TIME names Georgia park 1 of the World's Greatest Places of 2025

MACON, Ga. – TIME has just named a piece of Georgia history as one of the World’s Greatest Places for 2025.

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Macon, Georgia was one of just 12 places in the United States to make the magazine’s list.

The backstory:

The mounds, including the Earth Lodge, where indigenous people held council meetings for 1,000 years until their forced removal in the 1820s, were initially protected as a national monument by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

According to the National Parks Service, American Indians constructed the mounds for their elite beginning in 900 CE, creating the structures that remain today. 

The site includes a reconstruction of the council chambers of the Mississippian culture, known as the Earth Lodge, and walking trails.

Last year, Georgia’s congressional delegation introduced legislation that would make the area the Peach State’s first national park. The area along the Ocmulgee River downstream from Macon in central Georgia includes mounds and other cultural or historic sites of significance to the Muscogee. 

What they’re saying:

To make the list, TIME contributors solicited notations of places from correspondents and contributors that looked at new and exciting experiences around the globe.

In its entry on the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, TIME pointed to the park’s Indigenous past as well as the current work by the city of Macon to install bilingual street signs throughout its Downtown corridor.

TIME also pointed to the upcoming opening of the city’s Otis Redding Center for the Arts and the Macon Bacon Food Trail.

To read more about the park and see the other places on the list, click here.