Alabama State Map

Regions of Alabama

Alabama is about 330 miles from the Tennessee line to the Gulf. The land rises from a low coastal plain in the south to the southern end of the Appalachians in the northeast.

Tennessee Valley

The Tennessee River loops across the top of the state through Florence, Muscle Shoals, Decatur and Guntersville. TVA dams turned it into a chain of lakes, including Wheeler, Wilson and Guntersville. Huntsville, with neighboring Madison, is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Army’s Redstone Arsenal.

Appalachian Highlands

Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain run southwest from the Georgia and Tennessee lines. Little River Canyon National Preserve, near Fort Payne, cuts through the top of Lookout Mountain. Farther south, the Talladega Mountains hold Cheaha Mountain, the state’s highest point, inside Cheaha State Park and Talladega National Forest.

Birmingham and the Ridge and Valley

Iron ore, coal and limestone found side by side made Birmingham a steel city after the Civil War. Today the metro area spreads along I-20, I-59 and I-65 to Hoover, Bessemer and Trussville. The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument covers sites of the 1963 campaign.

The Black Belt

A band of dark, fertile prairie soil crosses central Alabama from Mississippi toward Georgia, through Selma, Demopolis and the Montgomery area. It was the heart of the cotton economy and later of the civil rights movement: the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail follows the 1965 voting rights march along US 80, and Tuskegee has two national historic sites.

Wiregrass and the Coastal Plain

Southeast Alabama, around Dothan and Enterprise, is flat farm country known for peanuts. The Chattahoochee River forms the southern half of the border with Georgia.

Mobile Bay and the Gulf Coast

The Alabama and Tombigbee rivers join to form the Mobile River, which spreads into the Mobile–Tensaw Delta before reaching Mobile Bay. The Port of Mobile sits at the head of the bay; Dauphin Island guards its mouth. East of the bay, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach line the state’s short stretch of Gulf beaches next to the Florida Panhandle.

Rivers of Alabama

• Tennessee River: enters from Tennessee, crosses the north and leaves toward Mississippi and Tennessee near the state’s northwest corner.
• Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers: flow down from Georgia and meet near Wetumpka, just north of Montgomery, to form the Alabama River.
• Black Warrior and Tombigbee rivers: drain the west and meet near Demopolis; the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links the Tombigbee to the Tennessee River.
• Chattahoochee River: part of the Georgia border, past Phenix City and Eufaula.

Major highways

• I-65: the main north–south route, from Mobile through Montgomery, Birmingham and Decatur to the Tennessee line toward Nashville.
• I-20: from the Mississippi line (shared with I-59) through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, then east past Anniston toward Atlanta.
• I-59: northeast from Birmingham through Gadsden and Fort Payne toward Chattanooga.
• I-85: from Montgomery through Auburn and Opelika into Georgia.
• I-10: crosses the coast through Mobile, under the Mobile River and over Mobile Bay, between Mississippi and Florida.
• I-22 and I-565: Birmingham to Jasper and Memphis; and the spur from I-65 near Decatur to Huntsville.
• US 231 and US 431: long north–south routes through Dothan, Montgomery and Huntsville, and through Eufaula, Phenix City, Anniston and Gadsden.