Mobile

Alabama's only deep-water port, Mobile is located on the Mobile River at the head of Mobile Bay on the north-central Gulf Coast. The Port of Mobile has always played a key role in the economic health of the city, beginning with the settlement as an important trading center between the French colonists and Native Americans, and now to its current role as the 12th-largest port in the United States. During the American Civil War, the city surrendered to Federal forces in April 1865, after Union victories at two forts protecting the city.

Considered one of the Gulf Coast's cultural centers, Mobile has several art museums, a symphony orchestra, professional opera, professional ballet company, and a large concentration of historic architecture. Mobile is known for having Mardi Gras, the oldest organized Carnival celebration in the United States. Alabama's French Creole population celebrated this festival from the first decade of the 18th century.