Alabama is a state of the United States that is part of the southern states. For a long time it was shaped by the plantation agriculture of a small white upper class and by slavery by Afro-Americans, who make up about a quarter of the population. After the end of Reconstruction, the interests of the agrarian elite continued through discrimination such as racial segregation until the 1970s. After the Second World War, the economy of the state, which is still one of the poorest in the country, diversified.
Alabama/North
Cities near the Tennessee River:
1 Decatur
2
Florence
3 Huntsville - Space and Rocket Museum, birthplace of
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Alabama/Middle
4 Birmingham -
largest city in the state
5 Tuscaloosa - Headquarters of the
University of Alabama
Alabama/South
6 Montgomery - Capital of
Alabama and former Confederate capital.
7 Auburn - Home of Auburn
University, the second largest university in the state.
8 Dothan - -
The area is the most important peanut growing area in the United States.
Alabama/Gulf Coast
9Mobile Tensaw River Delta
10 Mobile -
Alabama's only major port and largest city near the Gulf Coast.
Horseshoe Bend National Military Park is a national park that was a site of last important battle of the Creek War on March 27, 1814 between American forces and native tribes.
Little River Canyon National Preserve or May's Gulf as it is locally known is a picturesque nature reserve situated near Fort Payne, Alabama.
Russell Cave National Monument is an important archaeological site of pre Columbian Native American cultures that once lived here
Trail of Tears is historic term given to several paths that were used by the native tribes of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole during forceful relocation to a state of Oklahoma in 1831.
By plane
None of the airports in Alabama have an international
connection, despite being partly in the name. All airports only serve
destinations within the United States. The airports, sorted by passenger
numbers, are:
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport,
5900 Messer Airport Hwy., Birmingham, AL 35212.
Huntsville
International Airport, 1000 Glenn Hearn Blvd., Huntsville, AL 35824.
Mobile Regional Airport, 8400 Airport Blvd., Mobile, AL 36608.
Montgomery Regional Airport, 4445 Selma Hwy., Montgomery, AL 36108.
Dothan Regional Airport, 800 Airport Dr., Dothan, AL 36350.
Northwest
Alabama Regional Airport, 1729 T Ed Campbell Dr., Muscle Shoals, AL
35661.
By train
Amtrak operates the Crescent across the state:
Train pair 19 (southbound) operates daily from New York City and
Washington, D.C. to New Orleans and the 20 train pair (northbound) in
reverse daily. En route stops in Alabama are Anniston, Birmingham and
Tuscaloosa. Both seating and sleeping cars are included in this train,
and there is also a restaurant car, a café and a lounge. Amtrak offers
daily bus transfers from Tuscaloosa to Capital Trailways via Brent,
Marion, Selma, Camden, Thomasville, Grove Hill, Jackson, Mount Vernon to
Mobile and daily in reverse.
By bus
Greyhound buses stop at 40
locations in Alabama.
In the street
Alabama is accessible via
six interstate highways:
Interstate I10 intersects the state
east-west on the south at Mobile;
Interstate I20 enters the state to
the east, merges with Interstate I59 at Birmingham and exits the state
southwest;
Interstate I22 begins in Birmingham and heads northwest;
Interstate I59 reaches northeast Alabama and meets Interstate I20 in
Birmingham;
Interstate I65 reaches Alabama in the north, traverses
Birmingham and Montgomery, and terminates in Mobile;
Interstate I85
enters the state to the east and terminates in Montgomery.
Festivals
Gulf Shores hosts the annual crab festival in October.
Over 300 vendors then offer painting, handicrafts and of course lots of
crabs. Music will be played on three stages throughout the festival.
Over 200,000 people attend the festival annually; in the south it is one
of the top 20 events. In 2006 the event celebrates its 35th birthday.
Hike
Believe it or not, Alabama offers some acceptable hiking
opportunities. One of the best areas is the Sipsey Wilderness.
Alabama is located in the southeastern United States. Its access to
the sea is restricted to 84 km of coastline, where its only port is
located, in Mobile Bay. The average elevation of the state is 150 m and
the highest point is Mount Cheaha, 734 m, in the Appalachian Mountains,
northeast of the state.
