53 maps that explain the South

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]It's August 2004, just after Hurricane Charley.

[00:00:04]Florida Division of Emergency Management  Director Craig Fugate was trying to figure out a way to measure just how bad the damage was.

[00:00:11]“This will be something unlike we have ever seen.” He needed something incredibly robust and incredibly reliable across the region. “Waffle  House prides itself in quickly getting back up and running after storms, and FEMA has taken notice.” Everywhere a Waffle House was closed, things were bad. Limited menu. Things were getting bad. Full  menu? Well, maybe everybody was going to be okay.

[00:00:32]The Waffle House index is just one of the  maps that I'm going to show you today, because we're going to use maps to  explain the southern United States.

[00:00:41]A region that is complicated, and  misunderstood, and one that I am actually from.

[00:00:46]I will show you my very Southern  childhood accent later in this video.

[00:00:51]I'm going to eliminate one state  from the South after each category.

[00:00:56]And I'm also going to choose one  map that best defines the South.

[00:01:02]Waffle House is well known for  breakfast food and the occasional late night fight as well. Look at the  sheer density of Waffle Houses here.

[00:01:11]And look how they really are so southern.  At Waffle House at the county level, you can see the density and you can see  that it is really clustered here in Georgia.

[00:01:20]Gwinnett, Georgia has 40 Waffle Houses.

[00:01:25]Red is going to mean low on all our maps.  And blue will typically mean higher.

[00:01:29]When I go to Southern view like this it means that  the rankings are calculated for the South alone.

[00:01:34]You've got Bojangles, which is also southern,  clustered in this southeastern section.

[00:01:40]You can see that they are actually  kind of a North Carolina thing.

[00:01:44]If you don't know, Krystal is  the weird southern White Castle.

[00:01:48]You can see that they don't  escape the South at all.

[00:01:51]It also shows up more in the lower South.

[00:01:54]Any Southerner is going to tell you  that Piggly Wiggly is also a chain of great importance. But you can see  Wisconsin is actually number two.

[00:02:02]We also have Cookout, another chain  that if you hadn't been to the South, you wouldn't have heard of it.

[00:02:07]This is a map of hog and pig production by state and all the southeastern barbecue  proclivities might make you think that they lean towards pork and towards  pig because they make a lot of it there.

[00:02:20]But if you look at the map here, you can see that hog and pig production is  actually not that localized in the South.

[00:02:26]I made a whole video that is  just about mapsplaining barbecue.

[00:02:29]If you haven't seen that, you should check it out.  I stole this idea from Reddit and recreated it.

[00:02:35]These are seasonal searches.

[00:02:37]You know, between Halloween and Christmas,  for pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and apple pie.

[00:02:43]And pecan pie is only popular  in these areas of the South.

[00:02:48]Let's go ahead and see  where sweet tea is searched.

[00:02:51]There is a southern concentration.

[00:02:54]And just so that I can end this  section with a bit of a bummer, yes, you do see a somewhat  higher rate of diabetes, which often correlates with obesity in the  Southern United States, though not exclusively.

[00:03:07]Waffle House has to be our  top map in that section.

[00:03:10]So that's the one that's going to go on in  our tournament of maps that define the South.

[00:03:14]I don't want to make this cut but I  think we're going to eliminate Texas.

[00:03:18]Texas is no longer part of the South.

[00:03:23]The United States Postal Service actually  divides it a little bit differently.

[00:03:26]They have an Atlantic region that includes  Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, and then a southern region that does stretch out to include  Texas, Florida, and, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

[00:03:38]I want to show you the Forest Service regions.

[00:03:40]This one is necessarily going to be tied a  little more to the actual geography of the South.

[00:03:45]So this is how the CDC breaks  up the geographic regions.

[00:03:49]And I like this map because it perfectly matches  the map that I'm using throughout this video, except Missouri is in that  west, north central area.

[00:03:59]So I'm going to pick this for my top map,  the CDC map. We're going to cut Missouri.

[00:04:04]Missouri: you are no longer southern.  Now that we've gotten into it, we can start to get a little more serious.

[00:04:11]This is a map of southern governors.  And you can see that right here.

[00:04:15]You're getting some political polarization  as the South red stands for Republican.

