Southern United States - Geography

Geography

The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century.

As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U.S. residents, lived in the South, the nation's most populous region. The Census Bureau defined three smaller units, or divisions:

• The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware
• The East South Central States: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee
• The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas

Other terms related to the South include:

• The Old South: can mean either the slave states that existed in 1776 (Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina,; or all the slave states before 1860 (which included the newer states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.).
• The New South: usually including the South Atlantic States.
• The Solid South: region controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States.
• Southern Appalachia: mainly refers to areas situated in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, namely Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Western Maryland, West Virginia, Southwest Virginia, North Georgia, and Northwestern South Carolina.
• Southeastern United States: usually including the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and at times Maryland
• The Deep South: various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. Occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included (sections of East Texas, delta areas of Arkansas and Tennessee, and parts of Florida such as the Panhandle and the north-central part of the state).
• The Gulf South: various definitions, usually including Gulf coasts of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama.
• The Upper South: Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
• Dixie: various definitions, but most commonly associated with the 11 states of the Old Confederacy.
• The Mid-South: Various definitions, including that of the Census Bureau of the East and West South Central United States; in another informal definition, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and sometimes adjoining areas of other states.
• Border South: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware were states on the outer rim of the Confederacy that did not secede from the United States, but did have significant numbers of residents who joined the Confederate armed forces. Kentucky and Missouri had Confederate governments in exile and were represented in the Confederate Congress and by the Confederate battle flag. West Virginia formed in 1863 after the western region broke away from Virginia, though support for the Confederacy and the Union in the new state was about evenly divided.

The popular definition of the "South" is more informal and generally associated with the eleven states that seceded during the Civil War to form the Confederate States of America. Those states share commonalities of history and culture that carry on to the present day. Oklahoma is often included; it was not a state, but all its major Indian tribes signed formal treaties of alliance with the Confederacy.

The South is a diverse meteorological region with numerous climatic zones, including temperate, sub-tropical, tropical, and arid--though the South is generally regarded as hot and humid, with long summers and short, mild winters. Most of the south – except for the higher elevations and areas near the western, southern and some northern fringes – fall in the humid subtropical climate zone. Crops grow easily in the South; its climate consistently provides growing seasons of at least six months before the first frost. Landscapes, particularly in the Southeast, are characterized by live oaks, magnolia trees, yellow jessamine vines, Spanish moss, cabbage palms and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is found in the bayous and swamplands of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Texas. Parts of the rural South have been overrun by Kudzu, an invasive, fast-growing, leafy vine that can spread over trees, land, roads, and buildings, choking and killing indigenous plants. Kudzu is a particularly big problem in the Piedmont regions of South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.