Culture of The United States - Regional Variations

Regional Variations

Semi-distinct cultural regions of the United States include New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, the Southern United States, the Midwestern United States and the Western United States-an area that can be further subdivided, on the basis of the local culture into the Pacific States and the Mountain States.

The western coast of the continental U.S. consisting of California, Oregon, and the state of Washington is also sometimes referred to as the Left Coast, indicating its left-leaning political orientation and tendency towards liberal norms, folkways and values.

Southern United States are informally called "the Bible Belt" due to socially conservative evangelical Protestantism, which is a significant part of the region's culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher there than the nation's average. This region is usually contrasted with the mainline Protestantism and Catholicism of the northeastern United States, the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes, the Mormon Corridor in Utah and southern Idaho, and the relatively secular western United States. The percentage of non-religious people is the highest in the northeastern state of Vermont at 34%, compared to the Bible Belt state of Alabama, where it is 6%.

Strong cultural differences have a long history in the U.S. with the southern slave society in the antebellum period serving as a prime example. Not only social, but also economic tensions between the Northern and Southern states were so severe that they eventually caused the South to declare itself an independent nation, the Confederate States of America; thus initiating the American Civil War.