Cotton Belt

Region in the southern states of the USA where cotton was a major, or the predominant, crop in the 19th century. The heartland of the Cotton Belt was Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi (especially the Black Belt), together with parts of Arkansas and Texas. Here, the plantation system and slavery combined with rich soils and a favourable climate to produce the basis of prosperity for a privileged few in the Old South.

Despite the end of slavery on plantations after the Civil War, the sharecropping system merely put in place a similar labour structure, and cotton remained central to the economy of the South until the 20th century. Ultimately, the devastation of the cotton crop by the boll weevil, diversification into other profitable crops, competition from Arizona and California, and social change in the South reduced the Belt's commercial importance. In its heyday, the Cotton Belt was also known as the Cotton Kingdom, a term that embraces entrepôts and ports such as Memphis and New Orleans as well as the growing areas.