With the slogan Heart of Dixie, the two red hearts on Alabama's license plates symbolize its central location in the Deep South and its status as the birthplace of the Confederacy, which tried to preserve the Old South's plantation economy. Before the American Civil War, the warmer climate ''away down South'' was equated with paradise, and, though the slang name Dixie had just been coined, it inspired the nostalgic 'I Wish I Was in Dixey's (or Dixie's) Land'. Composed as a minstrel show walk-around (full-company number), it was originally sung by white entertainers in blackface makeup and in contrived dialect. Although a Northerner wrote the lively piece, 'Dixie' became the Southern army's marching and camp song and was played at the 1861 inauguration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Montgomery.
For a century Alabama was indeed the land of cotton. Although the economy of the state is no longer based on the crop, it is still important to the economy. In today's diversified agriculture, however, more acreage is devoted to growing soybeans and corn. Other field crops that flourish in the state's mild climate are peanuts and melons.
Even more dramatic than Alabama's agricultural growth has been its industrial emergence. The manufacturing and construction industries account for more than 25 percent of the total employment. Rich resources of iron ore, coal, and limestone have helped make Alabama a major steel-producing state and Birmingham the iron and steel capital of the South. Great dams on Alabama's rivers provide flood control and hydroelectric power--much of which is consumed by a thriving textile industry. The state also has one of the best water-transportation systems in the South. Linked by Mobile Bay with the Gulf of Mexico, the city of Mobile is a major United States seaport.
With vast stretches of pine and hardwoods, the state has about 22 million acres (9 million hectares) of commercial forestland--a large increase since the 1950s, when a conservation program to replant cutover areas began. The state has also developed a solid foundation in financial and space- and defense-related business interests.
Alabama lies in the central part of Dixie. It is bordered on the north by Tennessee and on the west by Mississippi. On the south a panhandle extends along the Gulf of Mexico for 53 miles (85 kilometers). The remainder of the southern boundary is shared with Florida. To the east is Georgia, separated in part from Alabama by the Chattahoochee River. Alabama's greatest length, north to south, is 336 miles (541 kilometers). Its greatest width, east to west, is 208 miles (335 kilometers).
