Southeastern United States

Southeastern United States
Population (2009)
• Total	78,320,977
Time zone	EST/CST

Dark red states are virtually always included in definitions of the Southeastern United States. Light red states are considered "southeastern" with less frequency.

The Southeastern United States, colloquially referred to as the Southeast, is the eastern portion of the Southern United States, and the southern portion of the Eastern United States. It is one of the most populous regions in the United States of America.

Demographics

There is no official Census Bureau definition of the southeastern United States. However, the Association of American Geographers defines the southeastern United States as Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

With over 18 million people, Florida is the most populous of the states. It is followed by Georgia, with over 9.8 million residents, and followed closely behind by North Carolina with over 9.6 million people.

Jacksonville, Charlotte, and Memphis are the largest cities in the region by city-proper population; however, Miami, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Tampa are the most populous metropolitan areas in the region.

History

Main article: History of the Southern United States

Culture

Main article: Culture of the Southern United States

The predominant culture of the South has its origins with the settlement of the region by British colonists and African slaves in the 17th century, large groups of English, Scots and Ulster-Scots.

Economy

In the last two generations, the South has changed dramatically. In recent decades it has seen a boom in its service economy, manufacturing base, high technology industries, and the financial sector. Examples of this include the surge in tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast; numerous new automobile production plants such as Mercedes-Benz in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama; Kia in West Point, Georgia; the BMW production plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina; Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee; the GM manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee; and the Nissan North American headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee; the two largest research parks in the country: Research Triangle Park in the Triangle area of North Carolina (the world's largest) and the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama (the world's fourth largest); and the corporate headquarters of major banking corporations Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina; Regions Financial Corporation, AmSouth Bancorporation, and BBVA Compass in Birmingham; SunTrust Banks and the district headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and BB&T in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The region is home many Fortune 500 companies including 20 in Virginia, 16 in Florida, 15 in North Carolina, and 14 in Georiga. This economic expansion has enabled parts of the South to boast of some of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States. The many automotive manufacturing plants in Alabama, primarily those owned by automakers Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Honda,^{[citation needed]} in coordination with countless automotive supplier corporations, have made the state of Alabama the number one center for automotive manufacturing and production, having surpassed Detroit in recent years.^{[citation needed]} Alabama is also home to a large-scale manufacturing project owned by the German steel megacorporation Thyssen-Krupp, which operates a massive, state-of-the-art facility in the Alabama port city of Mobile.

Higher education

University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida

The Southeastern United States is home to a number of prominent universities, with several large research universities of longstanding significance (such as University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Duke University, Elon University, High Point University, Wake Forest University, North Carolina State University, University of Maryland, Clemson University, University of South Carolina, University of Florida, Florida International University, University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, Nova Southeastern University, Florida State University, University of Miami, University of Virginia, University of Kentucky, Vanderbilt University, University of Tennessee, Auburn University, University of Alabama, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Alabama at Huntsville, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi, Louisiana Tech University, Louisiana State University, Tulane, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Louisiana at Monroe, and University of Southern Mississippi) exerting an influence beyond the region.

Research Triangle Park, in the Raleigh-Durham urban area of North Carolina has emerged (over a nearly 50-year existence) as a major hub of technology, governmental and biotechnological research and development, as has the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park in Richmond. The Cummings Research Park in the Huntsville, Alabama area is the second largest research complex in the nation. It is one of the biggest areas of aerospace engineering and missile defense technology.^{[citation needed]} Huntsville is also home to Redstone Arsenal, United States Army Missile Command, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and many other key government, military, and aerospace agencies. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida is the largest laboratory in the world devoted to the study of magnetism.^{[citation needed]} The University of South Carolina is currently constructing a research campus in downtown Columbia, and the University is the nation’s only National Science Foundation-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells.

Duke University, Emory University, the University of Florida, Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tulane, Vanderbilt University, the University of Maryland at College Park, and the University of Virginia are the only educational institutions in the Southeastern United States that are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). The AAU is an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education.

Largest cities

These are the largest cities in the Southeastern region of the United States by population, according to the United States Census Bureau:

Rank	City	State	Population
1	Jacksonville	Florida	&10000000000813518000000813,518[citation needed]
2	Charlotte	North Carolina	&10000000000731424000000731,424
3	Memphis	Tennessee	&10000000000676640000000676,640
4	Baltimore	Maryland	&10000000000620961000000620,961
5	Washington	District of Columbia	&10000000000617996000000617,996
6	Nashville	Tennessee	&10000000000605473000000605,473[citation needed]
7	Louisville	Kentucky	&10000000000566503000000566,503[citation needed]
8	Virginia Beach	Virginia	&10000000000437994000000437,994
9	Miami	Florida	&10000000000433136000000433,136
10	Atlanta	Georgia	&10000000000420003000000420,003
11	Raleigh	North Carolina	&10000000000405791000000405,791
12	Tampa	Florida	&10000000000343890000000343,890

• ^ a:  Jacksonville, Louisville and Nashville are consolidated city-counties; the population given is for the entire city excluding other incorporated places lying within the county limits.
  

Largest metropolitan areas, 2009

These are the fifteen metropolitan areas of the Southeastern region which exceed 1 million in population according to the United States Census Bureau's 2009 estimates:

Beyond Megalopolis by Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute, an attempt to update Jean Gottmann's work with current trends, defines two "megapolitan areas" contained within the Southeast, out of a total of ten such areas in the United States:

• "Piedmont" extending from North Carolina to Alabama
• "Peninsula" covering South Florida and Central Florida

Two others tie some areas on the margins of the Southeast to urban centers in other regions:

• "Gulf Coast" extending as far east as the western tip of Florida
• "Northeast" including much of eastern Virginia

Rank	Metropolitan Area	Anchor City	Population	State(s)
1	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach	Miami	5,547,051	Florida
2	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria	Washington D.C.	5,476,241	District of Columbia / Virginia / Maryland / West Virginia
3	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta	Atlanta	5,475,213	Georgia / Alabama
4	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater	Tampa	2,747,272	Florida
5	Baltimore-Towson	Baltimore	2,668,056	Maryland
6	Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford	Orlando	2,082,421	Florida
7	Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill	Charlotte	1,745,524	North Carolina / South Carolina
8	Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News	Norfolk	1,674,498	Virginia / North Carolina
9	Raleigh-Durham	Raleigh	1,625,827	North Carolina
10	Piedmont Triad	Greensboro	1,599,074	North Carolina
11	Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin	Nashville	1,582,264	Tennessee
12	Jacksonville	Jacksonville	1,328,144	Florida
13	Memphis	Memphis	1,304,926	Tennessee / Mississippi / Arkansas
14	Louisville-Jefferson County	Louisville	1,258,577	Kentucky/Indiana
15	Richmond	Richmond	1,238,187	Virginia
16	New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner	New Orleans	1,189,981	Louisiana
16	Birmingham-Hoover	Birmingham	1,131,070	Alabama

See also

• Southeastern mixed forests — Southeastern habitat
• Hammock (ecology) — Southeastern habitat
• East Coast of the United States — the southern Eastern Seaboard portion.

External links

• Flora Atlas of the Southeastern United States — by the North Carolina Botanical Garden & University of North Carolina Herbarium (NCU).
• Sea Level Changes in the Southeastern United States. Past, Present, and Future — University of South Florida (August 2011)
• Britannica Southeast U.S. - video on YouTube