Appalachia is a partly rural, partly urbanized and industrialized region in and around the Appalachian Mountains in the Eastern U.S., extending through parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, western Virginia, and West Virginia, through southeastern Ohio, west and central Pennsylvania to southwestern New York. The Eastern Townships of southeastern Quebec exhibit some similarities to Appalachia.

More than twenty million people live in Appalachia, a thickly wooded area, roughly the size of Great Britain, that covers largely mountainous, often isolated areas from Alabama and Mississippi on the south to Pennsylvania and New York on the north. In between lie large chunks of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio. [1] (http://www.worldandi.com/subscribers/americanwavesdetail.asp?num=13245)

Culture

Prior to the 20th century the people of Appalachia were geographically isolated from the rest of the country. As a result, they preserved the culture of their ancestors (many of them English, Scottish, and Scotch-Irish) who settled the region in the 18th century, a culture of simple technology, self-sufficiency, and strong religious faith. Coal deposits in the region were tapped in the latter half of the 19th century and drew a new wave of immigrants, mostly from Central Europe. With this industrialization came increased urbanization.

Long characterized as backward, Appalachia has received more sympathetic treatment by historians and anthropologists in recent decades. The Foxfire project appealed to the hippie counterculture and gave the region new visibility in academia. A long-running series of documentary films by Appalachian Film Workshop take a more historical and critical view of the region, including especially such endemic and pervasive problems as those associated with coal mining, strip mining, and related social and economic issues.

Popular portrayals

Al Capp caricatured Appalachia/Ozark culture with hillbilly Li'l Abner in his cartoon strip Dogpatch. The Dukes of Hazzard and The Beverly Hillbillies were caricature television programs. The movies Coal Miner's Daughter and The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel give a more sensitive and accurate portrayal of life in Appalachia. The Waltons, a long running family TV serial, was sited in western Virginia.

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