Waleska is a small city in the northwestern corner of Cherokee County, Georgia, where the Atlanta metropolitan area thins out into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It sits along State Routes 140 and 108, north of Canton and roughly fifty miles north of downtown Atlanta. With a 2020 census population of just 921 residents, it is one of the smallest incorporated cities in the region—though the figure rises to about 1,550 when the residential students of Reinhardt University are included. Reinhardt University is the city's defining institution. Its 620-acre campus anchors Waleska, and its students, faculty, and programs—including the Falany Performing Arts Center and collegiate athletics—give the town a cultural and academic life far beyond what its population would suggest. The university traces its roots to the 19th century, when founders sought to establish a school for post-Civil War Cherokee County, and it has shaped Waleska ever since. The city itself, incorporated in 1899, takes its name from a Cherokee figure, reflecting the area's deeper Native American history. The landscape is rural and mountainous, with forested ridges, pastures, and lake country. Just west of the city, the gated Lake Arrowhead community surrounds Georgia's second-largest private, man-made lake—about 540 acres—and constitutes the area's largest residential cluster. Lake Allatoona lies to the east, extending the water-recreation options. Education is provided by the Cherokee County School District, which is generally well regarded and includes R.M. Moore Elementary School in the Waleska area, with higher grades in nearby Canton. Daily life is quiet and car-dependent, with most shopping and services in Canton or Woodstock. Waleska suits university employees and students, families seeking highly rated county schools in a rural setting, retirees, and buyers drawn to Lake Arrowhead or to acreage in the foothills. It is a place where a small college town, a private lake community, and the beginning of the mountains meet.