Alabama is one of the fifty states that make up the United States of America. Its capital is Montgomery and its most populous city is Birmingham. It is located in the southern region of the country, in the Central Southeast division. It is bordered to the north by Tennessee, to the east by Georgia (the southern half of this border is formed by the Chattahoochee River), to the south by Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and to the west by Mississippi. It was admitted to the Union on December 14, 1819 as the 22nd state.
Many famous films such as Forrest Gump, Fried Green Tomatoes or The Notebook are set in Alabama.
ETYMOLOGY
The state is named after the Alabama River, which runs through it until it empties near Mobile. The word Alabama comes from the name of the Choctaw native tribe that inhabited the territory in ancient times, who called themselves Alibamu, which in English means I open the thicket.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
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 altitude of the state is 150 m and the highest point is Mount Cheaha, 734 m high, in the Appalachian Mountains, in the northeast of the state.
With an area of 135,765 km², Alabama is divided into several natural regions: the eastern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, which form the Great Valley and occupy a large part of Alabama; the highly fertile, clayey Black Belt that runs through the central and western parts of the state; the Gulf Coast Plain, made up of alluvial deposits; the Piedmont Plateau in the north, with fertile valleys of sandstone and limestone; and the Cumberland Plateau, which is part of the Tennessee River Valley region.
Alabama has an extensive hydrographic network, much of which is navigable. The main systems are the Warrior-Tombidge and the Coosa-Tallapoosa-Alabama-Mobile rivers. The Tennessee River and the Chattahoochee River also flow through Alabama. With the exception of the Tennessee River and its tributaries, all rivers flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The state has no significant natural lakes, but 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, the most notable are those built in Tennessee (Guntersville, Wheeler and Wilson) and those that have used the waters of the Coosa River (Weiss Lake) and Chattahoochee River (Walter F. George Reservation).
Sixty-five percent of the state is covered by forests (3% of this territory is protected by the government) where mainly oaks, pines, magnolias, cypresses and walnuts grow. This enormous forest wealth has made this resource one of the pillars of the state’s economy.
The mineral resources in this state are located mainly in the central and northern areas, especially in the Birmingham area, where coal and iron ore deposits are found. The largest coal mines are exploited in Warrior, Cahaba and Coosa. There are also 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.
Climate
The state enjoys a humid subtropical climate due to its low latitude, its proximity to the Tropic of Cancer and its exposure to the advections of the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Köppen climate classification, this is a Cfa climate. In general, the closer to the coast the more tropical the climate will be, and the further inland the climate will be more continental (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. Thus, winters in Alabama will be very mild, especially on the coast, and will allow for continuous vegetation development twelve months a year. This is why the average temperature of the coldest month will range between 8ºC and 12ºC, while the average temperature of summer will almost always be between 25ºC and 30ºC. It is important to note that despite the relatively high temperatures and the fact that we are at a medium-low latitude (30ºN-33ºN), the annual temperature range is quite large for its context. This is a normal characteristic of temperate and subtropical climates on the eastern coast, where the general atmospheric circulation often causes significant continental advections. The larger the continent, the more powerful these advections will be. In the case of Alabama, continental air easily reaches from Canada, the Great Prairies and the Midwest due to the absence of orographic barriers from the Great Plains and the Mississippi Valley, which causes some heat waves in summer (associated with the North American low pressure) and occasional cold waves that leave unusual and rare frosts in their path through this state, associated with the cold Canadian anticyclone. For this same reason, winters are especially variable; in fact, it is common for temperatures to reach from 0 ºC to 26 ºC on the coast in the same month of January. In general terms, average annual temperatures fluctuate between 16 ºC and 20 ºC. The lowest values (14ºC-15ºC) are reached in the Appalachians and the Piedmont, and as we move into the Deep South, the values increase significantly, reaching an average of 21-22ºC on the barrier islands of the Gulf Coast of Mexico (Dauphin Island, île-aux-Herbes, Mon Louis Island, Ono Island, Cayo Perdido,…)
As regards 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 centred in autumn (without drought ever occurring). The subtropical condition of the climate of Alabama determines the alternation between the precipitation-generating mechanisms of the tropical world and the temperate world. The tropical mechanisms predominate during the warm months when the flow from the South and Southeast favours the entry of maritime tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. This is due to the fact that, on the one hand, the North American continent overheats in summer, causing low thermal pressure, and on the other hand, the Atlantic subtropical anticyclones (Bermuda high pressure, Azores anticyclone) increase in latitude and strengthen in summer, causing air to circulate clockwise, and affecting both the Antilles and the Southeast of the 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. These phenomena are common in Alabama and can have devastating consequences. Apart from these phenomena, simple convective storms are also very common, the result of heat, humidity and instability, and they usually occur in the afternoons. In winter, the configuration of the Canadian anticyclone in the interior of the continent establishes a clear regime of north-westerly winds, with predominant cool, dry, sunny and stable weather. This dry weather is more common in autumn. Winter precipitation is mostly due to frontal systems from the temperate world, or to some tropical events that occur when the continental flow subsides. Thus, it is also possible that in some winter episodes there may be small convective outbreaks, or timid incursions of the trade winds and south-easterly winds on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. These winter precipitations are always in the form of rain. Snow is very rare, and only occurs occasionally in the northernmost part of the state and in the high areas of the Appalachians. Overall, precipitations are abundant or very abundant in the Gulf Coast Plain (1600-1850 mm annually), while towards the interior of the state they become more modest (1200-1400 mm annually). In the Appalachians, the orographic effect causes rainfall levels to be similar to those of the coast.
