Columbus is a city in Muscogee County, Georgia, United States. It is the primary city of the Columbus, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, an MSA which encompasses all of Columbus, Georgia, Chattahoochee, Harris, Marion, and Muscogee counties, Georgia, and Russell County, Alabama, and which, along with the Auburn-Opelika, Alabama MSA and the Tuskegee, Alabama Micropolitan Statistical Area, comprise the greater Columbus-Auburn-Opelika, Georgia-Alabama Combined Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the entire city-county population was 186,291 and 276,000 in the Georgia-Alabama metro area. The city is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it is a consolidated city-county.

Because of the consolidation and the 2001 annexation of Bibb City, Columbus is now listed with the same population and other demographic data as the entire county. Fort Benning takes up most of the rest of the county.