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state of the United States of America
North America > United States of America > South (United States of America) > Alabama

Alabama is a state in the Southern United States of America. Alabama is known for its civil rights history and scenic beauty, and has a lot to offer those who enjoy the great outdoors, from Gulf Coast beaches to 40 National and stare parks.

Regions

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State of Alabama Regions
 Mountains
the far northern region in the foothills of the Appalachians (Huntsville, Decatur, Tuscumbia)
 Metropolitan Alabama
central, most urbanized region of the state (Birmingham, Tuscaloosa)
 River Heritage
central-south region, except Gulf Coast (Montgomery, Auburn, Dothan, Enterprise)
 Gulf Coast
the southwestern region on the Gulf of Mexico (Mobile)

Cities

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  • 1 Montgomery — state capital and first capital of the Confederacy
  • 2 Auburn — home of Auburn University
  • 3 Birmingham — Alabama's largest city
  • 4 Decatur
  • 5 Dothan
  • 6 Huntsville — home of Marshall Space Flight Center
  • 7 Mobile — Alabama's only major port and largest city near the Gulf
  • 8 Tuscaloosa — home of the University of Alabama
  • 9 Tuscumbia — Helen Keller's home

Other destinations

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  • 1 Gulf Shores & Orange Beach — 32 miles of beautiful sugar white sands on the prettiest beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. A visit to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach offers the perfect balance of non-stop activity and lay-around-doing-nothing time. Putter around a bit on one of the championship golf courses. Cast your line for deep-sea adventure on a one of the Orange Beach fishing charters. Travel back in history with a visit to Fort Morgan, the site of the Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay. Commune with Mother Nature as you hike wildlife trails gazing at shorebirds.
  • Horseshoe Bend National Military Park — In the spring of 1814, General Andrew Jackson and an army of 3,300 men attacked 1,000 Upper Creek warriors on the Tallapoosa River. Over 800 Upper Creeks died defending their homeland.
  • Little River Canyon National Preserve — Little River is unique because it flows for most of its length atop Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama
  • 2 Natchez Trace Parkway — The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway commemorates an ancient trail that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River, through Alabama, to salt licks in today's central Tennessee
  • 3 Russell Cave National Monument — For more than 10,000 years, Russell Cave was home to prehistoric peoples. Russell Cave provides clues to the daily lifeways of early North American inhabitants dating from 6500 BC to 1650 AD.
  • Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail — The Selma to Montgomery National Voting Rights Trail was established by Congress in 1996 to commemorate the events, people, and route of the 1965 Voting Rights March in Alabama
  • Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail — Come on a journey to remember and commemorate the survival of the Cherokee people despite their forced removal from their homelands in the Southeastern United States in the 1840s
  • 4 Tuskegee
    • Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site — In the 1940s Tuskegee, Alabama became home to a "military experiment" to train America's first African-American military pilots. In time the "experiment" became known as the Tuskegee Experience and the participants as the Tuskegee Airmen
    • Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site — Nestled on the campus of historic Tuskegee University, the site includes the George W. Carver Museum and The Oaks, home of Booker T. Washington
  • Desoto Caverns — A cavern and small family attraction in Childersburg, Alabama.

Understand

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The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma has been the scene of historic marches for civil rights and is especially famous as the site of an assault on civil rights marchers attempting to march to Montgomery in 1965

Alabama, along with the South in general, has a reputation for "Southern hospitality." The people of this state are generally genial and helpful and often go out of their way to help a stranger.

The state is named after the Alabama tribe, a Native American group who used to live at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers.

Known primarily for its status as the original capital of the Confederacy (in Montgomery) and the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Alabama can be a study in contrasts.

The sport of American football is taken extremely seriously in Alabama. In addition to significant regional devotion to high-school football teams the entire state, in terms of college football, is divided into two factions: Auburn University fans and University of Alabama fans. The rivalry is so bitter, in fact, that it took an act by the Alabama State Legislature in the late 1940s to force the two colleges to play one another (the two had stopped playing each other in the first years of the 20th century over an officiating dispute).

Even then, the two schools would not agree to play at opposing sites so the State of Alabama used taxpayer funds to build Legion Field in Birmingham as a neutral site. It was only in 1989 that the Crimson Tide finally visited Auburn and 2000 that the Tigers visited Alabama. This can also be a point of concern for tourists, as the rivalry is so serious that tourists are best not to mention it at all.

Alabama is also noted for having the lengthiest constitution in the world. At nearly 300,000 words, the constitution is made up of nearly 946 amendments, and because of this, the state has numerous constitutional officers/administrators. Some aspects of the constitution are so complex that ordinary residents of the state can't accurately make out what certain statements in the constitution mean.

Climate

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Due to its location in the Deep South, Alabama has a humid subtropical/continental climate. Summers are hot and humid, winters are cool to cold, and fall and spring offer pleasant temperatures.

Tourist information

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Talk

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Many (though certainly not all) Alabamians speak with thick local accents so non-native English speakers may have difficulty understanding them. Visitors to North Alabama (Birmingham and north) will experience accents that are more "country" in nature (Senator Richard Shelby is one example) while visitors to South Alabama (south of Birmingham) will experience accents that are more closely reminiscent of those from the 1939 film Gone With the Wind and the 1994 film Forrest Gump, which takes place in Southern Alabama. Former governor Fob James is a textbook example of someone who speaks like this.

