Alabama (state)

I

Introduction

Alabama (state), in the east south central United States, at the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains and on the Gulf of Mexico. It is one of the principal states of the South and is often referred to as the Heart of Dixie. In the course of about 450 years, Spanish, French, British, and Confederate flags, as well as the Stars and Stripes, have flown over Alabama, and residents of the state have a deep-seated sense of history. Alabama entered the Union on December 14, 1819, as the 22nd state. The state capital, Montgomery, became the provisional capital of the Confederate States of America in 1861 and is popularly known as the Cradle of the Confederacy.

A few Alabamian towns and cities still maintain an air of informal dignity and charm characteristic of the Old South, supported by prosperous cotton plantations. This popular image, however, was never wholly true of Alabama and is far less so now. Although cotton is still an important crop, corn, peanuts, soybeans, and other crops, with pasture grasses and woodlands, have taken over much of the former cotton lands. Modern agricultural machinery has replaced mules and picking cotton by hand.

The most marked change in Alabama, however, has been its comparatively rapid industrialization, particularly in the second half of the 20th century. In the northwest the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) program of hydroelectric power production, begun in the 1930s, fostered the growth of giant fertilizer, munitions, and aluminum industries. Similar industrial expansion has occurred in central and southwestern areas, including around Birmingham, the state’s largest city.

Alabama received its name from the Alabama River, which in turn was named after a Native American tribe that inhabited the region at the time the first Europeans arrived. The name is believed to be a combination of two Choctaw words roughly meaning vegetation (alba) and gatherer (amo), which were applied to the Alabama, or Alibamon, people. While the state proudly displays its “Heart of Dixie” nickname on vehicle license plates, Alabama is also known as the Yellowhammer State. This nickname dates from the American Civil War (1861-1865), when a company of Alabama soldiers decked their uniforms with yellow trimmings that resembled the wing patches of the yellowhammer.

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II

Physical Geography

Alabama covers 135,765 sq km (52,419 sq mi), including 2,476 sq km (956 sq mi) of inland water and 1,344 sq km (519 sq mi) of coastal water over which the state has jurisdiction. It is the 30th largest state in the Union. Roughly rectangular in shape, Alabama has a maximum distance north to south of 533 km (331 mi) and a maximum distance east to west of 338 km (210 mi). The mean elevation is about 150 m (500 ft).

A

Natural Regions

From plateaus and uplands in the northeastern section of the state, the land slopes gradually southward across forested ridges, rolling prairie, and fertile valleys to the delta of the Mobile River on an arm of the Gulf of Mexico. Alabama can be divided into five natural regions: the Appalachian Plateaus, the Ridge and Valley province, the Piedmont, the Interior Low Plateau, and the Gulf Coastal Plain. The Appalachian Plateaus, the Ridge and Valley province, and the Piedmont together make up part of the vast Appalachian Region, or Appalachian Highland.

The Appalachian Region, in Alabama, extends across much of the northern half of the state in a northeast-southwest direction. The northwestern part of the region is the Cumberland Plateau, which is one of the Appalachian Plateaus. It is an almost level sandstone upland that averages about 400 m (about 1,300 ft) above sea level and is drained by the Tennessee and Black Warrior rivers. The Ridge and Valley province is made up of sandstone ridges paralleled by fertile limestone valleys. The ridges impose a distinctive northeast-southwest trend on the local pattern of rivers, railroads, and highways. The meandering Coosa River is the main stream of the Ridge and Valley province. Southeast of the Coosa lie the rugged Talladega Mountains, which rise to 733 m (2,405 ft) above sea level at Cheaha Mountain, Alabama’s highest point. Between the Talladega Mountains and the Georgia state line on the east is the Piedmont Plateau, a large area with numerous low hills and ridges.

The Interior Low Plateau extends southward into northern Alabama from Tennessee. It is a limestone region that is made up of low uplands and broad valleys. The region is drained by the Tennessee River.

The Gulf of Mexico portion of the Coastal Plain covers the remainder of the state. Sedimentary rocks, much younger than those of the Appalachian Region, underlie the Gulf Coastal Plain. The plain is by no means flat. Parallel bands of low, generally forested hills and ridges stretch across the plain from east to west. The ridges usually have a steep northern slope and a more gentle southern slope. They are separated by broad level lowlands, including the well-known Black Belt, which is a gently rolling prairie, 40 to 80 km (25 to 50 mi) wide, that extends across the state into Mississippi. The Black Belt, named for its fertile dark-colored soils, is one of the major agricultural regions of Alabama. In the extreme southwest, near the Gulf of Mexico, the plain becomes very flat and swampy. The southeastern part of the plain is a flat area, dotted with pine forests. Extensive areas of these forests have been cleared to provide excellent farming lands.

B

Rivers and Lakes

Most of Alabama drains southward to the Gulf of Mexico. The principal rivers in the western half of the state are the Tombigbee and its chief tributary, the Black Warrior. Much of eastern and central Alabama is drained by the Alabama River and its headstreams, the Coosa and the Tallapoosa. The Tombigbee and Alabama unite north of Mobile to form the Mobile River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico through Mobile Bay. The Mobile is roughly paralleled by the Tensaw River, which extends from the Mobile just below the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee to the bay. The marshy floodplain between the two rivers is intersected by many meandering channels.

Southeastern Alabama is drained by three major rivers, which all flow into the gulf. They are the Chattahoochee, which forms the southern part of the Alabama-Georgia state line, the Choctawhatchee, and the Conecuh. In the north the Tennessee River flows westward in a great bend across almost the entire width of the state before turning northward to join the Ohio River in Kentucky. The Tennessee is the most important river in northern Alabama and forms a section of a vast inland waterway system.

There are no large natural lakes in Alabama. However, the state has several large reservoirs, including Wheeler Lake on the Tennessee River and R. L. Harris Reservoir on the Tallapoosa River. Also on the Tennessee and also part of the TVA system are Wilson Lake and Guntersville and Pickwick lakes, which lie partly in other states. Guntersville Lake is the largest in the state. Martin Lake is on the Tallapoosa River, and Weiss Reservoir (partly in Georgia) and Logan Martin, Lay, Mitchell, and Jordan lakes are on the Coosa River. Holt and Warrior reservoirs and Lakes Lewis Smith and Bankhead are on the Black Warrior River or its tributaries, and Miller’s Ferry Reservoir is on the Alabama River. Lakes Harding and Eufaula and West Point Lake lie on the Chattahoochee River, on the Alabama-Georgia state line.

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