Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near Ridgeway Covington, GA

Covington is a city in Georgia and the seat of Newton County, about 35 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta within the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Covington was incorporated in 1822 as the seat of the newly organized Newton County, which had been created in 1821 and named for Revolutionary War hero Sergeant John Newton.

The city was named for United States Army Brigadier General Leonard Covington, a hero of the War of 1812.

The 2020 census counted 14,192 people in Covington.

Census QuickFacts counted 5,662 households in Covington in 2020-2024, averaging 2.45 persons per household.

Covington is widely known as the 'Hollywood of the South' — a phrase its local chamber trademarked — because dozens of films and television shows have been shot on its streets.

Covington stood in for the fictional town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, through all eight seasons of The Vampire Diaries from 2009 to 2017, and its welcome center houses a film museum devoted to the productions shot there.

The city also played Sparta, Mississippi, in the television series In the Heat of the Night and Hazzard County in The Dukes of Hazzard, and films shot in Covington include Selma, Steel Magnolias, Footloose and Sweet Home Alabama.

The historic Newton County Courthouse on Covington's Courthouse Square was built in 1884 in the Second Empire style after its predecessor burned on the last day of 1883, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The Newton County School System is based in Covington, and all three of its high schools — Newton High School, Eastside High School (opened in 1994) and Alcovy High School — are located in the city.