South, The, the southeastern and south-central region of the United States, containing the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The South covers approximately one-seventh of the land area of the United States and contains about one-fifth of the population. Some bordering states, while not geographically part of the South, share common traditions, attitudes, and historical experiences, especially Texas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland. Popularly, the South is also known as “Dixie” and the land “below the Mason-Dixon line.”
The Old South of legend—the Cotton Kingdom, with its graceful plantations, cavalier traditions, and contented slaves—was partly myth. Most white Southerners of the pre-Civil War era were “plain folk,” who lived, at the subsistence level, in rough log or clapboard dwellings and held no slaves. Nonetheless, the South has a distinctive character and heritage despite modern changes and its continuing diversity. This distinctiveness is the result of a unique regional experience.
The modern South is in the midst of economic revolution and social reorganization. Largely agricultural and rural throughout its history, the region is now being rapidly industrialized and urbanized. A long-continuing loss of population through migration has been reversed, and some of the South's metropolitan areas are among the fastest growing in the nation. Relations between the races—long a central issue—have improved with blacks gaining the civil and political rights that they had long been denied.
