What is the true Divide Line between the North and the South? (vs., baptist)
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Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
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Originally Posted by NewOrleanianLA1
Are you kidding? You must be talking about I-40 because Atlanta, Birmingham, Jackson, Shreveport, and Dallas-Fort Worth are all on I-20.
Even I-40 (Dallas-Fort Worth, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville, & Knoxville) is still in the South so it can't be the Divide Line.
I-40 doesn't go through Dallas-Fort Worth. THat's I-30. And in any case, I-40 is not even close to the northern edge of the south. I-40 essentially bisects the south, just like I-80 bisects the Midwest.
Route 50 may make more sense; though not sure I consider WV southern which 50 would cut the state in half
Northern West Virginia is not Southern. This is what many people don't seem to understand.
Culturally speaking, U.S. 60 is about as good of a highway dividing line as you're going to find. Or if you want to get nit-picky, U.S. 60/Ohio River/U.S. 33/U.S. 60 from west to east would be perfect.
Although I still stand by U.S. Route 50 more than U.S. 60, I still agree with you because Cape Girardeau feels more southern despite many people claiming it to be Midwestern.
Even a smaller town of Ste. Genevieve is more Midwestern than CG.
I grew up in the Cape Girardeau area (About 10 miles north of town), and I would say is cultural affiliation has been shifting south for at least the past 15 years, although it has always been a border city of sorts. I think alot of it has to do with migration from the rest of the Bootheel and surrounding areas in neighboring states, including Western KY/TN. The same goes for the neighboring town of Jackson. Obviously I've spent a lot of time in Cape and it has more in common with the cities to the south than to the north.
Aside from a few small villages north of Cape Girardeau/Jackson, it becomes Midwestern pretty quickly. Once you hit Perry County your completely in the Midwest. As KSHE said, the transition is very quick and very sharp.
I don't agree with U.S. 50 being a divider in Missouri at all, but I think farther East it could be valid. I don't have enough experience with U.S. 50 out that way to say one way or the other.
Delaware still has a culturally southern section, which comprises less than half the population, but the vast majority of the land area (2 1/2 out of 3 counties). It's everything south of the canal, and is known as "lower and slower" Delaware. Culturally identical to Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is also still pretty southern in its own way.
The line gets harder as you get west, however. Appalachia is one big continuum. I've met people from Fayette County, Pennsylvania who have southern-sounding accents, at least to my own New England trained ears. Certainly a large portion of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois is thought of as culturally southern.
Really though, the issue is there's a third U.S. culture and dialect - the Midland - which often gets short shrift. People in the upper interior South and Lower Midwest are generally in this group. It's all the area, essentially, along the Ohio River watershed, which was originally settled from Virginia.
I'm not arguing that there may be Southern sounding accents scattered there, but if you are talking about the real South, or maybe the "core" South, I think most people just include Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, North & South Carolina, most of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, the Florida panhandle, and southern Virginia and Missouri. A lot of people just count the former Confederate states. Some sources probably wouldn't include all of those. I've heard of people from the Deep South who consider Tennessee to be a border state, as crazy as that sounds.
I think some of you are confused between the dividing line and the transition zone.
There is no hard boundary between North and South. However, most scholars and experts do agree that there is an area of the country that has overlapping Northern and Southern culture, generally paralleling the Ohio River. There's articles online that discuss how, often times, it literally comes down to the individual towns.
If you must draw a hard boundary, the Ohio River itself serves as the general dividing line (plus the southern quarter of Missouri). Personally, I would say that the transition zone extends about 50 miles or so above and below the river on both sides. By the time you get up halfway up these states to places like Columbus--that's pretty solidly Northern.
I grew up in Michigan, but I still have a hard time calling any part of Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio "culturally southern" (Missouri's different) even if they do have some southern influences--they're still Catholic for the most part, the southern accent doesn't dominate like it does further south, etc. These places have little in common with regions deep in Dixie like the Mississippi Delta and the Black Belt of Alabama.
Remember, culture is about more than just accents and Waffle Houses. It's the architecture, food, climate, landscape, religion, politics, values, economy, city identity (where people would consider the local "big city"), ethnic background, etc. One of these days, I'm going to create a composite map with all of these elements and then normalize the boundaries into a single definitive line.
As posters have said before I think there is a difference between solidly northern and solidly southern states and transition zones. 40 North Latitude and above is solidly northern IMO. 36/37 North to 40 North is a transition zone. 36/37 North on south is solidly southern.
I think some of you are confused between the dividing line and the transition zone.
There is no hard boundary between North and South. However, most scholars and experts do agree that there is an area of the country that has overlapping Northern and Southern culture, generally paralleling the Ohio River. There's articles online that discuss how, often times, it literally comes down to the individual towns.
If you must draw a hard boundary, the Ohio River itself serves as the general dividing line (plus the southern quarter of Missouri). Personally, I would say that the transition zone extends about 50 miles or so above and below the river on both sides. By the time you get up halfway up these states to places like Columbus--that's pretty solidly Northern.
I grew up in Michigan, but I still have a hard time calling any part of Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio "culturally southern" (Missouri's different) even if they do have some southern influences--they're still Catholic for the most part, the southern accent doesn't dominate like it does further south, etc. These places have little in common with regions deep in Dixie like the Mississippi Delta and the Black Belt of Alabama.
Remember, culture is about more than just accents and Waffle Houses. It's the architecture, food, climate, landscape, religion, politics, values, economy, city identity (where people would consider the local "big city"), ethnic background, etc. One of these days, I'm going to create a composite map with all of these elements and then normalize the boundaries into a single definitive line.
Excellent post Colts!
I would also add that some of the confusion on this North-South issue is that while some of us look at the geographical boundary, others are looking at the cultural boundary.
Now IMO, when you look at it with a long term historical prespective, than the political-geograhical boundaries are more important than the short term cultural shifts. So for me, the Ohio River still makes an excellent geographical boundary.
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