[00:04:20]And the blue stands for Democratic. Virginia recently turned blue, North Carolina and Kentucky are blue. Any political map  has to include the US presidential map of 2024.

[00:04:32]This is what it looks like when  you look at the map by county.

[00:04:34]To me, this is an argument for a rural urban  divide, because you can see that in urban areas of the South they still tilted pretty blue. This is a map of right to work states.

[00:04:45]So that basically means states where  you don't have to join a union if you're trying to get a job. And you can see that  here, you really do have a Southern wall.

[00:04:54]This is a map of states where  school starts before 8 a.m.

[00:04:59]This is a mash up of values, but  also weather and heat in the South.

[00:05:05]The most disproportionately represented  white ethnic group that you're going to see is Scotch Irish, and  that you can see right here.

[00:05:13]It's clustered here in all the  former colonies. Number one state, it's going to be North Carolina. But  there are also interesting surprises.

[00:05:22]This is a map that I found that Joseph  Hannah made. It shows ethnic Vietnamese in the United States by county. And you can see  that most ethnic Vietnamese are in California, but there are pockets in the very  southern Gulf areas of the South.

[00:05:38]And people speculate that that is because some  of the agriculture and climate is similar.

[00:05:42]And that's why people chose to  migrate to those areas in some cases.

[00:05:46]This map of Gullah Geechee heritage is interesting  because it's clustered along the coast.

[00:05:51]Black Americans of a specific ethnic  group that develop their own culture, in some cases spoke their own language. Now Gullah Geechee are black Americans.

[00:06:01]I'm going to have more about that in, some of  the other sections of this video. Oh my gosh, we have to make another cut I have to say that  honestly, Virginia is is standing out to me just because of the influence of Washington, DC. Although if we look on the map of governors there, you also get it not being that southern.

[00:06:19]I'm going to cut Virginia from the South.

[00:06:23]I will be in trouble for this. Okay.

[00:06:26]If you want to hear my southern  accent, I'm about to play it for you.

[00:06:29]And that's thanks to the sponsor  of this video, which is Monarch.

[00:06:33]I went through some old home  video footage from the 1990s, and I tracked down myself, explaining  the South in my super Southern accent and the whole process actually  reminds me a bit of Monarch.

[00:06:47]Oh, If you don't know about Monarch, Monarch  is a personalized, ad free financial platform.

[00:06:55]Basically, it takes all your financial world and  integrates it into one easy to use dashboard.

[00:07:01]And I'm thinking of it now because  to look at my old home family videos, I have to get out these like physical DVDs and  hook them up via USB adapter to my computer.

[00:07:11]It's a huge hassle.

[00:07:13]Your financial life shouldn't be that way.

[00:07:15]Now because all my personal info is on Monarch, I want to actually walk you through some of  the demos so you can get an idea how it works.

[00:07:23]Here you can see how all the accounts  are actually synced together.

[00:07:28]You've got credit cards, cash, investments, here. It's got a budget tool that gives you an  idea of how much you're spending or overspending.

[00:07:35]And it's using a lot of intelligence to give  you insights and I'm showing you on my computer, but most of the time I have it on my  phone Here's me explaining the South.

[00:07:43]“These are some states that can be  seen from this point. (Lists states)” You did not believe I was from the South.  Now you do. So yeah, it's okay if your old home movies are complicated, but  your financial life should be simple.

[00:08:00]And that's what monarch does. “All the states can be seen.”

[00:08:03]Thank you to Monarch for partnering with me.

[00:08:05]Start your free trial and you can get 50%  off your first year of total money clarity.

[00:08:10]Go ahead and use the link I've got down in the  description, the QR code, or use code PHIL50 to get 50% off Monarch core tier. Thanks Monarch.  This is me on the very dangerous alpine slide.

[00:08:28]Let's recover from that with some alligators.

[00:08:33]USGS has a good map of alligator  zones and alligator appearances.

[00:08:37]And you can see that they are really clustered  in the lower U.S. creating an alligator belt.

[00:08:43]But not like made of alligator. Metaphorical alligator belt. That's what I mean.

[00:08:48]You have to be blown away by the  power of kudzu: the power of the kud.

[00:08:53]This ivy-like plant is very invasive. And it's gone all over the South.

