Nicknamed The Queen City, Charlotte (as well as the county containing it) was named in honor of the German Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818) (Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg), who had become queen consort of King George III the previous year. During the American Revolution the British Commander in the Southern Colonies, General Cornwallis, occupied Charlotte but was driven out soon afterwards by the fierce opposition of the city's residents to British rule. Cornwallis famously wrote that Charlotte was "a hornet's nest of rebellion", leading to another city nickname: The Hornet's Nest. As of 2006, the Charlotte metropolitan area had a population of 1,583,016. The Charlotte metropolitan area is part of a wider thirteen-county labor market region or combined statistical area that has an estimated population (as of 2008) of 2,491,650.