Tanasi or Tanase was a Cherokee town on the Tanase (Little Tennessee) River near present-day Vonore, Tennessee in Monroe County. From 1721 to 1730, it was the de facto Cherokee capital. The town of Chota developed next to Tanasi and by the 1740s had outgrown and absorbed it. Today the site of Tanasi lies under the artificial lake created by Tellico Dam. A monument near the site commemorates its history and its legacy as the origin of the name Tennessee.

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Cherokee tribe