Fulton County is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2016 estimates, the population was 1,023,336, making it Georgia's most populous county and the state's only county with over 1 million inhabitants. Its county seat is Atlanta, the state capital since 1868. Ninety percent of the City of Atlanta is within Fulton County (the other 10% lies within DeKalb County). Fulton County is the principal county of the Atlanta metropolitan area.Fulton County is part of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area.HistoryFulton County was created in 1853 from the western half of DeKalb County. It was named in honor of Hamilton Fulton, a surveyor for the Western and Atlantic Railroad; some sources had previously incorrectly claimed it was named for Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat. Organized as settlement increased in the Piedmont section of upland Georgia, Fulton County grew rapidly after the American Civil War as Atlanta was rebuilt, becoming a center of railroad shipping, industry and business.At the beginning of 1932, as an austerity measure to save money during the Great Depression, Milton County to the north and Campbell County to the southwest were annexed by Fulton County. This gave the county its current long shape along 80mi of the Chattahoochee River. On May 9 of that year, neighboring Cobb County ceded to Fulton County the city of Roswell and lands lying east of Willeo Creek, in order that the latter county be more contiguous with the lands ceded from Milton County.