[00:08:58]There are other oddities that are South wide, but  they're just terrifying. Like the Burmese python.

[00:09:05]The agriculture of the South is also affected  by the red clay soil that is so common there.

[00:09:11]Not looking so Southern here Oklahoma. Despite that red clay which looks so infertile, the South is actually pretty good  when it comes to tree diversity.

[00:09:20]The forest coverage map of  the South is interesting, less as an agricultural thing and maybe more  as a political one. This one that's provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows that the  southeast is covered in forest. Right?

[00:09:34]This dark green that's over in the western area  indicates federal ownership of these forests.

[00:09:40]Whereas the colors that you'll see in the south  over here, those indicate private ownership.

[00:09:46]I think most of that comes from the  fact that the South is just a really, really old region of the country. A lot of people also think of Spanish moss when it comes to the South. You can see the coverage there is kind of similar to the alligator map. So cotton is not quite the only the South thing that you might expect it to be. We've got a fair amount of cotton here in Texas. And even in California. I want to show you one more map in this section, which is FEMA's National Risk Index. A lot of these emergency risk areas are out west.

[00:10:16]And that's because of wildfires. But you do also  have sections in Florida because of hurricanes.

[00:10:22]We've got to go with kudzu. That is such  a southern thing, We've already cut Texas, but I don't think we've cut Oklahoma yet.  I still can't believe I cut Virginia.

[00:10:31]Why did I not just cut Maryland? Honestly, I didn't see it. It's so little and dinky compared to Virginia. Now we are finally getting into history.

[00:10:40]I want to start it on a bit of  a lighter note, which is death.

[00:10:43]And you can see that the South's age really,  really affects how many graveyards there are, because a lot of these were  small, the little graveyards.

[00:10:51]So, as William Faulkner once said,  the past, it's never even past, bro.

[00:10:57]This basically said that Missouri could  become part of the Union as long as Maine could be a free state. And I think it's  incredible how, you know, 200 years later, from 1820, 200 years later, this map is still so  descriptive of the South as a cultural region, even if the political implications of this  map, the legality of slavery are gone.

[00:11:23]This War Department map of 1861 kind of  shows you where the lines were drawn.

[00:11:27]And of course, this war that was waged  over slavery and the future of slavery, had legacies that extended well beyond it.

[00:11:36]This is by Ida B. Wells. This is the Red  Record of Lynching map, and you can see here it's disproportionately clustered in the  South, though not universally in the South.

[00:11:47]I would also be remiss if I didn't show you this W.E.B. Du Bois map of distribution of  black Americans in the United States.

[00:11:54]These were the states that were segregated  prior to Brown versus the Board of Education.

[00:11:59]Naturally, African Americans responded to this  via the great Migration. But of course, as you may know, demography is, is changing. And evolving. This is a county by county map of people who have reported their race as being black alone. That's largely a Southern thing where it's happening. I mean, you you get clusters of this  in urban areas in the Midwest. The same in New York. But when you rank and look at the proportion  of people who report black alone as their race, there are significantly more who do so  in the South, and that's worth noting.

[00:12:31]I think that's also clear when you look at  the statewide map. Now compare this to a map of people reporting white alone as their race and  you can see that it's significantly more common in the northern areas of the United States. Number one state for that is actually West Virginia, which is an interesting argument to  cut it. This dynamic that I'm talking about is clear. When you look at people reporting two or  more races, that's more common out on the West, less common here in the East Coast. it also does necessarily extend to some of the ownership in these areas of the country. So  this is going to be disproportionately affected by the fact that there are just more nonwhite  people in these areas of the country. But there are also more nonwhite homeowners in  these areas of the country. And I think this is particularly important when you look back on  issues like redlining, which was the prejudicial granting of federal loans, because, remember,  these were at a federal level. So look at this redlining map and you'll see that, you know,  all over the United States, redlining existed.

[00:13:32]It's also important to the story of the South  to note where the Indian Federal lands are.

[00:13:38]And today you really have to zoom in to see  Federal lands that are controlled by Indians.

[00:13:45]Whereas in the West, you know,  the Navajo region is is huge.

