Facts About Huntsville
Huntsville was founded within the Mississippi Territory in 1805 and became an incorporated town in 1811.
Huntsville was designated for a year as the first capital before the state capitol was moved to more central settlements.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation included Huntsville in its “America’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations for 2010” list.
As of the 2020 census, the population of Huntsville was 215,006. By 2022, it was estimated to have grown to 221,933.
The Huntsville metropolitan area, with a population of 514,465 in 2022, ranks as the second most populous metropolitan area in Alabama, following the Birmingham metropolitan area.
The City of Huntsville was incorporated on the 25th of November 1811.
According to the City of Huntsville Statistics, the city spans a total area of 226.62 square miles as of 2024. This encompasses 225.09 square miles of land and 1.54 square miles of water.
Huntsville has the 29th largest land area in the United States, for cities with a population over 100,000.
Huntsville is twinned with the following sister cities Tainan, Taiwan and Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.
Huntsville is home to the famous Monte Sano State Park.
Huntsville is home to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which hosts Space Camp, an immersive educational program for young people interested in space and science.
Huntsville is consistently ranked as one of the best places to live in the United States, with a strong economy, low cost of living, and high quality of life.
Huntsville has been home to several notable individuals, including Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, professional wrestler Bobby Eaton, film composer and musician Mervyn Warren, early-20th century actress Tallulah Bankhead, and horror actor David Howard Thornton.
Huntsville is named after Wernher von Braun, the German-American rocket engineer who played a significant role in Huntsville’s space exploration history, this society operates the Von Braun Astronomical Observatory.
Huntsville hosts the largest annual Oktoberfest celebration in Alabama.
Before being known as Huntsville, the town was known as Twickenham, named after Alexander Pope’s English home at the request of Leroy Pope.
Every household in Huntsville/Madison County benefits from over $925 in tax savings due to travel expenditures.
Huntsville is known as the “Rocket City” because of its history with the U.S. space program and the presence of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Huntsville boasts a thriving landscape of major corporations, including aerospace and defence giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, alongside technology leaders like IBM and Google.
Huntsville is home to the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal, which is a major centre for missile and defence technology research and development.