With an area of 135,765 km², Alabama has
several natural regions: the eastern foothills of the Appalachian
Mountains, which forms the Great Valley and occupies much of Alabama;
the strip of very fertile clay land, called the Black Belt, which
extends along the central part and towards the west of the state; the
coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico, formed of alluvial deposits; the
Piedmont Plateau to the north, with fertile sandstone and limestone
valleys, and the Cumberland Plateau, part of the Tennessee River Valley
region.
Alabama has an extensive hydrographic network, much of it
navigable. The main systems are the Warrior-Tombidge and the one formed
by the Coosa-Tallapoosa-Alabama-Mobile rivers. The Tennessee River and
the Chattahoochee River also run through Alabama. With the exception of
the Tennessee River and its tributaries, all river flows flow into the
Gulf of Mexico. The state has no significant natural lakes, but it does
have dams built during the 1930s during the New Deal by the Tennessee
Valley Authority and the Alabama Power Company. Among these artificial
lakes, those built in Tennessee (Guntersville, Wheeler and Wilson) and
those that have used the waters of the Coosa rivers (Lake Weiss) and
Chattahoochee (Walter F. George Reservation) stand out.
65% of
the state is covered by forests (3% of this territory is protected by
the government) where oaks, pines, magnolias, cypresses and walnut trees
grow. This enormous forest wealth has turned this resource into one of
the pillars of the state's economy.
The mining resources in this
state are located mainly in the central and northern area, especially in
the Birmingham area, where coal and iron ore deposits are found. The
largest coal mines are operated in Warrior, Cahaba and Coosa. Likewise,
there are marble formations (in Talladega and Coosa counties), and
commercially exploited oil deposits in Choctaw County, in the southeast.
Alabama is also rich in bauxite, manganese, mica, graphite and clay.
The state enjoys a humid subtropical climate due to its low latitude,
its proximity to the Tropic of Cancer, and its exposure to advections
from the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Köppen climate classification,
it is a Cfa climate. In general, the closer to the coast the more
tropical characteristics the climate will have and the further inland
the climate will have more continental nuances (especially in
Appalachia). This type of climate is characterized by warm and humid
conditions most of the year, but with a clear four-season thermal
regime. In this way, it can be said that winters in Alabama will be very
mild, especially on the coast, and will allow continuous development of
vegetation twelve months of the year. This is why the average
temperature of the coldest month will range between 8 °C and 12 °C,
while the average summer temperature will almost always be between 25 °C
and 30 °C. It is important to note that although these are relatively
high temperatures and we are in a medium-low latitude (30ºN-33ºN), the
annual thermal oscillation is quite large for its context. This is a
normal characteristic of temperate and subtropical climates on the
eastern side, where on many occasions, the general atmospheric
circulation causes important continental advections. These advections
will be more powerful the larger the continent. In the case of Alabama,
continental air easily arrives from Canada, the Great Prairies and the
Midwest due to the lack of orographic barriers from the Great Plains and
the Mississippi Valley, which causes some heat waves in summer
(associated with the low North American pressure) and eventual cold
waves that leave unusual and rare frosts as they pass through this
state, associated with the cold Canadian anticyclone. For this same
reason, winters are especially variable, in fact it is common for
temperatures from 0 °C to 26 °C to be reached on the coast in the same
month of January. In general terms, average annual temperatures range
between 16 °C and 20 °C. The lowest values (14 °C-15 °C) are reached in
the Appalachians and the Piedmont, and as we enter the Deep South the
values increase significantly, reaching 21-22 °C on average. barrier
islands of the Gulf Coast of Mexico (Dauphin Island, île-aux-Herbes, Mon
Louis Island, Ono Island, Cayo Perdido,...)
Regarding the
rainfall regime, it is interesting to note that, although rainfall is
abundant or very abundant and regular throughout the year, there is a
clear summer maximum and a winter minimum centered in autumn (without a
drought ever occurring at any time). ). The subtropical condition of
Alabama's climate determines the alternation between the precipitation
generating mechanisms of the tropical world and the temperate world.
