What do you think of as the American South?

I see it as states that formed the Confederacy.

From California and Arizona to Alabama and Florida.

@Hawaii_Jake What about West Virginia? Ironically, there’s a lot of confederate flags flying in that state.

^Unfortunately you are correct. Red neck people with confederate flags flying on their homes, trucks and guns.
I consider WV as a southern state except for the northern panhandle. That part I consider northern as they speak and have the actions of northerners.
In my mind, any state including and below North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, WV and Indiana are southern. I include Texas as being southern.
The rest of the states out west are “out west” states.

I think of it as a cultural term for the region whose west end includes Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and whose north end includes, Kentucky, and the Virginias, and maybe part of Missouri, but not really Maryland, and which doesn’t really include Florida because it’s its own thang.

@rebbel, California??

Anything south of Canada, and north of Mexico.

East to West: I would say it goes from the Atlantic Ocean to and through Louisana, but not extending to Texas. The South doesn’t include Missouri; Arkansas is arguable.

North to South: Tennessee to the Gulf Coast. Southern Kentucky, probably, but not Northern Kentucky, near Ohio. Not Pennsylvania. Not West Va although that’s a strange state in many ways.

Virginia near Washington DC is NOT the South, but from Frederick on down, it is. As are both Carolinas and Georgia.

Florida is just strange; North FL is the south, but south of Orlando, it doesn’t fit.

Mostly, I think of it in regards to culture.

AL, GA, TN, KY, MS, SC, NC, LA, AR, WV, are all Southern to me.

There are states that are confusing like VA, because northern VA is not Southern at all, but the rest of the state is. Push comes to shove I would count VA as a Southern state of I had to choose yes or no.

Texas is culturally mostly like the South, but it’s also it’s own state, practically it’s own country. I don’t think of Texas when I talk about “the South” because mostly when I use The South, I mean the Deep South.

Florida is Southern Geographically, but I consider it to be a northern state. There are pockets of Southern, but I still consider it Northern overall.

You can also look at it historically, and Maryland is South of the Mason Dixon line, and when I moved there in the 70’s some of the people in my neighborhood used y’all. First time I had ever heard it. I had a dairy farm behind my housing subdivision when we first moved there, just 30 minutes outside of DC. Now, the place has grown like crazy, extremely diverse in the greater DC metro area, and definitely feels northern, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Southern MD still has quite a bit of South in it. MD however was a split state during the Civil War.

Overlapping all of this is the Bible Belt, which includes most of the Deep South and spills over into parts of the Midwest.

It’s really only a useful term geographically. Mason Dixon line and down, eh? If we start talking culture, we endlessly plummet into stereotype.

The Confederacy was to limited to use it to define the Sounth.

I perfer to define the South as those states that were slave states as of 1860. That includes Kentucky, Arkansas, and especially Missouri. Especially Missouri because the Missouri Compomise set the course for the Conederacy.

@Jeruba Purely geographically, yes.

@rebbel California is the West Coast. It is not the South by any definition that an American would use. Or, I should say I would be shocked if any American put California in with the South.

Although, on my Florida Q some jellies considered Florida South simply because it was geographically South, so in that way Southern California should be considered South too.

@Smashley I guess you could call it stereotyping, but there are cultural and dialect differences from region to region.

@zenvelo Many more states were slave states. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_states_and_free_states

@JLeslie I qualified my statement as “states that were slave states as of 1860” which would include the Southern states of Maryland and Delaware.

@zenvelo Oh, I see, you were adding in MO, AR, and KY, which might not have been included otherwise? Is that what you meant? My knowledge of the history on the topic isn’t very good.

@JLeslie Yes. Missouri may be right across the MIssissippi from Illinois, but anyone who read Huckleberry Finn knows Missouri is considered a Southern state.

Before the Civil War there was only Virginia. But people in what is now West Virginia didn’t want to go South, so they became the Northern state of West Virginia.

@zenvelo When I used to drive into MO from Memphis, it starts out Southern, but then becomes the Midwest. Tall people, German names, decent sized Jewish population, it’s a mix in terms of what the state feels like to me.

A friend who moved from Memphis to St. Louis described the differences she observed as a high school teacher, I’ve written about it before on fluther. I think she would say she was not in the South anymore living in St. Louis.

Geographic.
I think it is ridiculous to go by slavery. North, south, east, west have a purpose, and it has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

@JLeslie I think you can generalize that many larger cities feel northern even if they are physically southern.

For example, parts of the city of Atlanta – despite being in the deep south – feel northern. Not so much the Atlanta suburbs and definitely not the boonies.

I would say the same for Nashville (the city, not the burbs), Louisville (the city), and probably Charlotte, NC (the city, not the metro area).

In Florida, Orlando doesn’t feel southern, and just about everything from Palm Beach (or maybe Port St Lucie) to the south doesn’t feel southern.

As far as I’m concerned, we basically have five regions: the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, the West Coast, and Texas. That’s the contiguous states, of course; Alaska and Hawaii do their own thing.

Exactly which states are in which region can vary a bit, depending on the criterion used: culture, politics, accents, geographical dividers such as the Mississippi and the Rockies, etc. In cowboy movies, Texas might be “out west” (especially if you’re viewing it from the Northeast), but politically you might call it south. The West is the West is the West. It isn’t south.

And of course there are line-crossing subdivisions, such as Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic, but I’m not cutting it that fine.

Viewed from the Northeast, you can (I did) think of anything farther from the Atlantic than, let’s say, Pittsfield, Mass., as out west someplace. Forty-plus years in California have adjusted that view as a practical matter, but conceptually I still see it that way.

One of my college history professors, a historian of the American South, said that eastern Texas is the south, culturally, and western Texas is the west (culturally).

@Jeruba I would say six regions, I’d use your five and add West. I separate The West and the West Coast.

@elbanditoroso More or less I agree, but Atlanta and Nashville still have a lot of South in them when I’m there, even though almost everyone I know in Atlanta are not from the South. I’m not arguing with you though, those cities are a mix.

As far as Florida, it’s way more than just Palm Beach south (which is four very populated counties to clarify for others on the Q, not just a city) which I agree with. Those counties are mostly northeasterners and international. Orlando it’s the same thing, it’s the entire county, and people from everywhere.

Add in my “city” which is people from every part of the country, but then right outside of The Villages is what I call “old Florida.” A lot of the middle of the state I would call old Florida, which is a little different than typical Southern.

Tampa Bay Area, which is two counties, and Naples, is mostly Midwesterners.

St. Augustine up to Jacksonville doesn’t really feel Southern to me either, although pockets around Jacksonville have some Southern about it being so close to Georgia.

When I go anywhere in the Florida Peninsula I am surprised when I come across a Southern accent, children calling me Miss JL, a lot of ma’am, and Evangelical Christian all combined, which I associate with the South, but it can be found in the state.

Moreover, regarding race, religion, and ethnicity, Florida feels more like the Northeast to me than the South.