Deep South

American  

noun

1. the southeastern part of the U.S., including especially South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

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Deep South British  

noun

1. the SE part of the US, esp South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana

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Deep South Cultural  

1. The southernmost tier of states in the South: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Before the Civil War, these states were centers of cotton production and slavery. All of them seceded from the United States before the firing on Fort Sumter. They are sometimes distinguished from the states of the Upper South (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas), which contained proportionately fewer slaves prior to the Civil War and which seceded only after the firing on Fort Sumter.

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Example Sentences

Local organizers understood the strategic importance of finding a sympathetic plaintiff to challenge bus segregation in the Deep South.

From Salon • May 20, 2026

This story was produced in partnership with Deep South Today, a network of nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsrooms in Louisiana and Mississippi.

From Slate • May 5, 2026

With the invention of an efficient cotton gin in the 1790s, cotton planting spread rapidly across the Deep South as far west as Texas.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

"Sinners," the tale of gangster twins returning home to a supernatural and segregated Deep South in the 1930s, has already made Academy Awards history with its whopping 16 nominations.

From Barron's • Mar. 15, 2026

I determined to inspect two more sections and then call it a day—Texas and a sampling of the Deep South.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck