Selma is a city in central Alabama on the Alabama River. The seat of Dallas County, it has a population of 23,755 (1990). Located in the center of a fertile agricultural region, Selma is a marketing center for cotton, livestock, dairy products, and pecans and has light industries.

Selma was settled in 1815. Union forces attacked the city in 1865 because of its Confederate arsenal and naval foundry. In March 1965, during a bitterly resisted drive to register black voters, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery (see civil rights movement).