McDuffie County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 21,875. The county seat is Thomson. The county was created on October 18, 1870 and named after the South Carolina governor and senator George McDuffie.McDuffie County is part of the Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Greene County is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,994. The county seat is Greensboro. The county was created on February 3, 1786 and is named for Nathanael Greene, an American Revolutionary War major general.

Columbia County is a county located in the east central portion of the US state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 124,035. The legal county seat is Appling, but the de facto seat of county government is Evans.Columbia County is included in the Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is currently one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States. It is located along the Savannah River.

Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city–county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the state's flagship public university and an R1 research institution, is in Athens and contributed to its initial growth. In 1991, after a vote the preceding year, the original City of Athens abandoned its charter to form a unified government with Clarke County, referred to jointly as Athens–Clarke County.As of 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau's estimated population of the consolidated city-county (all of Clarke County except Winterville and a portion of Bogart) was 126,913; the entire county including Winterville and Bogart had a population of 127,064. Athens is the sixth-largest city in Georgia, and the principal city of the Athens metropolitan area, which had a 2017 estimated population of 209,271, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Metropolitan Athens is a component of the larger Atlanta–Athens–Clarke County–Sandy Springs Combined Statistical Area.The city is dominated by a pervasive college town culture and music scene centered in downtown Athens, next to the University of Georgia's North Campus. Major music acts associated with Athens include numerous alternative rock bands such as R.E.M., the B-52's, Widespread Panic, Drive-By Truckers, of Montreal, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Harvey Milk. The city is also known as a recording site for such groups as the Atlanta-based Indigo Girls. The 2020 book Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture describes Athens as the model of the indie culture of the 1980s.