Valdosta is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, Georgia, United States. As of 2019, Valdosta had an estimated population of 56,457. Valdosta is the principal city of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2021 had a population of 149,590. It includes Brooks County to the west. Valdosta is the home of Valdosta State University, a regional university in the University System of Georgia with over 12,000 students. The football team at Valdosta High School has more wins than any other American high school, and is second in overall wins in the country after University of Michigan. Valdosta is called the Azalea City, as the plant grows in profusion there. The city hosts an annual Azalea Festival in March. History Establishment Valdosta was incorporated on December 7, 1860, when it was designated by the state legislature as the new county seat, formerly at nearby Troupville. The railroad was built to Valdosta that year, rather than Troupville, stimulating development in the new county seat. Many citizens of Troupville had already relocated to Valdosta when the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad was built away. The engine known as Satilla No. 3 pulled the first train into Valdosta on the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad on either July 4, 1860 or on July 20, 1860. Valdosta is located on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Georgia and has a virtually flat landscape. It was once the center of long-staple cotton growing in the United States, a lucrative crop both before and after the Civil War. The county had a majority-white population well before the war with a substantial black population, as the cotton plantations were dependent on masses of enslaved field laborers. The of railway between Valdosta and Waycross were once the longest straight stretch of railroad in the world. Today, highways stretch through the county for miles with hardly a curve, rise, or fall. After being bypassed by the railroad and losing the county seat, Troupville was virtually abandoned. It had been named after Governor George Troup, for whom Troup County, Georgia, was also named. Valdosta was named after Troup's plantation, Valdosta (occasionally the "Val d'Osta" spelling was used for the plantation). Troup had named it after the Aosta Valley () in Italy. The name Aosta (Latin: Augusta), refers to Emperor Augustus. A long-standing rumor held that the city's name meant "vale of beauty." 1861 to 1899 The American Civil War