Is Virginia in the South? What parts?

[muon2]

I've taken a couple of trips this last year to Hampton Roads and the VA tidewater. It is certainly not Mid-Atlantic, particularly in the rural areas. The Norfolk metro isn't really Mid-Atlantic either. It's a special type of southern city that I'd call military South. Jacksonville and Pensacola FL have some of the same feel as Norfolk due to the military. There's even a bit of that feel in the inland cities of the south that have a lot of their economy connected to a base (eg. Clarksville TN). The key is that the military brings a much more diverse population to the Norfolk area and caused some cultural overlap, but the underlying feel is still southern.

I'm surprised that you have Richmond in your Mid-Atlantic region of counties. I've never found anything there that would make me think Mid-Atlantic. What did you find that puts it there?

Additional thought: perhaps the issue is from forcing the upper/lower South divide. Though I haven't traveled NC as much as VA, I find them far more alike than different, especially if the DC area is excluded. Both have a relatively small population in Appalachia and most is in the coastal and Piedmont area. It's probably why when forced to group states into larger regions I put VA and NC with the other South Atlantic coastal states, and put the Appalachian and Delta states of the South together.

[muon2]

That you can differentiate Richmond and Hampton Roads from Appalachia is a point on which we agree. Where we disagree is whether they are a better fit to Baltimore and Philly or to Raleigh and Charleston. On that point we will have to disagree, because I see far more to link to the Carolinas than to MD and PA. I do find a substantial break in development between Fredricksburg and the outskirts of Richmond, so a separation is easy to see on a map. Again I think you are stuck because your choice is to split upper vs lower South rather than Atlantic vs inland South. I can see how that choice puts the old Tidewater of SE VA and NE NC in a no-mans land.

[muon2]

That could be.  Part of the issue may be that I'm trying to divide the South in the "traditional" sense; i.e., between an Upper and Deep South.  In that case, placing VA is difficult since the culture of its cities and the coastal plain is quite a bit distinct from the rest of the "interior South."  This is true even from a historical sense, since the people who settled around DC, Tidewater, and so on, are a distinct group from who ended up settling (later) in places like TN.  However, that VA group is of the same people who settled MD, and I think you see a lot of this today in the culture around the Chesapeake, which I wrote at length above about.

If one was to divide the South longitudinally, then perhaps it would make sense to have a "coastal South" and "Inner South," in which case, you would put Hampton Roads, Richmond and places like the Outer Banks together with Charleston, and arguably Savannah.  Maybe this region would end somewhere around Jacksonville.

I like the distinction between the "Inner" and "Coastal" south and am going to refine it a little bit. I think the high Appalachian plateau is pretty distinct from both the Deep South and the Coastal South, and I wouldn't say that any (except for maybe way on the south side around Galax, Danville, etc.) of Virginia is really part of what we'd call the "Deep South". I agree with whoever said that there's a difference between the Northern Neck/Hampton Roads/Richmond areas and the Shenandoah/Blacksburg-Christianburg/Panhandle area. These areas are very distinct from each other. The coastal area is agrarian, more urbanization and has more African American influence whereas the Appalachian areas of Virginia are more resource-extraction based (Shenandoah is iffy) and heavily Scots-Irish. The issues there people care about are very different. Someone from the panhandle/coalfields area is more similar to someone from West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky or Eastern Tennessee than they are to somebody from the Chesapeake, South Carolina or Alabama.

Would you put Charleston and Savannah more with Norfolk or with Mobile?

Where would you place Charlotte and Columbia? They certainly aren't Appalachian South, and seem more Deep South than Tidewater. Is that the region you'd place Galax and Danville in?

[muon2]

I think the best solution is to think of the South as three areas - Appalachian South, Deep (or Gulf) South and Atlantic South. Then VA is easily in the Atlantic South since that matches the largest part of its population. NC and maybe SC is in that region, too. GA, AL, MS, and LA are the deep South. AR, TN, KY, and WV would fall in the Appalachian South by that measure. Of course its easier to make the split at the county level, but that's the issue with many states - their counties span more than one region.

[muon2]

I think the best solution is to think of the South as three areas - Appalachian South, Deep (or Gulf) South and Atlantic South. Then VA is easily in the Atlantic South since that matches the largest part of its population. NC and maybe SC is in that region, too. GA, AL, MS, and LA are the deep South. AR, TN, KY, and WV would fall in the Appalachian South by that measure. Of course its easier to make the split at the county level, but that's the issue with many states - their counties span more than one region.

I like those categories.  Question though- how far north does the Coastal South go?

Because if we're delineating out a coastal region that is distinct from both the Gulf areas and the Appalachian areas, then it's no longer clear that the line should end at the DC MSA.  I would argue that if we have a Coastal South region, then DC, most of MD, and arguably most of DE would be included.  In my opinion, it would end somewhere around the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  Wilmington might be just over the boundary.

Most of DE is Wilmington if I'm counting population. I agree that southern DE fits the Atlantic South region, but since that's the minority of the population that I'd put DE in the North. My best man lives in southern DE, so I've had the opportunity to visit there a number of times.

I lived out east in the 80's and spent a lot of time in the 80's and 90's up and down the BosWash (now Acela) corridor. Unless it's changed dramatically, I can't see Balto and Philly grouped anyway but in the same region, and I can't see Philly as part of the South. DC is hard to classify because the federal capital makes it a cultural melting pot, but economically it clearly shares population with Balto.

[muon2]

I think the best solution is to think of the South as three areas - Appalachian South, Deep (or Gulf) South and Atlantic South. Then VA is easily in the Atlantic South since that matches the largest part of its population. NC and maybe SC is in that region, too. GA, AL, MS, and LA are the deep South. AR, TN, KY, and WV would fall in the Appalachian South by that measure. Of course its easier to make the split at the county level, but that's the issue with many states - their counties span more than one region.

Does Arkansas even lie in Appalachia?

The Ozarks and Ouachita mountains effectively extend the geography of Appalachians west across the Mississippi valley. Much of that region was settled by people from the southern Appalachians and they brought their language and culture across the river and engaged in resource extraction and subsistence farming like they did in Appalachia. Portrayals of the Ozarks/Ouachitas in popular media are often indistinguishable from portrayals of Appalachia.