Economy of Atlanta

conduct business operations in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and the region hosts offices of about 1,250 multinational corporations. Many corporations are drawn to Atlanta on account of the city’s educated workforce; as of 2010, nearly 43% of adults in the city of Atlanta have college degrees, compared to 27% in the nation as a whole and 41% in Boston.

Atlanta began as a railroad town and logistics has remained a major component of the city’s economy to this day. Atlanta is an important rail junction and contains major classification yards for Norfolk Southern and CSX. Since its construction in the 1950s, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has served as a key engine of Atlanta’s economic growth. Delta Air Lines, the city's largest employer and the metro area’s third largest, operates the world’s largest airline hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and has helped make Hartsfield-Jackson the world's busiest airport, both in terms of passenger traffic and aircraft operations. Partly due to the airport, Atlanta has become a hub for diplomatic missions; as of 2012, the city contains 25 general consulates, the seventh-highest concentration of diplomatic missions in the United States.

Media is also an important aspect of Atlanta’s economy. The city is a major cable television programming center. Ted Turner established the headquarters of both the Cable News Network (CNN) and the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in Atlanta. Cox Enterprises, the country’s third-largest cable television service and the publisher of over a dozen major American newspapers, is headquartered in the city. NBC Universal’s The Weather Channel is also headquartered in Atlanta.

Information technology, an economic sector that includes publishing, software development,