The city is the county seat[6] and business center of Worth County[7] and is claimed to be the Peanut Capital of the World due to its peanut production.

[8] The Georgia General Assembly incorporated Sylvester as a town in 1898.

Sylvester is located on U.S. Highway 82 at the junction of Georgia State Route 33.

Georgia State Route 256 enters into southeast Sylvester, where it is co-designated Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,644 people, 2,346 households, and 1,709 families residing in the city.