North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 12 counties: Cherokee, Colbert, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 1,000,985, or 20.94% of the state's population as of 2010 Census.
The anchor city of the region is Huntsville, but other cities of notable size include (in order of population): Decatur, Florence (along with its sister cities Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia), Madison, and Athens.
Decatur and Florence share the designation of anchor city for Northwestern Alabama because they are the largest economic centers north of Birmingham and west of Huntsville. Most corporations use Decatur as a regional hub for the Northwest Alabama region because Huntsville is located further east. However, historically Florence has been the main cultural center of the NW.
Locals tend to refer to this area as the "Tennessee Valley" in reference to the Tennessee River, which flows through the northernmost part of the state. A section of East Tennessee shares the "Tennessee Valley" name.
Read more about North Alabama: Economy
Famous quotes containing the words north and/or alabama:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Oh! Susanna, do not cry for me;
I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee.”
—Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)