[6] U.S. News ranked Auburn among its top ten list of best places to live in the United States for the year 2009.

Loveliest village of the plain..."[8] Inhabited in antiquity by the Creek, the land on which Auburn sits was opened to settlement in 1832 with the Treaty of Cusseta.

These settlers, led by Judge John J. Harper, intended to build a town that would be the religious and educational center for the area.

Auburn was the site of a hospital for Texan Confederate soldiers, but only saw direct combat with the raids of Rousseau in 1864 and Wilson in 1865.

This, combined with increased interest in scientific agriculture and engineering and new funding from business licenses, allowed the city to start expanding again.

Fortunes were quickly reversed with the collapse of cotton prices in the early 1920s and the subsequent Great Depression a decade later.

As public satisfaction with the city administration reached record levels, Auburn began very rapid residential growth.

The population growth has only accelerated into the 21st century, both organically within the city and through annexation and incorporation of surrounding portions of Lee County.

The southwest and west regions of the city on the plateau are marked by rolling plains and savannahs, with the undeveloped portion primarily being used for cattle grazing and ranching.

The region surrounded by Chewacla Park in the south of the city contains sharp peaks and sudden drops of elevation as the 1.05 billion-year-old rock of the Appalachians meets the coastal plain.

[11] Auburn sits near the divide between the Chattahoochee and Tallapoosa River watersheds, though the vast majority of the city resides in the latter.

Typical of the Deep South, Auburn has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), marked by mild winters, early springs, long, hot, muggy summers, and warm autumns.

Due to its position near the Gulf of Mexico, the city receives a significant amount of rainfall—on average, 52.6 inches (1,340 mm) per year—though there is a distinct dry season in the late summer and early fall.

Severe storm activity – thunderstorms producing damaging winds or large hail – is common from the late winter through early summer.

Owing to its proximity to the Gulf, Auburn is also subject to fringe effects from tropical storms and hurricanes in the summer and fall.

Hurricanes Opal in 1995 and Ivan in 2004 are among two of the most notable tropical systems to affect the Auburn area in recent memory, bringing torrential rains and high winds.

Winters are typically mild, with an average 0.7 inches (1.8 cm) of snowfall, though more than three-fourths of all seasons do not have any measurable snow.

[13] Although the actual air temperature reaching 100 °F (38 °C) is uncommon (1.2 days annually),[13] high humidity can push daytime heat indices over that mark.

The reason for this enormous inequality between households and families is due to the large number of students living in the area.

The United States Postal Service operates a post office at 300 Opelika Road, Auburn, Alabama.

Auburn is also home to several research centers, including the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Auburn High School has strong International Baccalaureate, widely offered Advanced Placement, and renowned music programs, and was ranked in 2006 by Newsweek as the top non-magnet public high school in Alabama, and one of the top 30 in the United States.

Auburn University provides the Tiger Transit bus system, which runs near the campus and to area apartment complexes part of the year.

The museum's exhibits include the Advancing American Art Collection, consisting of 36 works by mid-20th-century American artists including Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn, and Georgia O'Keeffe, a collection of engravings by naturalist John James Audubon, and works by Dalí, Chagall, Renoir, Picasso, and Matisse.

Major sculptural works at the museum include a collection of Tibetan bronzes, Jean Woodham's Spinoff, and Dale Chihuly's Amber Luster Chandelier.

When Auburn University has home football games in the fall, the city often sees over 100,000 visitors, and the yearly economic impact is measured at nearly $100 million.

Tens of thousands of fans flood the campus hours—sometimes days—before the game to tailgate, creating a festival-like atmosphere throughout the weekend.

Football games in Auburn are played in 87,451 seat Jordan–Hare Stadium, which sits on the main campus, just a few blocks from downtown.

DirecTV and Dish Network provide direct broadcast satellite television including both local and national channels.

[32] Auburn has had many notable citizens in its 170-year history, including Nobel Prize winners such as Frederick C. Robbins and George F. Smoot,[33] world-class architects including Paul Rudolph and Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee, artists, governors, generals and admirals, and professional athletes.