History
The territory that is now the state of Alabama was inhabited by Native Americans of the Cherokee, Creek (in Spanish, «crics»), Choctaw («chactas») and Chickasaw («chicazas») tribes. After the discoveries of Juan Ponce de León and Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the entire present-day southeastern United States was called Spanish Florida (including the present-day states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama). The first expedition to enter Alabama was the Spanish expedition of Hernando de Soto, in 1540, which faced the natives led by Tascalusa in the battle of Mabila (present-day Mobile County). According to the chronicles, approximately 2,500 natives perished in these hostilities. Guido de las Bazares explored the coast in 1558, but it was Tristán de Luna who attempted to create the first permanent settlement in Mobile Bay. This settlement failed after being destroyed by a hurricane.
More than a century later, in 1701, it was the French who entered the territory to create Fort Louis de la Mobile. This settlement was followed by other forts near the rivers. France consolidated the center of the Louisiana colony in Mobile, until the capital of the colony was moved to New Orleans in 1722. The strategic port of Mobile, and the lands of the interior of Alabama, were coveted by the French, Spanish and English. For this reason, in 1763 the English managed to obtain through the Treaty of Paris —which ended the Seven Years’ War— the lands of Alabama, as part of West Florida, one of the two provinces into which the former Spanish colony of Florida was divided.
American Revolution
During the American Revolution, Spain with an army under the command of Bernardo de Gálvez recovered the Floridas (West Florida and East Florida) for Spain. In 1798, the territory north of the 32nd parallel north became part of the so-called Mississippi Territory, administered by the United States Congress. In 1813, the Creek Indians and the Mixogenic Seminoles (very Hispanicized at that time) rebelled, but were defeated by Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend; this victory gave Jackson prestige in his race for the presidency of the United States.
On March 3, 1817, the Mississippi Territory was divided, and the eastern part became the Alabama Territory. In August 1819, when Spain, following the Adams-Onís Treaty, had ceded the entire territory to the United States, Alabama adopted a constitution to become a state and on December 14 of that year was admitted as the twenty-second state of the Union. The capital of Alabama was established in Huntsville, but in 1820 it was moved to Cahaba, although in 1826 it was changed to Tuscaloosa to avoid frequent flooding. The economy of this period was based on agriculture (cotton) and livestock, but there were frequent political disputes between the small farmers of the hills (who lived off the cultivation of corn, vegetables, sorghum, cattle and pigs) and the owners of the cotton plantations in the south, who had managed to take advantage of the fertile lands of the valley (an area known as the Black Belt) and river communications. Although only 1% of the white settlers owned large plantations, they controlled the state’s politics. For this reason, on January 11, 1861, Alabama declared itself part of the Confederacy, and invited other southern states to send delegates to a convention in Montgomery. On February 8, 1861, the Confederate States of America were created, with their capital in Montgomery, although in May 1861 it was moved to Richmond, Virginia. Civil War
The largest battle fought in Alabama during the Civil War was in 1864, when Admiral David G. Farragut attacked Mobile Bay. A year later, federal troops devastated Tuscaloosa, Selma, and Montgomery. After the war, Alabama returned to the Union on June 25, 1868. The postwar period of Reconstruction lasted eight years, during which Alabama politics continued to be controlled by former Confederates. However, the end of the war saw the decline of southern cities (Mobile, Montgomery, Huntsville, and Tuscaloosa) and the rise of new northern towns, thanks to the mineral wealth of Jones Valley and the construction of the railroad. By the end of the 19th century, Birmingham, which emerged after the war, became the largest city in the state, and by 1920, the third most industrialized city in the southern United States.