Murfreesboro is a city in, and county seat of, Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 152,769 according to the 2020 census, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010. Murfreesboro is located in the Nashville metropolitan area of Middle Tennessee, southeast of downtown Nashville.
Serving as the state capital from 1818 to 1826, it was superseded by Nashville. Today, it is the largest suburb of Nashville and the sixth-largest city in Tennessee. The city is both the center of population and the geographic center of Tennessee.
Since the 1990s, Murfreesboro has been Tennessee's fastest-growing major city and one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Murfreesboro is home to Middle Tennessee State University, the largest undergraduate university in the state of Tennessee, with 22,729 total students as of fall 2014.
On October 27, 1811, the Tennessee General Assembly designated the location for a new county seat for Rutherford County, giving it the name Cannonsburgh in honor of Newton Cannon, representative to the Assembly for the local area. At the suggestion of William Lytle, it was renamed Murfreesborough on November 29, 1811, after Revolutionary War hero Colonel Hardy Murfree. The name was shortened to Murfreesboro in January 1812 when the town was formally chartered. Author Mary Noailles Murfree was his great-granddaughter.
As Tennessee settlement expanded to the west, the location of the state capital in Knoxville became inconvenient for much of the population. In 1818, Murfreesboro was designated as the capital of Tennessee and its population boomed. Eight years later, however, it was superseded by Nashville.
On December 31, 1862, the Battle of Stones River, also called the Battle of Murfreesboro, was fought near the city between the Union Army of the Cumberland and the Confederate Army of Tennessee. This was a major engagement of the American Civil War, and between December 31 and January 2, 1863, the rival armies suffered a combined total of 23,515 casualties.