All About Alabama
Alabama is a constituent state of the United States of America. Admitted as the 22nd state in 1819, Alabama comprises 51,705 square miles (133,915 square kilometres) forming a roughly rectangular shape, elongated in a north–south direction. Tennessee is the bordering state to the north, Georgia to the east, and Mississippi to the west. The Florida panhandle blocks Alabama's access to the Gulf of Mexico except in the state's southwestern corner, where Mobile Bay is located. Montgomery is the state capital.
The state offers much topographical diversity. The rich agricultural valley of the Tennessee River occupies the extreme northern part of the state. In northeastern Alabama the broken terrain of the southern fringe of the Appalachian Highlands begins and continues in a southwesterly progression across the northern half of the state. Below that the band of prairie lowland known as the Black Belt has rich soils that once cradled a rural, cotton-producing way of life central to the state's development. Further south stretch piney woods and then coastal plains until one reaches the striking ranks of azaleas blossoming in the Gulf breezes and the moss-draped live oaks of Mobile.
The landscape of Alabama has been the scene of many of the major crises in the settlement of the continent and in the development of the modern nation. It was a battleground for European powers vying for the lands of the New World, for the fights between the white settlers and the Indians, for the struggles between North and South during the Civil War, and for the forces of economic and social change that have extensively altered many aspects of the Deep South in the years since World War II. Although Alabama continues to trail near the bottom of the states in many significant social rankings, there has been improvement in race relations, particularly in school desegregation and in the election of blacks to political offices. The state's economy has also shown marked improvement. Yet Alabamians and outsiders alike tend to agree that the state's troubled heritage is often still apparent.
Although the average elevation of Alabama is about 500 feet (150 metres) above sea level, this represents a gradation from 2,407 feet (734 metres) atop Cheaha Mountain in the northeast down across the Black Belt to the flat, low, southern Gulf Coast counties. Within this gradation, several relief regions may be distinguished. The southern extremities of the Appalachians cover almost half the state. In the far north the Cumberland Plateau region, segmented by river action, thrusts south across the state line. Altitudes rise to 1,800 feet in the more rugged eastern portions. The Great Appalachian Valley forms another marked division to the east. A small triangular portion of the Piedmont Plateau juts across from Georgia at an altitude averaging 1,000 feet.
Among the 50 states, the relative status of Alabama may be indicated by its income per capita: it has ranked close to the bottom of the economic scale for a number of years. This low status results, in part, from the depressed state of agriculture, which employs a large segment of the population. Rural poverty thus drags down the state average, concealing more promising developments and the much stronger economic base that exists in the urban areas. An important development in the Alabama economy has been the emergence of Birmingham as a financial and commercial centre, especially as the home of major state banks, regional utilities, national insurance companies, and international construction concerns. Federal funds support programs affecting agriculture, public education, a wide range of health and welfare projects, conservation, urban development and public works, and highway construction. The federal government maintains the Air University in Montgomery and the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center and the Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, as well as several veterans' hospitals and a part of the Tennessee Valley Authority operations.
The state maintains many parks and several large public lakes. Waterskiing, boating, and stock-car racing rank among the most popular recreational activities among Alabamians. The Alabama International Speedway at Talladega attracts hundreds of thousands of NASCAR auto-racing enthusiasts each year. Three dog-racing tracks draw many bettors. College gridiron football, especially the teams fielded by the state's two major universities, elicits avid devotion from a large proportion of the state's residents.
Together, the six major rivers of Alabama provide about 1,300 miles of navigable waterways, while Mobile Bay has been deepened by a ship channel. Mobile developed as a modernized port and ranks among the top dozen seaports of the nation. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway, a 234-mile canal opened in 1985, connected two of the state's main river systems. Although railroad transportation, as elsewhere in the United States, has suffered a relative decline in Alabama, bus, truck, and airline traffic have increased in the state.
