The Mid-South is an informally-defined

region of the United States This is a list of some of the ways ''regions'' is defined in the United States. Many regions are defined in law or regulations by the federal government; others by shared culture and history, and others by economic factors. Interstate regions C ...

, usually thought to be anchored by the Memphis metropolitan area and consisting of

West Tennessee West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions (Tennessee), Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee River, Tennessee and Miss ...

North Mississippi North Mississippi is a region in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of Mississippi, consisting of Alcorn, Itawamba, Lee, Pontotoc, Prentiss, Tippah, Tishomingo, and Union counties. These counties share a unique cultural history that di ...

, Southern

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

Western Kentucky Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state. ;Always included * The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...

, Central, Northeast, and Eastern

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

, Northwest Alabama and even

Eastern Oklahoma In the U.S. state of Oklahoma, Eastern Oklahoma is an amorphous area roughly defined as east of Oklahoma City and/or east of I-35. The Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation established regional designations for the various parts of the st ...

.History of the National Weather Service: Memphis, Tennessee
National Weather Service.

Southern Illinois Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern United States, Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of th ...

(especially

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

, shown on the map) and

Southwestern Indiana Southwestern Indiana is an 11-county region of southern Indiana, United States located at the southernmost and westernmost part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the region's combined population is 474,251. Evansville, Indiana's third-largest ...

are sometimes included in this region. Although the region has no formally established boundaries, the designation has been used by various businesses and institutions generally operating in the region. In 1920, journalist C.P.J. Mooney equated the region with the

Mississippi River Valley The Mississippi embayment is a physiographic feature in the south-central United States, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. It is essentially a northward continuation of the fluvial sediments of the Mississippi River Delta to its conflu ...

, centered in Memphis, and described by advocates as "the richest agricultural region in the world".C. P. J. Mooney, ed., ''The Mid-South and Its Builders: Being the Story of the Development and a Forecast of the Future of the Richest Agricultural Region in the World'' (1920), p. 16. Mooney delineated the region as "covering West Kentucky, West Tennessee, part of the Tennessee River Valley in Alabama, the northern half of Mississippi, the Eastern half of Arkansas and southeast Missouri".

Victory University Victory University, formerly Crichton College, was a private for-profit university in Memphis, Tennessee. It closed in May 2014 and was owned by California-based Significant Education. Victory University was accredited by the Southern Associa ...

, located in Memphis, was originally named the Mid-South Bible Center when it was incorporated in 1944, and was thereafter renamed to the Mid-South Bible Institute in 1948, and to the Mid-South Bible College in 1960. From 1981 to 1987, a ''Mid-South Business Journal'' was also in publication. The

Mid-South Conference The Mid-South Conference (MSC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Member institutions are located in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. The league is headquartered in Lou ...

is an NAIA sports conference with member schools in the region.

References

Regions of the Southern United States {{US-geo-stub