North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 12 counties: Cherokee, Colbert, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 1,000,985, or 20.94% of the state's population as of 2010 Census.
The anchor city of the region is Huntsville, but other cities of notable size include (in order of population): Decatur, Florence (along with its sister cities Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia), Madison, and Athens.
Decatur and Florence share the designation of anchor city for Northwestern Alabama because they are the largest economic centers north of Birmingham and west of Huntsville. Most corporations use Decatur as a regional hub for the Northwest Alabama region because Huntsville is located further east. However, historically Florence has been the main cultural center of the NW.
Locals tend to refer to this area as the "Tennessee Valley" in reference to the Tennessee River, which flows through the northernmost part of the state. A section of East Tennessee shares the "Tennessee Valley" name.
Read more about North Alabama: Economy
Famous quotes containing the words north and/or alabama:
“Why does man freeze to death trying to reach the North Pole? Why does man drive himself to suffer the steam and heat of the Amazon? Why does he stagger his mind with the mathematics of the sky? Once the question mark has arisen in the human brain the answer must be found, if it takes a hundred years. A thousand years.”
—Walter Reisch (1903–1963)
“While over Alabama earth
These words are gently spoken:
Serve—and hate will die unborn.
Love—and chains are broken.”
—Langston Hughes (20th century)