City (pop., 2000: 155,554) and port of entry, southeastern Tennessee, U.S. Lying on the Tennessee River between Missionary Ridge to the east and Lookout Mountain to the southwest, it was established as a trading post (Ross's Landing) in 1815.
Renamed Chattanooga in 1838, it developed as a river port. A strategic Confederate communications point in the American Civil War , it was a major objective of the Union armies, with fighting culminating in the Battles of Chattanooga (1863).