What Is Nashville Most Famous for?
- 6 sections
- 6 sources cited
Nashville is most famous for country music: the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the recording studios of Music Row, and the live-music bars of Lower Broadway. After music, the city is known for hot chicken, its very large visitor economy, and, among people in business, as the home of HCA Healthcare and other health care companies.
Country Music and “Music City”
The Grand Ole Opry began on WSM radio on November 28, 1925, and is still broadcast every week (Opry history). The Ryman Auditorium, known as the “Mother Church of Country Music” and opened in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle, was the Opry’s home for decades (Ryman history). The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, first opened on Music Row in 1967, moved downtown in 2001 and now covers 350,000 square feet of galleries, archives, and event space (museum’s about page).
Those landmarks sit on top of a working industry. Nashville is one of the country’s major recording centers, and its studios have recorded far more than country. How the city got its nickname, and what supports it, is told in why Nashville is called Music City.
Lower Broadway’s Honky-Tonks
For many visitors, the image of Nashville is Lower Broadway at night: a row of honky-tonks, bars built around live country music, a few blocks from the Ryman. It is also the part of the city least like everyday Nashville. What a honky-tonk is, and how to choose among them, is in the best honky-tonks on Broadway.
Hot Chicken
Nashville hot chicken, fried chicken coated with a cayenne-based spice paste and traditionally served on white bread with pickles, is the dish that carries the city’s name. Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, now on Nolensville Pike, calls its recipe “Nashville’s original hot chicken” and traces it to Thornton Prince (Prince’s). The full story is in the history of hot chicken.
A Very Large Visitor Economy
Tourism is one of the most visible facts about Nashville. Visitors to Davidson County spent a record $11.6 billion in 2025, about 35 percent of all visitor spending in Tennessee, and the county counted 17.4 million day and overnight visitors that year, according to state figures prepared by Tourism Economics for the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and reported by NewsChannel 5. Group trips, including bachelorette parties, are a visible part of that crowd on Broadway.
Health Care Headquarters
Outside the tourism picture, Nashville is known in business circles as a health care hub. HCA Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest health care companies, is based here (Tennessee Encyclopedia), and health care and social assistance is one of the metro area’s largest employment sectors, with about 154,000 jobs in September 2026 in Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates.
Less Famous, Worth Knowing
Some important parts of the city’s history are less well known to visitors: Fisk University and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins that made Nashville a center of the civil rights movement, and the full-scale Parthenon in Centennial Park, built for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Each is worth a stop if you want to see the city beyond the music.