n.
City (pop., 2000: 198,915), southwestern Alabama, U.S., situated on Mobile Bay at the mouth of the Mobile River.
The site was explored by Spaniards in 1519. French colonists built a fort near the river's mouth in 1702. It served as the capital of French Louisiana until 1720. It was ceded to the British in 1763 and captured by the Spanish during the American Revolution . Incorporated as a town in 1814 as part of West Florida, it passed to the U.S. with the purchase of Florida from Spain in 1819. During the American Civil War it was an important Confederate port, but Federal forces won the Battle of Mobile Bay and captured the city. The state's only seaport, it is a major industrial and manufacturing centre and the site of several institutions of higher education.