Cotton Belt

American  

noun

1. (sometimes lowercase) the part of the southern U.S. where cotton is grown, originally Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, but now often extended to include parts of Texas and California.

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cotton belt British  

noun

1. a belt of land in the southeastern US that specializes in the production of cotton

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Etymology

Origin of Cotton Belt

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75

Example Sentences

"Our study shows that this virus was actually present in the country's Cotton Belt long before that. We found clear evidence of the virus in samples from 2006 in Mississippi, 2015 in Louisiana, and 2018 in California."

From Science Daily

In many of the areas of the Cotton Belt, slaves were the majority of the population.

From The Wall Street Journal

The co-authors chose communities to study in Appalachia, South Texas and the southern Cotton Belt that were representative from the bottom 200 of their list.

From Los Angeles Times

By 1915, they had spread across the Cotton Belt and wreaked havoc on the crop, leaving families destitute during the Great Depression.

From Washington Post

In 2009, India’s agricultural export agency discovered wide-scale fraud in the country’s cotton belt, with entire villages certifying genetically modified cotton as organic.

From New York Times