MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Tourism has launched a Facebook fan page for 215 cities participating in the “Year of Small Towns and Downtowns.” The site, Alabama Homecoming, makes it easy to become a fan of the towns, find information about homecoming events and RSVP for the celebrations.

The Facebook site provides an innovative “Great Alabama Homecoming” state map that highlights participating towns for quick access to each event. Each city is located on the map with a historic marker icon.

A simple click on the icon takes visitors to the fan pages of each town.

More than 12,000 Facebook users have already become fans of the small towns and several cities already have more than 1,000 fans.

The tourism department has provided each city with a historic marker to commemorate their event or town’s history.

The fan page provides a listing of each historic marker with links to the actual text on the marker.

Fans can also download the “Great Alabama Homecoming” brochure from the Facebook page.

The brochure lists the participating towns, dates of the homecoming events and contact information.

The site also lists links to other events in addition to the homecoming celebrations. Fans can search for their hometown event by city name or zip code.

For more information about the “Year of Alabama Small Towns and Downtowns” contact the Alabama Tourism Department at 1-800-ALABAMA, or log on to the Web site www.alabamahomecoming.com.