What is the “deep” south?

33 comments

1. Yeah it is specifically referring to the states Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and south Carolina sometimes Texas and Florida.
   for various reasons but one of the major ones is the political similarity of each other in the states coming from the heavy use of enslaved people more than most states and that they were the first states to declare independence in the confederacy.

2. Generally I view Alabama and Mississippi as the only absolutely indisputable deep south states. Parts of Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Georgia too, but they get complicated for obvious reasons. I’d also personally include Arkansas, SW Tennessee, and parts of South Carolina, but I’m sure someone will disagree.

3. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and maybe Tennessee.

4. Gulf coast states plus Georgia and South Carolina, excluding central/western Texas and central/southern Florida.

5. Basically the Southern part of the Bible Belt: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, East Texas, the Florida Panhandle, and parts of Southern Tennessee is how I define it.

6. Everything drained by the Mississippi watershed but South of the Alabama portion of the Tennessee watershed. And all points southeast of that.

7. That’s a club in Atlanta, known to turn Boyz to Men.

8. The original Confederate states that seceded before Fort Sumter, minus Florida (apart from areas north of Orlando) and Texas (apart from areas east of Dallas).

   Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina have pockets that are arguably Deep South, too. Memphis might as well be Deep South, especially since it’s so close to Mississippi.

9. People who say Bless Your Heart

10. NorthwestFlorida known to locals as Lower Alabama or Redneck Riveara.

11. Generally speaking GA, AL, MS, LA, and panhandle FL.

12. south carolina, georgia, alabama, mississippi, lousiania.

13. Mississippi. Alabama. Parts of Georgia. Parts of Florida. South Carolina. Parts of Louisiana.

14. Only South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama without their Appalachian counties, Mississippi, Western Tennessee, Southeastern Arkansas and Northern Louisiana.

15. I don’t know why folks are excluding “parts of” said deep south states in this thread. I mean, there are parts of Alabama (the entire coast, Huntsville, the Birmingham metro area, etc) that don’t resemble the traditional deep south either.

    Many small towns in a lot of those deep south states are also majority minority, which would come as a surprise to most outsiders who are under the impression that small, southern towns are overrun with confederate flag sporting white guys with beer guts.

16. There is a rural/urban divide; urban areas tend to attract people from all around the country (and around the world). But in my experience urban areas tend to only mute culture; they don’t extinguish it entirely.

    So Raleigh, for example, may feel like any large metro area in the United States–but if you really pay attention to the culture (and especially if you spent your entire life living somewhere else, as I have), you can hear the “accent” in the culture.

    There is also a “costal/inland” divide; you can sort of sense the cultural heritage of Wilmington as one of the last holdouts of the Civil War–but honestly it seems to have more in common with costal California (like Half Moon Bay) than it does Greenville, South Carolina.

    For me, having driven around parts of the South, I’d say the “Deep South” is Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina–though the boundaries are fuzzy: Fayetteville is more “Deep South” than Winston-Salem, say, and you can hear the ‘twang’ of the “Deep South” in parts of Arkansas.

    On the other hand, that Deep South cultural “accent” completely disappears in Atlanta, and anything south of Orlando is definitely a different thing.

17. Having grown up there, I consider it the more rural areas of the Bible belt south, excluding the big cities.

18. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Georgia. You could also include the Florida panhandle in there as well.

19. The states that went for Goldwater besides Arizona. South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

    Atlanta is often a sticking point for Georgia’s inclusion, but a good 1/4th to 1/3rd of the city’s white population retains the southern accent, especially in the northwest section of the metropolitan area. Meanwhile, there’s little doubt that the city’s Black population is predominantly southern as well.

    Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, and especially Northern Florida have significant sections that should be considered Deep South.

20. Deep South comes from a more dark historic meaning. If you read really old books being sold down river had a meaning of going to a harsher area where slaves were treated even more poorly. The places with the big plantations. These states formed the core of the Confederacy.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South

21. About where I’m at

22. It refers to both, but typically the deep south refers to like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, but downstate Georgia, Arkansas, and the Florida panhandle are usually included as well, and it does have a distinct feel when compared to like Kentucky and Tennessee or Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida.

23. Generally, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi + North Florida. As someone from Central Florida, since I’m seeing this, Central Florida *is* Southern but it’s *not* the deep South.

24. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. With a small section of east Texas and possibly the panhandle of Florida.

25. GA, AL, MS, LA, northern FL, and eastern TX

26. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Northern Florida, and South Carolina.

    Texas is too diverse and has a completely separate heritage to the rest of those areas.

27. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina historically.

28. It’s South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, most of Texas, and arguably North Carolina and Arkansas. I’d also say Tennessee’s included, but that’s more my opinion.

29. Always think of SC, GA, AL, MS, and LA. Then parts of Texas maybe Dallas eastward, and about half of Florida (panhandle then peninsula down to about Gainesville—there’s a HUGE cultural shift between Gainesville and the I-4 corridor). Maybe southern AR too, though I’m not terribly familiar with the state.

30. To me, the deep south is the states that mostly border the gulf coast and also includes the Mississippi Delta. To me, the states fully in the deep south are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, as well as most of Georgia, north Florida, east Texas, southern and eastern Arkansas, Memphis and most of western Tennessee and in the maybe column I’d put southeast Oklahoma and South Carolina. In the case of Oklahoma, its hard to put them as fully southern, much like Texas, but southeast Oklahoma is close to a lot of those places so it kind of counts. South Carolina is odd because it is more southern than North Carolina by far but I don’t know if its fully in the deep south.

    Basically to me, if you don’t have mountains, and are south of Nashville and east of Houston and west of Jacksonville FL, you are in the deep south. I can’t say if that’s accurate though as I’ve only been through the region once. All I know though is that Mountain south and the eastern areas of Virginia and North Carolina, while southern, are not the deep south of big plantations, flat land and blues music.

31. Peoples opinions will vary, but almost everyone would include Alabama and Mississippi. Most people would probably include Louisiana and Georgia. Some might include Florida (perhaps northern Florida but not Southern), Tennessee, and/or Arkansas.

32. Deep south: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and West Tennessee (Memphis is definitely deep south)

    South: Deep south plus North Carolina, Virginia south of the DC suburbs, East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, Arkansas, and the South east part of Texas

    Debatably south: some people include Missouri, Kentucky, southern Illinois, and southern Indiana as south. Florida is an odd case: northern Florida is definitely southern but once you get south of Orlando the culture changes drastically. West Virginia is extremely odd because it doesn’t fit into any category: it’s not southern, it’s not Midwestern, and it’s not eastern

33. It’s the Cotton Belt, the region where cotton was grown extensively. South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.