The
Southern United States—commonly referred to as the
American South,
Dixie, or simply
the South—is a region of the
United States of America. The South does not exactly match the geographic south, but is predominantly located in the southeastern corner;
Arizona and
New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part of the Southern United States, while
West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries.