Get in

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By car

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Alabama is accessible by five interstate highways: Interstate 10 (I-10) crosses the state from east to west near Mobile in the south; I-20 enters Alabama from the east, traverses Birmingham, and joins I-59 as it traverses Tuscaloosa and exits the state in a southwesterly direction; I-59 enters northeastern Alabama, continues southwest through Birmingham, and exits the state toward the southwest; I-22 enters Alabama from the northwest and ends in Birmingham; I-65 enters Alabama from the north, traverses Birmingham, and ends in Mobile; I-85 enters the state in the east and ends in Montgomery.

By bus

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Greyhound Lines offers bus transportation to cities and towns throughout Alabama. Greyhound bus stops are found in Anniston, Athens, Birmingham, Dothan, Evergreen, Gadsden, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Opelika, Selma, Troy, Tuscaloosa, and Tuskegee.

By train

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See also: Rail travel in the United States

There is one daily Amtrak route serving Alabama, the Crescent. Trains 19 (southbound) and 20 (northbound) run from New Orleans to Washington, D.C. and New York City. There are three stations in Alabama: Anniston, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Coach and sleeper service is available, with checked baggage, a restaurant car, a café and a lounge.

By plane

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The largest airport in Alabama is the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport BHM IATA. Airlines servicing this airport offer direct flights from Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Washington, D.C..

Commercial flights are also available at Dothan International Airport (DHN); the Huntsville International Airport HSV IATA; the Mobile Regional Airport MOB IATA; the Montgomery Regional Airport MGM IATA ; and the Northwest Alabama Regional Airport MSL IATA.

Get around

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Car is no doubt the best method, and the most scenic. Interstates converge on Montgomery, Birmingham, and Mobile, and make quick transportation between those cities and ones in other states. They also connect to Anniston, Tuscaloosa, and Huntsville. Elsewhere though, travel can be slower in more rural areas.

By bus

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Information on transit can be found here.

Festivals

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  • Gulf Shores is home to the National Shrimp Festival[dead link]. This outdoor event is held annually in October and features over 300 vendors that offer fine art, arts and crafts, an international marketplace and plenty of shrimp. Three stages also carry music continuously throughout the festival. Over 200,000 people attend the festival annually and it has been ranked as one of the top twenty events in the southeast by the Southeast Tourism Society, and one of the top five in the state. 2016 will mark the 45th anniversary of this festival.
  • The Oyster Cook-Off Craft Spirits & Beer Weekend has been a local staple in Gulf Shores for over a decade, featuring hundreds of food and beverage choices. The first week of November starts the cook-off, with Craft Beer tastings from breweries around the southeast, vast collections of rare spirits, and live music. The festival started humbly featuring master-grade oyster preparations alongside local farmers and has grown into a full fledged foodie festival featuring chefs of international acclaim and dishes well beyond the scope of oysters. It's a ticketed event, with a portion of sales going back to charitable causes.
  • Tuscumbia is home to the Helen Keller Festival. This outdoor event is held annually in June for three days (Friday to Sunday) and kicks off with a lengthy parade complete with floats and its riders throwing candy to bystanders, high school marching bands, horses, Civil War reenactors and Shriners zipping about in their miniature go-karts. Afterwards, Main Street is closed and is filled with local vendors selling everything from handmade crafts to fresh vegetables. An antique car show is also a highlighted feature. Many local and out of state bands perform throughout the day with at least one major performer, normally of the country music variety, performing Saturday night in Spring Park. Also performed at the birthplace of Helen Keller is a local production of the stage play The Miracle Worker which is a theatrical rendition of Helen Keller's childhood and interaction with Ann Sullivan. One little known fact about Helen Keller that most natives of Tuscumbia do not even realize is that she was an ardent and outspoken socialist during her adult life.

Sports

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Talladega Super Speedway is in Talladega.

Collegiate

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Home to what is considered one of the top rivalries in sports, the state of Alabama revolves around college football. Each weekend of the fall, hundreds of thousands of fans around the state pack stadiums to cheer for their respective teams.

Hike

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Alabama has some decent hiking options. One of the best areas is the Sipsey Wilderness, which features old-growth forest and dozens of waterfalls. Other areas include the trails and scenic overlooks in Mount Cheaha State Park. The Pinhoti National Recreation Trail runs for approximately 171 miles (280 km) through the hilly forests of eastern Alabama, offering multiple sites for overnight camping.

Golf

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Cycling

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Chief Ladiga Trail rail trail in eastern Alabama that stretches for 33 miles (53 km) from Anniston to the Alabama-Georgia state line, where it joins Georgia's Silver Comet Trail.

Seasoned crab claws and corn.

Mobile has some of the best fried seafood east of the Mississippi River. Don't forget to try local oyster bars, and the shrimp is superb. Ask locals for recommendations that are off the beaten path and area favorites.

Alabama barbecue is outstanding and comes in many forms, but pork is always most popular. There are several award-winning barbecue "joints" in Alabama, and their claim to fame is typically "pulled pork", but they will offer ribs, too.

For dessert, look for pecan pie. During the summer, fresh peaches and blackberries are available. Fruit pies abound, and if you want something a little different, look for cobblers. Home-style peach ice cream is a particular treat.

Drink

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  • Sweet Iced Tea. One delicious recipe for making sweet tea is to put on a pan of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling place two family-size Lipton tea bags in the boiling water, and then immediately turn the stove off. While the water is still raging hot, mix in 1⅓ cup of cane sugar and stir so that the sugar does not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Wait one hour and then mix with one gallon of water in a gallon-sized container. Serve over ice. (updated Sep 2019)

Go next

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This region travel guide to Alabama is a usable article. It gives a good overview of the region, its sights, and how to get in, as well as links to the main destinations, whose articles are similarly well developed. An adventurous person could use this article, but please feel free to improve it by editing the page.
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