Home to five Native American tribes (Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole), this area of fertile soils was the heart of the "cotton kingdom" before the Civil War.

Today Alabama lies at the center of a revitalized Deep South. Birmingham, the state's largest city, has become a focus for medical research, and is a major manufacturer of steel, iron, and coal. Leading industries include textiles and apparel, rubber and plastics, paper, chemicals, primary metals, and automobile manufacturing. The Alabama Research and Education Network, first state-funded computer network in the U.S., links universities and school systems across the state.

The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a transportation corridor for industry and agriculture, connects 16,000 miles of U.S. inland waterways to the Gulf of Mexico via Mobile's port.