Tropical mechanisms predominate during the warm months in which the
south and southeast flow favors the entry of tropical maritime air from
the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. This is because, on the one
hand, the North American continent overheats in summer, causing low
thermal pressure, and because, on the other hand, the Atlantic
subtropical anticyclones (Bermuda high pressure, Azores Anticyclone),
increase in intensity. latitude and strengthen in summer, causing air
circulation in a clockwise direction, and affecting both the Antilles
and the Southeastern United States with their winds from the East, South
or Southeast. These situations are what lead to the development of
tropical depressions, tropical storms, easterly waves and hurricanes on
the southern and eastern flanks of these anticyclones, common phenomena
in Alabama that can have devastating consequences. Apart from these
phenomena, simple convective storms are also very common, resulting from
heat, humidity and instability, and which usually occur in the
afternoons. In winter, the configuration of the Canadian anticyclone in
the interior of the continent establishes a clear regime of
northwesterly winds, with cool, dry, sunny and stable weather
predominating. This dry weather is more common in autumn. Winter
precipitation is due mostly to frontal systems in the temperate world,
or to some tropical events that occur when continental flow subsides.
Thus, it is possible that in some episodes of winter there may also be
small convective outbreaks, or timid incursions of the trade winds and
southeasterly winds on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. These winter
precipitations are always in the form of rain. Snow is very rare,
occurring only occasionally in the extreme north of the State and in the
high areas of the Appalachians. Globally, rainfall is abundant or very
abundant in the coastal plain strip of the Gulf of Mexico (1600-1850 mm
annually), while towards the interior of the state it becomes more
modest (1200-1400 mm annually). In the Appalachians, the orographic
effect causes rainfall values similar to those of the coast to be
reached.
The name "Alabama" goes back to the French name of the Native
American tribe from the Muskogee language family known today as Alabama.
The French-born settlers called them "Alibamons" in an attempt to render
a similar-sounding Choctaw word to their ears. This word in turn denoted
the activity of cutting and gathering herbs or grasses.
The
Alabama tribe was first mentioned in 1540 by participants in the
Hernando de Sotos expedition. Garcilasso de la Vega referred to it as
Alibamo, others called it Alibamu or Limamu French called it Alibamons
in 1702, accordingly the river was called Rivière des Alibamons on
French maps.
Alabama has the unofficial nicknames Cotton State
(German cotton state), Yellowhammer State (German Goldspechtstaat) and
Heart of Dixie (German Heart of the South).
Paleo indians
The arrival of the first humans is
believed to be around 9500 BC. assumed. The sea level was still
considerably lower than today, so that the coastline ran further south.
North of the Montevallo Valley, the dense coniferous forest turned into
an oak-hickory forest, south of which this type of forest had existed
for some time. People hunted the sometimes huge representatives of the
megafauna, which soon became extinct, but also rabbits and other mammals
and birds. Northern Alabama seems to have been of greater importance for
longer stays in the long-distance migrations of the small groups,
perhaps 25 to 50 people in number. In addition to Clovis blades, there
were those from the Redstone, Quad (after a site on the Tennessee River
where more than 200 blades were found) and Beaver Lake periods. The most
important site is the Dust Cave (approx. 8500 BC), a cave near Florence.
From about 8500 to 3000 B.C., remains of the
Archaic period can be found in Alabama. Around 8500 BC the previously
cool climate changed into a much warmer one. The hunter-gatherer groups
probably lived in small family groups. The nomadic groups gathered the
fruit of hickory, then acorns and chestnuts, added blackberries,
Muscadinia rotundifolia (a species of vine) and persimmons, a yellow
fruit the Powhatan called pessamin and belonging to the genus Diospyros,
and pokeweed or pokeweed. Deer, turkey, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits,
turtles, snakes, small birds and numerous species of fish were hunted.
Their food leftovers accumulated to form so-called middens, which were
up to 5 m high and were mostly located along the rivers. Arthritis can
also be detected in the early groups, along with healed broken bones
that required care from the relatives; only a few were significantly
older than 40 years.
Based on the projectile tips, the Archaic
period is divided into an early (about 8500 to 6000 BC), middle (up to
4000 BC) and later phase (up to 1000 BC). The more favorable living
conditions allowed the number of residents to increase significantly,
living together in groups of 50 to 150 people. The temperature in the
middle Archaic phase was significantly higher than today, and the area
was also drier. During this time, long-distance trade routes emerged,
such as getting to Flint from northeast Alabama; wars can be proven for
the first time, because skeletons were found in which projectile tips
were still stuck. At the same time, the settlements grew larger.
