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Southern United States

This article is about the political region. For the geographically southern part of the United States, see Sun Belt. For the cultural region of the southern United States, see Dixie.

Southern United States
Region
This map reflects the Southern United States as defined by the Census Bureau.[1]
Subregions
CountryUnited States
States
as defined by the Census Bureau.[1] Regional definitions may vary slightly from source to source.
Federal districtDistrict of Columbia
Population
 (2020[2])
 • Total126,266,107
Demonym(s)Southerner, Southron (historically)
Languages
Louisiana French
Spanish

The Southern United States, sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean and the Western United States, with the Midwestern and Northeastern United States to its north and the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico to its south.

Historically, the South was defined as all states south of the 18th-century Mason–Dixon line, the Ohio River, and 36°30′ parallel.[3] Within the South are different subregions such as the Southeast, South Central, Upper South, and Deep South. Maryland, Delaware, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia have become more culturally, economically, and politically aligned in certain aspects with the Northeastern United States and are often identified as part of the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic by many residents, businesses, public institutions, and private organizations.[4] Though the possibility of officially moving the first three places to the Northeast census region was explored after the 1950 census,[5] the United States Census Bureau continues to define all four places as formally being in the South.[6] Due to cultural variations across the region, some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries.[7][8] The South does not precisely correspond to the entire geographic south of the United States, but primarily includes the south-central and southeastern states. For example, California, which is geographically in the southwestern part of the country, is not considered part of the South. However, the geographically southeastern state of Georgia is.[9][10][11]

The South, being home to some of the most racially diverse areas in the United States, is known for having developed its own distinct culture, with different customs, fashion, architecture, musical styles, and cuisines, which have distinguished it in many ways from other areas of the United States. From 1860 to 1861, eleven Southern states plus an additional two Southern states that were claimed and partially controlled seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. Following the American Civil War, these states were subsequently added back to the Union. Sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, historical, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States; however, this has declined since around the late 20th century, with many Southern areas becoming a melting pot of cultures and people. Ethnic groups in the South were the most diverse among American regions, and include strong European (especially English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, Irish, French, and Spanish), African, and Native American components.[12]

The politics and economy of the region were historically dominated by a small rural elite.[13] The historical and cultural development of the South has been profoundly influenced by the institution of slave labor, especially in the Deep South and coastal plain areas, from the early 1600s to mid-1800s. This includes the presence of a large proportion of African Americans within the population, support for the doctrine of states' rights, and legacy of racism magnified by the Civil War and Reconstruction era (1865–1877). Following effects included thousands of lynchings (mostly from 1880 to 1930), a segregated system of separate schools and public facilities established from Jim Crow laws that remained until the 1960s, and the widespread use of poll taxes and other methods to deny black and poor people the ability to vote or hold office until the 1960s. Scholars have characterized pockets of the Southern United States as being authoritarian enclaves from Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[14][15][16][17]

When looked at broadly, studies have shown that Southerners tend to be more conservative than most non-Southerners, with liberalism being mostly predominant in places with a Black majority or urban areas in the South.[18][19] Although historically a Democratic stronghold, most states in the region have in recent decades come to favor Republicans, although both the Republican and Democratic Party are competitive in certain Southern swing states. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance, especially evangelical churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture as its main economic base and was predominantly rural until after World War II. Since the 1940s, the region has become more economically diversified and metropolitan, helping attract both national and international migrants. In the 21st century, it is the fastest-growing region in the United States, with Houston being the region's largest city.[20][21]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference CensusBureau was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Change in Resident Population of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico: 1910 to 2020" (PDF). Census.gov. United States Census Bureau. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 26, 2021. Retrieved April 27, 2021.
  3. ^ The South Archived July 11, 2021, at the Wayback Machine. Britannica. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  4. ^ Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., are identified in a number of sources as Northeastern:
  5. ^ "Six: Statistical Groupings of States and Counties". Geographic Areas Reference Manual (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. November 1994. pp. 6-18–6-19. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 29, 2022. Retrieved March 9, 2024. [A]fter the 1950 census ... an interagency committee within the Department of Commerce compared the existing Census Bureau regions and divisions to other schemes of regionalization and assessed the usefulness of an alternative system ... it shifted Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Maryland from the South Region to the Middle Atlantic Division of the Northeast Region ... This suggested reclassification had its merits ... However, the new system did not win enough overall acceptance among data users to warrant adoption as an official new set of general-purpose State groupings.
  6. ^ U.S. Census Bureau. "Census Regions and Divisions of the United States" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 19, 2017. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
  7. ^ Garreau, Joel (1982). The Nine Nations of North America. Avon Books. ISBN 978-0-380-57885-6.
  8. ^ Woodard, Colin (2012). American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-312202-9.
  9. ^ "Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers". Archived from the original on January 1, 2015.
  10. ^ "Geological Society of America – Southeastern Section". geosociety.org. Archived from the original on July 1, 2016. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  11. ^ "Southern Legislative Conference – Serving the South". slcatlanta.org. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014.
  12. ^ Bethune, Lawrence E. "Scots to Colonial North Carolina Before 1775". Lawrence E. Bethune's M.U.S.I.C.s Project. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved August 28, 2009.
  13. ^ Jensen, Jeffrey; Pardelli, Giuliana; Timmons, Jeffrey F. (2024). "Representation and Taxation in the American South, 1820–1910". Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009122825. ISBN 9781009122825. S2CID 266475609. Archived from the original on October 23, 2023. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
  14. ^ Mickey, Robert (2015). Paths Out of Dixie. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13338-6. Archived from the original on December 26, 2019. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  15. ^ How to Save a Constitutional Democracy. University of Chicago Press. 2018. p. 22. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  16. ^ Kuo, Didi (2019). "Comparing America: Reflections on Democracy across Subfields" (PDF). Perspectives on Politics. 17 (3): 788–800. doi:10.1017/S1537592719001014. ISSN 1537-5927. S2CID 202249318. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 27, 2020.
  17. ^ Gibson, Edward L. (2013). "Subnational Authoritarianism in the United States". Boundary Control. pp. 35–71. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139017992. ISBN 9781139017992. Archived from the original on August 30, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  18. ^ Cooper, Christopher A.; Knotts, H. Gibbs (2010). "Declining Dixie: Regional Identification in the Modern American South". Social Forces. 88 (3): 1083–1101. doi:10.1353/sof.0.0284. S2CID 53573849.
  19. ^ Rice, Tom W.; McLean, William P.; Larsen, Amy J. (2002). "Southern Distinctiveness over Time: 1972–2000". American Review of Politics. 23: 193–220. doi:10.15763/issn.2374-7781.2002.23.0.193-220.
  20. ^ "Census Bureau Regions and Divisions with State FIPS Codes" (PDF). US Census. December 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 21, 2013. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
  21. ^ "Southern and Western Regions Experienced Rapid Growth This Decade". Census.gov. Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.