South, the

Historically, the states of the USA bounded on the north by the Mason–Dixon Line, the Ohio River, and the eastern and northern borders of Missouri, with an agrarian economy based on plantations worked by slaves, and which, as the Confederacy, seceded from the Union in 1861, beginning the American Civil War. The term is now loosely applied in a geographical and cultural sense, with Texas often regarded as part of the Southwest rather than the South.

By its broadest definition, the South consists of 16 states (including Texas and Oklahoma) and the District of Columbia, with an area of 898,575 sq mi/2,327,309 sq km. Houston is the largest city.