From about 4000 BC the temperature dropped to about today's level. The
number of settlements, especially in the southeast, increased
significantly. More people also settled in the valleys of Tennessee,
Tombigbee and Alabama River. Pottery was first made around 1500 BC, a
technique probably adopted from Georgia and South Carolina; they also
experimented with horticulture. So pumpkin, sunflower and corn were
grown. Long-distance goods increased in number, including soapstone,
greenstone, and mica from eastern Alabama.
The changes in the now more sedentary population represented a change so drastic that it marks the beginning of the Woodland period for archaeology. One of the largest sites next to Moundville (20 km south of Tuscaloosa), which was created around 1120, had more than 1000 inhabitants and contained 29 mounds that towered up to 20 m, is the Bottle Creek site, which has been a National Historic Landmark since 1995 which found at least 18 mounds. From about 1250, this site was the focus of the Pensacola culture, traces of which stretch from Choctawhatchee Bay in western Florida to the eastern shore of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana. It was closely associated with the early 900s Mississippi culture and the Moundville people of the Black Warrior River, and reached its greatest density in Mobile Bay in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and in the southern portions of the Tombigbee and Alabama River valleys .
Four Native American groups were important to Alabama: the Chickasaw,
the Choctaw, the Muskogee, and the Cherokee.
Around 1800, the
Choctaw were one of the largest Indian groups in the South, numbering
around 15,000. They lived in about 50 villages in western Alabama and
Mississippi. Of the three major groups, only the eastern one lived
partially in Alabama, primarily along the upper Chickasawhay River and
lower Tombigbee. Only between 1540 and 1699 did the three groups move
into the common area, with the Alabama group probably being connected to
Moundville. Early on, the demand for slaves from Europe's sugar cane
plantations gave rise to wars, such as the Creek and Chickasaw, who once
captured 2,000 Choctaw using European weapons and sold them as slaves to
the British West Indies. When the French established themselves in
Biloxi, the Choctaw acquired rifles from them and used them to fight
back. When the French had to give up North America in 1763, the Choctaw
intensified their trade contacts with the British, which, however, were
also defeated. In 1784 they signed a peace treaty with Spain and in 1786
with the USA. In the treaties of Fort Confederation of 1802 and Mount
Dexter of 1805, they had to cede large tracts of land. In 1826 the
Choctaw adopted a constitution. Despite economic and political efforts,
they were forced to abandon their lands east of the Mississippi in 1830
(Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek).
The Muskogee (Creek), the
second powerful tribal confederation, had to give up the country in 1830
and move west, they also go back to the Mississippi culture. In the 16th
century, Spanish violence and, above all, epidemics had dispersed the
groups there, which were only able to organize themselves stably again
in the 17th century. Some groups settled on the Chattahoochee River, on
the lower Tallapoosa River and on the middle Coosa River in east-central
Alabama. Around 1680 their number is estimated at 9,000, 100 years later
there were around 20,000, and in 1830 more than 21,000. From 1690 to
1715 they lived in Georgia, where they began procuring slaves for the
plantations. At the same time they attacked the Spanish in Florida, who
almost gave up in 1706. At the end of the 18th century, settlers
increasingly began to penetrate their area, and in 1811 they visited
Tecumseh to gain support for his Pan-Indian uprising. In 1813-1814 they
rose up against the Americans in the Creek War, but were defeated. The
treaties of Fort Jackson (1814) and Indian Springs (1825) required the
Creek to give up all of their territory in Georgia and move to Alabama.
Most of the Creek resisted this, but they too had to move westwards in
1830 (path of tears).