[00:13:49]Okay. That is the end of the history section. My top map of this section has to be the Missouri Compromise. It fascinates me how it captures  what is and isn't southern. And yet it's 200 years old. Again, it goes back to that William  Faulkner quote: History. You're always around and doing stuff. What is up with that man? You could argue that Kentucky and West Virginia are both a little anomalous. But I  think you've got to go with West Virginia.

[00:14:24]Red is going to be low income. Blue is going  to be higher income. You definitely have lower income areas clustered in the South, in  particular Mississippi and Louisiana.

[00:14:34]Oh and look at this. Maryland, you are not long  for this world. You are not looking good when it comes to money. You're rich, Maryland. I  want to also show manufactured homes. This is what we would think of as mobile homes. So it's actually a slightly broader class.

[00:14:48]1.8% of homes are manufactured in Maryland  versus in Mississippi, where it's 34.3%.

[00:14:55]And I'm happy to say that I have found redemption.  Maryland. You are rich. Get out of my house.

[00:15:02]You are not part of the South anymore. I considered leading off the entire video, with this map. This is excessive  drinking as defined by the CDC.

[00:15:15]You can see right here Wisconsin is all blue.  Texas is anomalous, the rest of the South here, right where the Bible Belt is, you have a lot  of red, which means that there's not a lot of excessive drinking. So since we're talking about  hard drinks, let's talk about soft drinks too.

[00:15:32]This is a map from pop versus soda. If you saw  my video in which I mapsplained the Midwest, you know where pop is popular. This is where  people say drink a Coke the number one state where you drink a Coke rather than saying a soft drink,  soda, or pop is Louisiana. Yeah. So in Vermont, nobody's saying drink a Coke. Bernie Sanders is not drinking a Coke. (Channeling the very soul of  Bernie Sanders) I'd like a soda, please.

[00:15:56]This would be malpractice if I didn't show you  some linguistic maps, like in my Midwestern video.

[00:16:01]These maps were made by Joshua  Katz. This is a map of your regions.

[00:16:05]Y’all map. But not in Florida. And he's  got where do you call coleslaw slaw.

[00:16:10]This is for people who call “carmul” in  red and “caramel” in blue. And then the second vowel in pajahhhhmas. This is my  favorite one. Apparently in the red you say the A as in father, which I just did.  I just proved I'm southern. Pajahhhhhmas, father. I'm wearing my pajahhhhhmas, father.

[00:16:22]Country is not a southern  thing. Country is a rural thing.

[00:16:26]And increasingly in everybody's thing,  much to the chagrin of people with ears.

[00:16:31]This is religious adherence,  normalized by population, by county.

[00:16:36]And you can see that there is  more blue in the south here.

[00:16:38]When you look at the state by state map, it  becomes a little clearer that it's a southern thing. You've got this southern wall here. When you look at the rankings. Yeah. Utah's number one. An interesting twist on this  is if you look at religious congregations normalized by population, you see a map that  at first blush looks similar. But then when you look at the state rankings, you start  to wonder, okay, why is Texas like this?

[00:17:00]When you look at a map of megachurches by state,  Texas and Florida are super dense when it comes to megachurches. So if you have 10,000 people  going to a megachurch, that is a lot fewer churches, but just as many religious adherents. A megachurch is defined as 2,000 people or more.

[00:17:20]The only other map that I want to get to is the  map of the SEC. This is not because I want to put it there, but because people like sports. We are done with our final section.

[00:17:30]To me, you've got to go with religious  congregations normalized by population.

[00:17:36]Florida. The ax is finally coming  down. You are out of the South.

[00:17:41]What is the top map? The person in me who  loves the South really wants to pick Waffle House, because I have to say that that map  of the Missouri Compromise really struck me.

[00:17:54]In 2026, a map from 1820 can still do some  serious work in defining the cultural region that we call the Southern United States.  It explains a lot of the things that would confound outsiders. So, Faulkner, I agree  you're right. The past ain't past. It's still passing on the past. But there  might be something new going on, too.

[00:18:25]All right, that's it for this one. Let  me know what you think. Should I have cut Virginia? Was that a terrible mistake? Can  I, no longer be seen in public? And let me know what you think I should map next. Over  on Patreon, I will tell you all about how I made so many of these maps and displayed  them on screen and this week I'm going to have a special article, it's going to be  about my personal experience with the South.