Alabama, AL

The State of Alabama is located in the southern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west.

Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland waterways. The state ranks 23rd in population with almost 4.6 million residents in 2006.

From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship. In the years following the war, Alabama experienced significant recovery as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and high technology.

Today, the state is heavily invested in the aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication.

Alabama is officially nicknamed the Yellowhammer state, which is also the name of the state bird. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie." The capital of Alabama is Montgomery, and the largest city is Birmingham (in Jefferson County).

Geography

Alabama is the 30th largest state in the United States with 52,423 square miles (135,775 kmē) of total area: 3.19% of the area is water, making Alabama 23rd in the amount of surface water, also giving it the second largest inland waterway system in the United States. About three-fifths of the land area is a gentle plain with a general descent towards the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

The North Alabama region is mostly mountainous, with the Tennessee River cutting a large valley creating numerous creeks, streams, rivers, mountains, and lakes. Another natural wonder in Alabama is "Natural Bridge" rock, the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies, located just south of Haleyville, in Winston County.

Alabama generally ranges in elevation from sea level,down at Mobile Bay, to over 1,800 feet (550 m) in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast. The highest point is Mount Cheaha, at a height of nearly 2,405 ft (733 m).

States bordering Alabama include Tennessee to the north; Georgia to the east; Florida to the south; and Mississippi to the west. Alabama has coastline at the Gulf of Mexico, in the extreme southern edge of the state. National Parks in Alabama include Horseshoe Bend National Military Park near Alexander City; Little River Canyon National Preserve in Fort Payne; Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport; Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee; and Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site near Tuskegee.

Alabama also contains the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail, and the Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail. Baldwin County, along the Gulf Coast, is the largest county in the state in both land area and water area. A 5-mile-wide meteorite impact crater is found in Elmore County, just north of Montgomery.

This is the Wetumpka crater, which is the site of "Alabama's greatest natural disaster." A 1,000-foot-wide meteorite hit the area about 80 million years ago. The hills just east of downtown Wetumpka showcase the eroded remains of the impact crater that was blasted into the bedrock, with the area labeled the Wetumpka crater or astrobleme ("star-wound") because of the concentric rings of fractures and zones of shattered rock that can be found beneath the surface.

In 2002, Christian Koeberl with the Institute of Geochemistry University of Vienna published evidence and established the site as an internationally recognized impact crater.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alabama".