Only in the late 18th century did some
Cherokee move to northern Alabama. One of their groups, the Chickamauga,
sided with the British and moved to Alabama from the Little Tennessee
Hiwassee River in eastern Tennessee. They founded two villages near
Bridgeport. But they were defeated by US troops in 1794. In 1806 their
land was reduced. In 1813/1814 they nevertheless fought on the side of
the US troops in the Creek War. By 1817, Tennessee troops were
terrorizing the Cherokee in the Sequatchie and Wills River valleys, for
which the US paid the victims $25,500
The mass deaths were triggered by
Spanish invasions, which brought smallpox to the country. In 1519 Alonso
Álvarez de Pineda landed in Mobile Bay. In 1541 the Spaniard Hernando de
Soto arrived in Alabama from the Appalachia. In 1699 the French came
from the south and founded the first colony and in 1702 the city of Fort
Louis, which was the capital of the French colony of Louisiana until
1722. In 1711 the city of Mobile was founded.
In 1763 the English
conquered Alabama and in 1779 the Spanish conquered southern Alabama. In
1798, Alabama (excluding the coast with the city of Mobile, which was
still part of Spanish Florida) formed part of the Mississippi Territory.
In 1813 Mobile also became part of the territory.
Four years later, in 1817, Mississippi became the
20th state in what is now the Union's borders, and what remained was
organized as Alabama Territory. Finally, on December 14, 1819, Alabama
became the 22nd state of the United States. On January 11, 1861, it was
the fourth state to leave the Union and on February 4 was one of the
founding members of the Confederate States of America.
Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, was the first capital of the
Confederate States of America (American Civil War) between February 4
and May 29, 1861. Jefferson Davis was sworn in on the steps of the
Alabama State Capitol.
Until the Civil War, in which Alabama
participated on the side of the Southern States, state policy was
affected by tensions between the poorer farmers of the low mountain
ranges in the Northeast and the rich plantation owners in the coastal
plains, particularly in the so-called Black Belt around Selma and
Montgomery its particularly fertile black soil and good transport routes
along the rivers. During secession, Montgomery served as the capital of
the Confederate States of America in the spring of 1861. After the Civil
War came the era of Reconstruction, the military occupation of the South
by the North. Animosity towards the north persisted into the late 20th
century.
During the Depression of the 1930s, Alabama was a stronghold of
support for Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies. Traditional loyalty to the
Democrats, enduring from the Reconstruction era, combined with the
poverty of much of the country to make the New Deal particularly
popular. The state also benefited greatly from public investment, e.g. by the Tennessee
Valley Authority, since both construction and operation of the dams on
the Tennessee River in the north of the state created jobs; the Rural
Electrification Act (REA) was particularly important to the rural state.
After World War II, a period of transformation in Alabama politics
and society began. Here, bitter struggles over racial segregation were
fought, and the increasing influence of civil rights activists on the
one hand and that of Christian fundamentalism on the other hand led to a
change from a stronghold of one party to a bastion of the other between
1955 and 1985. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks both resided in
Montgomery. Governor George Wallace was also known far beyond the
borders of Alabama as an opponent of integration. Economically, with the
onset of modernization, an influx of population from the northern states
began. In 1967, the Supreme Court forced Alabama to become one of the
last states in the United States to lift the ban on intermarriage.
According to data from the United States Census Bureau, the state's
total population is 4.4 million, with an annual growth rate of 0.4%.
24.9% of Alabama residents are under the age of 18, and 13.1% have
turned 65. The infant mortality rate is 1.05%, well above the rate in
the United States, making it the second worst state in this regard.
The urban population of this state is 67.7% (1996), below the
national level (79.9%). The urbanization process in Alabama accelerated
starting in the 1960s, when the population began to emigrate from rural
areas (especially from the Black Belt) to the northern states and
industrial centers. The population tended to be concentrated in 10 of
the state's 67 counties, given the progressive growth of the cities and
suburbs of Birmingham, Mobile, Gadsden, Florence, Montgomery and
Huntsville.
With a workforce of 2.17 million people, its
unemployment rate is low as Alabama has an unemployment rate of 4.8%
(1999). The average annual income per capita is $19,026 (1998), and per
family unit is $36,266, about $2,500 below the national average. The
rate of population living below the poverty rate is 14.5%, which makes
it the thirteenth least favored state in this regard, although the
situation is improving since in 1990 it was already in fifth place.
Alabama's current constitution dates from 1901. With over 300,000 words and more than 800 amendments to the constitution that have been added since 1901, it is by far the longest of any US state.
