Depends. I can get sweet tea almost anywhere along I-35 and east. Houston is very much like Atlanta in culture.

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Ti_Cocodrie@reddit

Anyone from north of I-10 is a Yankee.

But in all seriousness, I use that term for anyone that isn't from The South.

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Crazycatlover@reddit

There is a ton of regional variation to this. I was born in New Hampshire. I will scoff at any non-New Englander who dares call themselves a Yankee! And I don't call myself a Yankee either -- moved away too long ago. I'm a Southwester if anybody asks.

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

Eh, I’ve called myself a Yankee, and I’m not from New England. I’d first identify as a Buckeye, but in contrast to a southern identity, yeah, I’m a Yankee.

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Federal_Pickles@reddit

I’m from Texas. When I say “up north” I mean the northeast.

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savguy6@reddit

When we say “the south”, Texas is definitely not included. 😆

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bananapanqueques@reddit

What is Texas if not south? It’s on the southern border.

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savguy6@reddit

By that logic, parts of California and Arizona would constitute parts of “the south”.

LAWriter2020@reddit

As a born and raised Southerner, it is hardly a non sequitur. The South snd southeast as terms are not primarily associated with college sports, at least not among educated people.

kreativegaming@reddit

I don't care I'm just responding for fun this is the internet I don't take it seriously but yall keep harping on the Rome example but ignore my Mongol part and the Mongolian empire was 2.5 x the size of the US

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big_sugi@reddit

“Nearly as big as the Roman Empire” would not be accurate. “About twice as big as the Roman Empire at its peak,” however, would be accurate.

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kreativegaming@reddit

The roman empire had 20% of the world's population and stretched from Britain to the euphrates, that's a long journey bro.

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big_sugi@reddit

At no point has anyone here talked about expansion of population. Every comment has been about the addition of land area.

That’s why your bumbling attempt to change the subject is so obvious.

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HessianHunter@reddit

Did you mean to say "most of the west"?

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nonkowledge@reddit

northern California is actually south of a part of Canada

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Eggsbennybb@reddit

Other people have given good answers. To clarify though, California is its own thing. The southwest usually refers to Arizona and New Mexico.

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Push_the_button_Max@reddit

I mean, here in Los Angeles/Southern California, we definitely think of ourselves as part of the “southwest,” because we are literally the south-west corner of the mainland US, and we have a very obvious Mexican heritage throughout- many of the streets names are in Spanish, etc.

But then there is a very large influence from the Pacific Rim Countries throughout California.

We were just San Diego.

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As someone that lives in a damn swamp, I consider my territory to be "the South" and every state north (up to West Virginia) and between here and the East Coast to be the Bible Belt rather than "the South". After traveling to a handful of places I can say with enough certainty that things are just ran different around here, plain and simple.

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JuanMurphy@reddit

Google Northwestern University. It used to be the northwest.

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kmoonster@reddit

The South was a defined/named region from the outset, some aspects existing even prior to independence (with some exceptions for Alabama and Mississippi being added to the South a bit later)

The Southwest only came about a few generations (and several decades) later. Arizona and New Mexico only became states at about the time of World War I, for example.

The name "The South" was in use and defined roughly a century before the Southwest started needing a defining name. You can argue the precise dates/timing but the general sense is what I just outlined.

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Sabertooth767@reddit

For the same reason the Midwest is really the Mideast.

At the time, there was no Southwest, and the terminology never changed.

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saskanxam@reddit

Florida is not fully excluded culturally from the South, this idea seems to have been exaggerated by the internet.

California isn’t southern. It’s western. It’s just located from top to bottom. California is divided. You have NoCal (North California) and SoCal (South California) but California as a whole is considered west coast.

SoCal is Hollywood, LA, Disney, Palm Springs, Orange County, San Diego, etc.

NoCal is The Bay Area for example (San Francisco)

In the middle is everything else like Sacramento and Stockton.

But your American south is: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida,Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia.

Go any lower than Texas and you’re in Mexico/Central America/Cuba depending which way you leave.

