Alabama

Alabama, a state located in the Southeastern United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to its north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico south and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the U.S. states. Alabama boasts the most inland waterways in any state, with 1,500 miles (2.400 km)

Alabama is known as the Yellowhammer State after its state bird. Alabama is also known by the “Heart of Dixie”, and the “Cotton State”. The state tree is longleaf pine and the state flower the camellia. Alabama’s capital is Montgomery, and its largest city by population and area is Huntsville. Its oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. Greater Birmingham is Alabama’s largest metropolitan area and its economic center.

Originally home to many native tribes, present-day Alabama was a Spanish territory beginning in the sixteenth century until the French acquired it in the early eighteenth century. The British occupied the territory from 1763 to 1813, and then lost it in the American Revolutionary War. Mobile was part of Spanish West Florida from 1763 to 1813. In December 1819, Alabama was recognized as a state. Alabama was a major cotton producer during the antebellum period and was a popular destination for slave labor from African Americans. The state seceded in 1861 from the United States to be part of the Confederate States of America. Montgomery was its first capital. It rejoined the Union in the year 1868. Alabama would experience decades of economic hardship after the American Civil War. This was due in part to the state’s dependence on agriculture and a few cash cropping. Similar to other former slave states, Alabamian legislators employed Jim Crow laws which disenfranchised and discriminated against African Americans and also Alabama’s French Creole population from the late 19th century up until the 1960s.