The legislature of Alabama, the Alabama Legislature, consists of two chambers: the 35-member Senate and the 105-member House of Representatives. Both the senators and the members of the House of Representatives are elected for four-year terms.
The governor of Alabama is the head of the executive branch of the state, i.e. the head of government who is directly elected to four-year terms. There is a term limit of two terms of office, i. H. a politician may be in office for a maximum of eight years. However, the limitation to two terms of office only applies to consecutive periods. If there are breaks in office, a governor may be re-elected any number of times. The Constitution requires the governor to deliver a State of the State Address to both houses of Parliament at least once per legislature, addressing the current state of the state. Republican Kay Ellen Ivey is currently governor and party colleague Will Ainsworth is lieutenant governor.
Originally, Alabama was a bastion of the Democrats as part of the
Solid South. Between 1828 and 1960 no Republican won presidential
elections here – with the exception of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and
1872. The Democrats aligned their political content during this time to
the needs of the agricultural societies of the South, which were
characterized by the conservative white upper class. It was only with
the onset of the civil rights movement in the 1950s that Democrats began
to liberalize at the federal level and advocate desegregation. This
alienated them from their previous constituency in the South. As in the
other states in this region, the Democrats have lost the presidential
elections here since 1964. Only Jimmy Carter, who originally advocated
segregation as governor of Georgia, was still able to win as a Democrat
in Alabama in 1976. Since then, the Republicans have dominated the
conservative state in nationwide elections by a large margin over the
Democrats, and the dominance of the Democrats, which initially persisted
in regional elections, has been broken since the 2000s. Alabama, along
with neighboring Mississippi, has the lowest proportion of swing voters
in the country and is therefore little influenced by national political
trends.
In the meantime, Alabama has changed the structure of its
society from a cotton and plantation state to a modern region shaped by
future industries. Nevertheless, the conservative dominance has been
preserved there. Only the counties in the so-called Black Belt and in
the Mississippi Delta region, which have a majority of black voters, are
clearly dominated by the Democrats. In addition, the Democrats have
better conditions in the two large cities of Birmingham and Montgomery,
which are characterized by the steel and mining industries. Since the
2010 election, six out of seven members of the US House of
Representatives have been Republicans. Since the Senate by-election on
December 13, 2017, the Democrats have provided a US senator in Doug
Jones for the first time since 1976, who represents the state together
with Republican Richard Shelby in Congress. In the 2020 Senate election,
however, Jones clearly lost to his Republican opponent Tommy Tuberville.
In the Electoral College, Alabama has had nine electors since 1972;
In 1968 there were ten.
The public school system was created in 1854, and remained segregated
for whites and blacks until 1954, when the Supreme Court of the United
States ruled its unconstitutionality, although desegregation was carried
out very slowly. The largest institutions of higher education are the
University of Alabama (with campuses in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and
Huntsville), Auburn University in Montgomery, and the University of
South Alabama.
The State Supreme Court Library was established in
1828, and in 1901 Alabama founded the Alabama Archives, the first
publicly funded state archives in the United States. The libraries of
the universities of Alabama, Sandford, and Auburn, as well as the
Birmingham Public Library, house numerous and very important documents
on the history of the state. The Tuskegee Institute Library stands out
for its holdings on black history.
The most important museums in
Alabama are the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Southern Museum of Fine
Arts in Mobile, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and the
Kennedy-Douglass House in Florence. Likewise, numerous historic house
museums are open to the public, in Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery and in
the Black Belt.
Anthropologists, folklorists and linguists have
been interested in the cultural manifestations of the inhabitants of the
mountainous area in the north of the state, where unique language
patterns and a unique vocabulary have developed and survived, as well as
numerous legends, myths, superstitions, songs, and local stories.
Native Alabama writers include Joseph G. Baldwin, Johnson Jones
Hooper, Sydney Lanier, Mary Johnson, Hellen Keller, T. S. Stribling, and
Harper Lee.
Alabama has twenty-three public lakes, twenty-four
state parks, and four state forests. Other attractions for tourists
include the Florence Museum, the Alabama Rocket and Space Museum,
Sequoyah Caverns, DeSoto Falls, Little River Canyon, the First White
House of the Confederacy, and the Birmingham and Montgomery Zoos. During
the summers the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is held in Anniston.
