Which states have the most "southern" feel?

I was going to say I think it tends to fall more along where more industry has developed, big corporations who've brought in a more diverse population -- but Atlanta is huge for business and Georgia is still considered very southern southern in it's culture and ways -- so my theory is probably wrong.

It's got to be Mississippi, where the past isn't even past.

It's like rape. There's rape, and then there's rape rape.

North Carolina has a highly educated workforce. The Triangle (Duke, UNC and NC State or Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh (respectively) benefits from this. I have not looked at rankings in some time but I believe the area ranks high in the number of college graduates and PhDs,

Virginia has similarities to NC in this way as well.

I believe it is because of the education systems that folks says the area is not as southern,

What about West Virginia? I know it's rural, but still southern?

Each southern state seems to have its own type of southern feel.....except Florida, which bat shit crazy...

Town or country, OP?

If it's town, I'd say Savannah or Natchez (true Southern has an element of decay to it). If it's country, North Alabama/Georgia for hills, rural Mississippi or Lousiana, especially toward the Gulf for the lowlands. And just about any old cemetery.

You're probably thinking of the Deep South, the areas of the most intense cotton cultivation. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina.

Port Gibson, MIss. has a beautiful cemetery

I think of W. Virginia more as Appalachia, R5, even though it's the South, it's not quite the Deep South that folks are usually thinking of when they think of the South. WV, Kentucky and Tennessee have more in common with Ohio, Pennsylvania and southern Indiana than with Lousiana, at least culturally.

I think of W. Virginia more as Appalachia, R5, even though it's the South, it's not quite the Deep South that folks are usually thinking of when they think of the South. WV, Kentucky and Tennessee have more in common with Ohio, Pennsylvania and southern Indiana than with Lousiana, at least culturally.

Culturally, Louisiana is the most unique of the southern states

This one, R9?

I was going to qualify, R12, that LA is a special case, being the only true French colony on the US mainland, its charm and its curse, really.

There are big variations. It's as if comparing Massachusetts and Wisconsin in the north. Florida isn't Arkansas. South Carolina isn't Texas.

I can’t tell from that photo, r13. But that’s certainly beautiful. Ever been to the Windsor ruins?

[quote]But South Carolina is?

Tee-hee!

Texas is not the South.

Texas is not similar to southern culture?

It's adjacent to it, especially in East TX, but still a world apart. As the biggest state in the lower 48, its state capital is as close to Los Angeles CA as it is to Danville, VA, the last capital of the Confederacy, and as an agricultural state TX did support the South in the Civil War. However, its support was far from unqualified, and it was marked by a lot of internal conflict, and did not join the Insurrection till after the ouster of Gov. Sam Houston, who opposed it. The push to join the Confederacy was led by men who were born in the South proper (as had Houston) but in 1860, there were sizable contingents within Texas--the large number of German immigrants who settled central TX from the Hill Country to Oklahoma, the Canary Island settlers led by Henri Castro in South TX, and of course, the Tejanos, the original Texans--who didn't really feel like they had a dog in this fight. And of course West Texas felt even less affinity with the South.

It should be remembered that in 1860, the Republic of Texas as a separate entity from Mexico was barely a quarter century old. The secessionist spirit was still strong, but it was like as not to lead to break with the US eentirely, North and South, rather than to an alliance that was strained from the outset.

There are a lot of cultural commonalities we share with the South--religion, the importance of tradition and manners, a lot of literary and musical traditions, and many variants on the Southern vernacular and language use. But many of those aspects are just as true of the farming states of the Midwest and the ranching states of the true West. There's an independent, contrary streak that runs through Southern culture which is tempered by the English gentility of its origins. That streak is deeper and wider in Texas--it's a product of the harsh land and climate, closer to the Chihuahuan Desert than the gentle Low Country or forested hills, a dichotomy embodied in music, the church-based Nashville sound of the South vs. the honkytonk and outlaw sound of Texas.

We're not quite the South, West, or Southwest, though we're at the confluence of all of them. We're Texas, full stop.

North Carolina

Get a load of the Texas tourism bureau at R20.

