Neighbourhoods

What is Frayser? Frayser is a large residential district in North Memphis, once an independent community, annexed into the city of Memphis in 1958. It grew rapidly in the mid-20th century around industrial employment, then lost much of that base after the 1970s. Today it is one of the city’s largest neighborhoods by population, and … Read more

Orange Mound is a residential neighborhood in southeast Memphis, developed beginning in the 1890s on land that had been a plantation and then was subdivided specifically to sell to Black buyers. Local histories and the neighborhood’s National Register of Historic Places listing describe it as one of the first communities in the United States platted … Read more

The Arkansas side of the river, as seen from Memphis, is the city of West Memphis and the flat farmland of Crittenden County — reached by two vehicle bridges and one pedestrian bridge, and marking the start of the Arkansas Delta. It is a separate state, a separate county, and a separate set of laws, … Read more

Germantown, Tennessee is an incorporated city of roughly 39,000 people in Shelby County, sitting directly east of Memphis. It is not a neighbourhood of Memphis — it has its own mayor, city government, police and fire departments, and since 2014 its own public school district, separate from Memphis and Shelby County Schools. Where is Germantown, … Read more

Collierville’s town square is the historic civic and commercial center of Collierville, Tennessee, a town in far southeastern Shelby County roughly 30 miles from downtown Memphis. It is a rectangular green ringed by storefronts, town buildings and a gazebo — and, unusually, an active railroad line runs directly through the middle of it. Where is … Read more

Memphis, Germantown and Collierville are three separately incorporated places in Shelby County, Tennessee. Memphis is the large, historic anchor city on the Mississippi bluff; Germantown and Collierville are smaller, independently governed municipalities to its east, each with its own mayor, police department and school system. They are neighbors, not districts of one city. Are Germantown … Read more

What is the Medical District? The Medical District is a concentrated area of hospitals, research institutions and a health sciences university just west of Downtown Memphis. It is not a residential or entertainment neighborhood in the usual sense — it is an employment and treatment center, home to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Le Bonheur … Read more

Uptown Memphis is a neighborhood immediately north of downtown, built largely since the early 2000s on and around the site of the demolished Hurt Village public housing project. It is anchored by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and functions today as a planned, mixed-income residential district rather than a historic or commercial one. Where is … Read more

The Edge District is a small area on the northern rim of Downtown Memphis, running roughly along Union Avenue and Danny Thomas Boulevard between the Downtown core and the Memphis Medical District. It was the city’s automobile row in the first half of the twentieth century, and its surviving dealership and garage buildings now hold … Read more

Mud Island is a landform in the Mississippi River just north of Downtown Memphis, separated from the main riverbank by a narrow channel called the Wolf River Harbor. Harbor Town is the planned residential and mixed-use neighborhood built on the northern part of that same landform, starting in the late 1980s. One is a piece … Read more