Lynyrd Skynyrd's famous song Sweet Home Alabama is a response to a
song by Canadian singer Neil Young called "Alabama" in which he
criticized slavery and racism in the Southern United States.
The most popular sports in Alabama are football, baseball,
basketball, and auto racing. The state does not have teams in any of the
major professional leagues. Instead, the college football teams Alabama
Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers, Southeastern Conference rivals, stand
out.
The University of Alabama football team is one of the oldest
in the United States since it began competing in 1892. Its program has
since become the most traditional in the country, since throughout its
history has won 17 national championships, in the years 1925, 1926,
1930, 1934, 1941, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011,
2012, 2015 and the most recent in 2017. Alabama achieved 29 Conference
titles, the most recent in 1999, 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2015. It has
played 61 bowls and won 35, more than any other university. Among them,
one victory in the College Football Playoff National Championship in the
2015 season, three victories in the BCS National Championship Game in
the 2009, 2011 and 2012 seasons, four Rose Bowl victories in 1925, 1930,
1934 and 1945, eight Sugar Bowl in 1961, 1963, 1966, 1975, 1977, 1978,
1979 and 1993, four Cotton Bowls in 1941, 1980, 2005 and 2015, and four
Orange Bowls in 1942, 1952, 1962 and 1965.
The team plays at home
at Bryant-Denny Stadium, with a capacity of 101,821, the seventh largest
stadium in the country.
The Talladega oval is one of the most
prestigious in the NASCAR Cup Series of motorsports. For its part, the
Barber speedway has hosted IndyCar Series and Rolex Sports Car Series
races.
A WCT tennis tournament was held in Birmingham between
1973 and 1980. The PGA Championship and Tradition have been held at
Shoal Creek Golf Course.
Natural athletes from Alabama are boxer
Joe Louis, athletes Jesse Owens and Percy Beard, pilot Davey Allison and
golfer Hubert Green.
The Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, with a collection of around 17,000 objects, is one of the most important art museums in the southeastern United States. Individual collection departments are among the most important of their kind in the USA. Other art museums are the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, which shows 2300 works of art mainly by American artists, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery.
The National Park Service has nine national parks, one national heritage area and three national trails for Alabama. There are also 38 National Historic Landmarks, seven National Natural Landmarks and 1329 entries in the National Register of Historic Places (as of January 11, 2022).
Real GDP per capita was $42,124 in 2016 (50-state
average: $57,118; national rank: 46 out of 50). The unemployment rate
was 3.5% in November 2017 (national average: 4.1%). The state is one of
the poorest and structurally weakest in the country.
Agriculture
Crops are mainly cultivated in the Alabama River plain, especially
cotton, corn, sugar cane, tobacco, potatoes and forage crops. Cattle and
pigs are mainly kept in animal husbandry.
Alabama's land is
covered 50 percent by pine and deciduous forests and has a significant
forestry and logging industry.
Industry in the 19th
and 20th centuries was primarily focused on textiles (mostly cotton) and
cement, and an iron and steel industry in the Birmingham area (and the
suburbs of Bessemer and Irondale), where iron ore is more prevalent.
Meanwhile, auto manufacturing (Mercedes-Benz U.S. International plant in
Vance/Tuscaloosa County, Honda plant in Lincoln and Hyundai in
Montgomery) and technology (NASA in Huntsville, Airbus Americas in
Mobile) play an increasing role. The intensified immigration policy of
this state stands in the way of the establishment of new industrial
companies.
rail transport
In 2007, 25 railway companies
operated a rail network of 5302 kilometers in Alabama. 2,941,478
wagonloads with a total of 161,500,000 tons were transported. The most
important export good was coal with 12.1 million tons. The most
important imported good was also coal with 29.5 million tons. 6.5
million tons of stones, sand and gravel were exported. With 4.7 million
tons of paper and pulp products, Alabama is the largest exporter of such
products.
Amtrak serves the cities of Anniston, Birmingham and
Tuscaloosa through two rail services, The Crescent (New York-New
Orleans) and The Sunset Limited (Orlando-Los Angeles). A total of 47,944
passengers boarded and disembarked at Alabama in 2008.