[2] Its geography consists primarily of flat lands with rich soil and vast floodplain areas of the Mississippi River.

West Tennessee was originally inhabited by the Chickasaw, and was the last of the three Grand Divisions to be settled by Europeans.

As part of the Mississippi River basin, West Tennessee enjoys rich soil that led to large-scale cotton farming during the antebellum period that was heavily dependent on slave labor.

[6][7] In 1682, a French expedition led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle constructed Fort Prudhomme on the Chickasaw Bluffs along the Mississippi River north of present-day Memphis.

Fort San Fernando De Las Barrancas was established in May of that year to defend Spanish claims and prevent further westward expansion of the United States.

[11] After the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860, most West Tennesseans favored joining the Confederacy in order to preserve the slavery-based economy of the region.

[15] In an effort to disrupt Grant's campaign southward along the Mississippi River, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest launched a series of offensives into West Tennessee between December 1862 and January 1863, which resulted in Confederate victories in minor battles at Lexington and Jackson, as well as a disputed outcome at Parker's Crossroads.

One of the most notorious events of the war occurred in April 1864 in Lauderdale County, when Confederate troops under Forrest's command massacred hundreds of surrendering Union soldiers, most of whom were Black.

The region was characterized by racial tension between former slaves and their White allies and former Confederates, which often resulted in violence and lynchings perpetrated by the latter, and continued for many decades afterwards.

One of the worst acts of racial violence in the Reconstruction era occurred in Memphis in 1866, when White mobs attacked and looted Black neighborhoods in the city, killing 46.

[16] A number of deadly epidemics swept though the region during this time, including yellow fever, which killed more than one-tenth of Memphis' residents in 1878 and caused the city to temporarily lose its charter.

While the region remained predominantly rural, Memphis experienced modest industrialization, and became known as the "Cotton Capitol of the World" during the late 19th century.

[19] As part of the first wave of the Great Migration, many African American West Tennesseans relocated to industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest for better economic opportunities and to escape increasing racial segregation imposed by Jim Crow laws passed by the state legislature.

[20] During this time, many West Tennessee residents, Black and White, also relocated from rural areas to Memphis and other cities in the state.

As part of the second wave of the Great Migration, African Americans fled West Tennessee in greater numbers than before, which further exacerbated population decline in rural counties.

[citation needed] In 1960, a number of African American sharecroppers in majority-Black Fayette and Haywood counties were evicted from their lands in retaliation for registering to vote.

In response, they formed a makeshift encampment called Tent City with the assistance of Black landowners, which lasted until 1962.

[21] On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis by James Earl Ray.

West Tennessee is located almost entirely within the Mississippi Embayment, part of the Gulf Coastal Plain.

[28] However, much of the western counties of the region are protected from flooding by the Chickasaw Bluffs, ridges of loess rising 50 to 200 feet (15 to 61 m) above the floodplain.

The entire West Tennessee region, especially the area closest to the Mississippi River, lies in a zone of fairly high estimated risk for earthquakes.

West Tennessee is by slight amounts less populous and smaller in land area than the other two Grand Divisions.

Only three counties (Chester, Fayette, and Tipton, all increasingly playing a role as bedroom suburbs of metropolitan areas) recorded a growth rate of more than 10% from 2000 to 2010.

With fewer farms and farmers, and the continuing decline of manufacturing, economic opportunities diminish in these counties, and young residents look outside the area for jobs, leading to substantial out-migration.

Thus, the population in West Tennessee is increasingly older, with median ages above the state average in most counties; and the over-65 age group constitutes a larger percentage of the total population than the state average, leading in turn to a below-replacement-rate birth/death ratio, and economic decline, including empty and neglected housing and business structures.

[40][41] Other important agricultural commodities cultivated in the region include beef cattle, sorghum, wheat, poultry, and timber and forestry products.

On September 27, 2021, it was announced that Ford and SK Innovation would construct a complex at the Memphis Regional Megasite near Stanton called "Blue Oval City" to manufacture electric vehicles and batteries.

They also maintain a line which runs from South Fulton through Martin, Milan, Jackson, and Selmer crossing into Mississippi.

There are two stops in West Tennessee along this route, which are in Downtown Memphis at Central Station and in Newbern north of Dyersburg.

Arnold Field in Lauderdale County maintains an airstrip and Millington Regional Jetport serves as a backup landing strip for FedEx.