few miles south of the city limits. The river is the state boundary, so the western edge of the city is also the edge of the state. It is about 210 miles southwest of Nashville, roughly 135 miles east of Little Rock, and some 285 miles south of St. Louis.
Memphis at a glance
| State | Tennessee |
| County | Shelby County |
| Population | 610,919 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 29 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Central Time |
| Region | South (East South Central division) |
No. 29 on the 2024 list is a margin of 24,830 people: that is how far Memphis trails Portland, while Baltimore is 42,648 further back. Within Tennessee it comes second of two, behind Nashville. That is about 8% of Tennessee's 7.23 million residents inside a single municipal line. It holds about 67% of Shelby County's 910,530 residents.
Memphis in Tennessee
Memphis is the seat of Shelby County, the most populous of Tennessee's 95 counties, and it sits at the opposite end of the state from Knoxville — the Tennessee county map shows the 400-mile span. The city is the commercial center of West Tennessee and of a hinterland that reaches well into Arkansas and Mississippi, which no state map captures. Nashville is the capital and the state's largest city; the Tennessee state page sets out the three grand divisions.
The fourth Chickasaw Bluff
The lower Mississippi runs for hundreds of miles between low, flood-prone banks, and there are only four places on the Tennessee side where loess bluffs stand above the water. Memphis occupies the southernmost of them, the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, which is the entire reason a city of this size is here rather than somewhere else on the reach. West of the river the land drops into the flat, black-soil Delta; the Wolf and Nonconnah creeks drain the city itself. The New Madrid seismic zone lies a short distance upriver.
Cities near Memphis
Regional neighbors are Nashville, St. Louis, New Orleans, Louisville and Atlanta. The Mississippi River page follows the whole course past them.