Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it officially merged in 1970. Columbus is the second most populous city in Georgia, and fields the state's fourth-largest metropolitan area. At the 2020 census, Columbus had a population of 206,922, with 328,883 in the Columbus metropolitan area.