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sapphireminds@reddit

*NorCal don't forget the R lol

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__HEATHER@reddit

From what I remember when I lived in LA it was NoCal and SoCal 😆🤣

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sapphireminds@reddit

You might just not have appreciated the R :)

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__HEATHER@reddit

Sounds about me 🙂‍↕️

BUBBAH-BAYUTH@reddit

I’ve always learned that there’s the Old South, the Deep South, and Southwest.

Old South includes VA, the Carolinas, Georgia etc

Because the United States of America has not always been in it's current form.

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Vulpix_lover@reddit

When we talk about areas like "the north" "the south" "the north east" ect ect, we're talking more about cultural regions rather than actual true directions related to the poles

The south is the region that seceded from the Union during the Civil War

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nightowl1135@reddit

And even then… debatable. Miami isn’t culturally the south. Neither is Northern Virginia. Modern day West Virginia is culturally southern… and in the civil war, they seceded from the secessionists. El Paso isn’t culturally southern at all. Much more southwest.

‘The south’ is a more tricky than it seems term that even Americans argue about.

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kidmock@reddit

West Virginia is a cultural mix bag. Northern panhandle is a little more mid-western with a bit of Pennsylvania spice, Eastern Panhandle is a little more mid-atlantic. South is little more southern. But we are 100% hillbilly, we have our own Identity. We are not southern. Mountaineers are always free. Just like Florida. We are misfits and we like it that way.

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dhrisc@reddit

Also chiming in to say Kentucky never seceded, but is definitely the south.

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nightowl1135@reddit

Yeah, there are a dozen more examples. You could make the same argument parts of Missouri, Southern Illinois, Oklahoma, hell… even parts of Maryland feel Southern.

‘The South’ is a trickier term than ‘areas that seceded vs areas that didn’t’

I understand why some foreigners get confused by it. Hell, Americans can’t universally agree on it.

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OmightyOmo@reddit

My husband used to say anything north of Guthrie OK is Yankee country. He was a weirdo.

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Winter-Warlock8954@reddit

I can oversimplify this.

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KingDarius89@reddit

Because it was called the South way before we had people in California, let alone made it a state. Some of them were even one of the original 13 colonies.

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vespers191@reddit

When the thirteen colonies were first settled, there was not particularly a "West" to refer to beyond the abstract. So there was no need to specify the East half of the South. The South was it.

Time goes on, the Federal government expands, mapping happens, and then there's a concentration of population in the Eastern half of the South, as compared to mostly desert in the South West. Enough of a substantial difference that occasionally the distinction is needed. But most of the time, if it's people related, you can say the South and be relatively accurate.

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One-Scallion-9513@reddit

when the term was coined there was no southwest

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jessek@reddit

Because when the country was founded it was 13 states along the east coast, the south was the ones south of the Mason-Dixon line.

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SeaPeanut7_@reddit

Everything is named in relation to where the area of Virginia/Washington DC is. The Country is mostly centered around the east coast historically, and that's where most people lived as well. The "west" is considered to be the plains and mountains around Kansas, Nebraska, OK, etc because they form a barrier that was difficult to pass historically. The Pacific areas really only started developing in the past \~100 years, prior to that it was mainly for economic resources such as mining, forestry, trapping and trading.

Thats why you get the "midwest" because its the area that is close to the plains. Cities like Minneapolis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Dallas form a sort of barrier due to the climate where past that it is less hospitable and that is considered the "west".

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Few-Might2630@reddit

It has a lot to do with Civil War diving lines (North and South) who supported slavery and who did not. The “west” was described as territories west of the Mississippi River and hadn’t been annexed as office states.

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Quirky_Commission_56@reddit

Born and reared in the American Southwest.

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ByronScottJones@reddit

In 1920, the population of New York City was 5.2M. By comparison, it took the 3 largest western states to match that and all the western states combined couldn't double that.

California: 3,426,861 Washington: 1,356,621 Colorado: 939,629 Oregon: 783,389 Montana: 548,889 Idaho: 431,866 New Mexico: 360,350 Arizona: 334,162 Utah: 449,396 Nevada: 77,407 Wyoming: 194,402 Alaska (Territory): 55,036