Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport
airport in Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport (IATA: BHM, ICAO: KBHM, FAA LID: BHM), formerly Birmingham Municipal Airport and later Birmingham International Airport, is a civil-military airport serving Birmingham, Alabama. The airport also provides scheduled airline service for the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa metropolitan areas. It is located in Jefferson County, five miles northeast of Downtown Birmingham, near the interchange of Interstates 20 and 59.
BHM served 3,243,023 passengers in 2024, and is the largest and busiest airport in the state of Alabama by passenger volume. The airfield can handle all aircraft types. The main runway is 12,007 feet (3,660 m) long. The secondary runway is 7,099 feet (2,164 m) long. A Category II ILS allows operations in visibility as low as a quarter-mile. The airport was renamed in July 2008 after Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, founding president of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and a leader of the Birmingham campaign during the civil rights movement.
The airport carries the designation of an international airport and has a staffed U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility on site.
“Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport” enters the record as airport in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Birmingham, Shuttlesworth and International can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Birmingham, Shuttlesworth and International provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q865724. VIAF identifies the subject as 187281107. The Library of Congress control number is no2011159333. Authority coordinates are 33.564, -86.752. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024 and 2008.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport primary sources, Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport archive and Birmingham research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.