Kentucky any time you're more than 5 miles out of Newport, Louisville, or Lexington.

Same with NC , leave the city limits of the bigger cities and soon you’ll think you are in Mississippi or Alabama . Right now in NC the Sons of Confederate Veterans is placing GIANT Confederate flags in every county on private land in the most visible areas of each county. There are 100 counties in NC.

A lot of people seem to be calling Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Delaware the Middle Atlantic. Sometimes they include NC in this.

[quote]Same with NC , leave the city limits of the bigger cities and soon you’ll think you are in Mississippi or Alabama . Right now in NC the Sons of Confederate Veterans is placing GIANT Confederate flags in every county on private land in the most visible areas of each county. There are 100 counties in NC.

But you can say that for a lot of places. Maybe not the Confederate flags, but the more rural usual equals the more red and more conservative and more backwards.

Northern Virginia residents love to claim Virginia isn't a Southern state. Charlottesville residents seem to have the same opinion.

Of course none of those folks ever go the Lynchburg. Or two miles outside Charlottesville.

I suspect the same is true about North Carolina.

I am from Natchez, and when I itches, I scratches.

"Which states have the most "southern" feel?"

Oregon. It's the Mississippi / Arkansas of the west.

Thank you, Stepin Fetchit ^

^ meant for R27

Thanks for the informative post, R20. I appreciated it.

East Texas is pretty southern. Not much Hispanic influence, and culturally it has as much in common with Louisiana as it does the rest of the state. My impression is that the Florida panhandle is similar, though I don't know Florida well.

Tossup between Mississippi and Alabama, neither has moved to the 20th c. yet, much less the 21st, SC or 3rd, LA, because of NO and cajun/creole influences, had different feel.

Ask which state is the most racist, dumbest, poorest, religiously bigoted....and you got your answer.

You're welcome, R31.

Now here's the song of my people:

Does South Carolina have a more "genteel" reputation, or am I just thinking of Charleston?

bump

SC is a swamp.

R20, ignore R22. I love your post.

NC has somehow sold itself as Southern-lite. It's filled with kudzu and Baptists. People act. Like they invented BBC. UNC Is well past its heyday--a friend of mine left because he couldn't get a raise, even though he brought in more grants than other people in his department.

r24 i live in NC and have yet to see one of these giant confederate flags. not saying they don’t exist, but they’re not prominently displayed in the four counties i traversed today.

r39 you’ve posted your friend’s sob story before. many state universities can’t “give” raises; the employee has to be willing to move around.

Lol, R38, we're used to folks trying to draft off our Texatiousness, and anyway I was tickled by Miss Lindsey's use of the phrase "get a load of--" which I wish would get more use.

Though I honestly didn't see a sales pitch in my post, more like a warning.

____

Yeah East Texas is definitely southern in feel. West Texas is definitely not. Panhandle Florida is also very southern in culture.

The "Deep South" is Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. If you really want to narrow it down Alabama and Missisippi are as southern as southern gets.

Yes North Carolina and Virginia are definitely part of the South, people are kidding when they pretend otherwise. But they are not the Deep South.

Welcome to NC, y’all

^^^^

LOL^

Born in Ga.

moved to Va.

went to school in N.C,

Got a job in La.

Moved back to Ga.

retired in Fl.

It's all the south, but Ms, Alabama, and most of Ga are the south that northerners picture when they think about "the South." La is distinctly different and in fact my favorite of all the states I lived in.

And for all the jokes and knocks that FL takes daily on DL, I bet that 80% of you could be quite happy retiring in a house on the water in a state with no income tax. It's actually quite easy to avoid all the Fl riff-raff and nutjobs...they tend to congregate in little pockets of somewhat depressed areas.

fucking self-important Texans. If Louisiana is the South, so is East Texas.

What about Arkansas and Oklahoma? Still southern?

Correct, Virginia and North Carolina aren't considered "real" southern states because the are far too intellectual to be considered southern. The farther south you go, the lower the intellect.

What fool is saying Texas isn't part of the south. The majority are hicks...therefore it's the south!

Has anyone on this thread heard of the Mason/Dixon line??? End of debate.