 The Bible Belt, highlighted in red The Bible Belt is an area including a number of southern and midwestern states in the USA in which fervent Protestantism is a pervasive part of the culture. The stronghold of the Bible Belt is typically The South.
Although exact boundaries do not exist, it is generally considered to cover much of the area stretching from Texas north to Kansas, east to Virginia, and south to Florida. The term is also sometimes used to describe the generally conservative province of Alberta, in Canada, or the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. Utah is often called the "Bible Belt of the West".
It is also interesting to note that Nashville, Tennessee in addition to being referred to as "Music City, U.S.A.", is sometimes also referred to as "The Buckle of the Bible Belt". This play on words is especially favored by Nashvillians due to the large (jokingly referred to as "dinner plate sized") belt buckles stereotypically worn by country music artists and the fact that several Protestant denominations call Nashville home. Many other cities and towns are commonly called the "buckle of the Bible Belt," including Tulsa, home of Oral Roberts University; and Dayton, Tennessee, site of the Scopes Monkey Trial.
The "belt" terminology is common in the U.S. to describe regions with a roughly east-west orientation that share a feature, such as the Rust Belt, a term to describe declining industrial areas of the northeast and upper midwest, and the Sun Belt, a term for hot-weather states stretching from coast to coast.
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