Mobile

Mobile (pop. 476,923), city in southwestern Alabama, on Mobile Bay, and connected by a deepwater channel to the Gulf of Mexico. Alabama's only seaport, Mobile exports cotton, iron, steel products, and lumber. The city was settled by the French in 1702, and from 1711 to 1720 was the capital of French Louisiana. It was taken successively by the English and the Spanish and became part of the U.S. in 1813.