Atlanta Landmarks You Have to See

Midtown classics: the Fox, Piedmont Park and the Garden

Start on Peachtree Street at the Fox Theatre, which opened on December 25, 1929. Architect Olivier J. Vinour dressed it in fanciful Egyptian and Moorish details, and the 4,665-seat auditorium is designed to feel like an open-air courtyard at night, with 96 crystal stars twinkling overhead. Its pipe organ, nicknamed Mighty Mo, has 3,622 pipes. When the building faced demolition in the 1970s, Atlantans rallied to save it, and today it hosts touring Broadway shows, the Atlanta Ballet and concerts.

A short trip north is Piedmont Park, the city's backyard. The grounds hosted the Piedmont Exposition in 1887 and the Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, and the Olmsted Brothers firm later reshaped them with scenic paths. Today joggers circle Lake Clara Meer, families pack the meadows, and big events like the Dogwood Festival and Music Midtown take over. Next door, the 30-acre Atlanta Botanical Garden offers the Canopy Walk, a 600-foot skywalk opened in 2010 that floats about 40 feet up in the trees of Storza Woods, plus the Fuqua Orchid Center and its prized orchid collection.

The BeltLine and Ponce City Market

The Atlanta BeltLine began as a 1999 Georgia Tech master's thesis by Ryan Gravel, who pictured old railroad lines circling the city as a ring of trails, parks and transit. The full loop is 22 miles and connects 45 neighborhoods, and well over half of it is now open as paved trail. The Eastside Trail is the busiest stretch, a lively ribbon of murals, cyclists, skaters and patio crowds between Piedmont Park and Inman Park.

Right on that trail sits Ponce City Market. The massive brick building opened in 1926 as a Sears, Roebuck and Co. warehouse and store, then waited years for a new life until its redevelopment opened in 2014. Now its 2.1 million square feet hold a food hall, shops, offices, homes and a rooftop amusement park with views across Midtown.

Downtown wonders

Downtown's Pemberton Place is home to two blockbuster attractions. Georgia Aquarium opened on November 23, 2005, funded largely by a $250 million gift from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. It holds more than 11 million gallons of water and is the largest aquarium in the United States. The star is the 6.3-million-gallon Ocean Voyager habitat, where whale sharks and manta rays glide above a walk-through tunnel.

Across the plaza, the World of Coca-Cola opened on May 24, 2007, replacing an earlier museum that ran from 1990 to 2007. Visitors explore well over a century of soda history, peek at the vault tied to the famous secret formula, and finish in a tasting room with dozens of drinks from around the globe.

The view from Jackson Street Bridge

For the classic postcard shot, head to the Jackson Street Bridge in the Old Fourth Ward. It crosses Freedom Parkway, and the road below sweeps straight toward a wall of downtown towers, a framing so dramatic that The Walking Dead used it in its very first episode. Come at sunset or after dark, when traffic leaves streaks of light beneath the glowing skyline. A safety project that broke ground in July 2025 was designed to give walkers and cyclists more room to linger and enjoy the view.

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