- The South is the fastest growing region in the
- But not everyone agrees on where the South actually is.
- Experts have varying opinions on which states are part of the South, and there are several things to consider when deciding whether a state is Southern.
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Why no one can agree where the South really is
The South is the fastest growing region in the United States, but not everyone agrees on where the South actually is. Experts are often at odds with public perception when it comes to states like Texas, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware.
Of all the regions of the United States, there's none that sparks more debate and conversation than the South.
It's a political hornet's nest with a controversial history. It's a cultural hub for music, food, and literature. And it's the fastest-growing region in the US.
But the more people talk about the South, the more one thing becomes clear: No one seems to agree on where it actually is.
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Public perception of which states are in the South are at odds with how the US government and some experts classify the region. According to the US Census Bureau, which divides the country into four regions, the South begins in Maryland and Delaware, branches out to West Virginia and Kentucky, extends south to Florida, and west to Texas and Oklahoma.
But experts on Southern history say the answer isn't so cut-and-dried.
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Other experts point to geographic indicators to help us define the borders of the South. Some consider the South the area where the invasive plant kudzu grows — they call it "the plant that ate the South" for a reason.
Sociologist John Shelton Reed thought that people's personal connections to the South were as important as geographic definitions. In one experiment, he sifted through local phone books to see which areas had a disproportionate amount of businesses with words with regional markers in their names — think words like "Southern" and "Dixie." His resulting data paints a reliable picture of the core South and the surrounding borderline areas.
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From a cultural perspective, you could look at the map of the most Baptist counties in the US. That metric would include northern Florida but exclude southern Florida, include east Texas but exclude west Texas, and would exempt the nation's capital from Southern status.
Meanwhile, Adam Gussow, a professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, employs a more creative method he calls "the breakfast line."
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