digATL | The Digital Atlanta Portal

The aim of this digital map and essay is to make visible the presence of people from all over the globe in Atlanta more than a century ago. Every foreign-born Atlantan listed in the 1896 census has been categorized according to their country or region of nativity; the dots show the location of each immigrant’s residence, as recorded by census takers. The first map is interactive: you can click on each dot to learn about these immigrant Atlantans. You can choose different historical maps, or a modern street map, as the base layer. The essay is organized by region, and a static map of each region’s residents is included in each section. You can limit the visible dots to a single region’s residents on the interactive map as well.

Citation: Davis, Marni. “’Immigrants in Atlanta: 1896″. Atlanta Studies. July 21, 2026. https://doi.org/10.18737/atls20260721