West Tennessee in the context of "Deep South"

Tennessee (/ˌtɛnɪˈsiː/ , locally /ˈtɛnɪsi/), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. According to the United States Census Bureau, the state's estimated population as of 2024 is 7.22 million.

Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Tennessee has diverse terrain and landforms, and from east to west, contains a mix of cultural features characteristic of Appalachia, the Upland South, and the Deep South. The Blue Ridge Mountains along the eastern border reach some of the highest elevations in eastern North America, and the Cumberland Plateau contains many scenic valleys and waterfalls. The central part of the state is marked by cavernous bedrock and irregular rolling hills, and level, fertile plains define West Tennessee. The state is twice bisected by the Tennessee River, and the Mississippi River forms its western border. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation's most visited national park, is in eastern Tennessee.

The Grand Divisions are three geographic regions in the U.S. state of Tennessee, each constituting roughly one-third of the state's land area, that are geographically, culturally, legally, and economically distinct. The Grand Divisions are legally recognized in the state constitution and state law and are represented on the flag of Tennessee by the flag's three prominent stars.

The Grand Divisions, East, Middle, and West Tennessee, are sometimes referred to as "the three states of Tennessee" or "the three Tennessees".

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the United States' central bank. Missouri is the only state to have two main Federal Reserve Banks (Kansas City also has a bank).

Located in downtown St. Louis, the St. Louis Fed is the headquarters of the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which includes the state of Arkansas and portions of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, the eastern half of Missouri and West Tennessee. It has branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis. Its building, at 411 Locust Street, was designed by St. Louis firm Mauran, Russell & Crowell in 1924. The Eighth District serves as a center for local, national and global economic research, and provides the following services: supervisory and regulatory services to state-member banks and bank holding companies; cash and coin-handling for the District and beyond; economic education; and community development resources.

The Wolf River is a 40.3-mile-long (64.9 km) river in the U.S. states of Tennessee and Kentucky that rises at the base of the Cumberland Plateau in Fentress County, Tennessee and flows westward for several miles before becoming part of Dale Hollow Lake. The river is part of the Cumberland River drainage basin in Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. Via the Cumberland and Ohio rivers, it is part of the Mississippi River watershed. It is not to be confused with the Wolf River of West Tennessee which flows into the Mississippi at Memphis.

The Wolf River begins at the confluence of Pogue Creek and Delk Creek in a rugged hollow approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of the community of Pall Mall. Two miles below its source, the river absorbs Rotten Fork before entering the communities of Wolf River and Pall Mall, both of which are associated with World War I hero Alvin C. York. York's farm and gristmill were both located along the river at Pall Mall, and he and his family are buried in the large cemetery at Wolf River. York's farm is now part of a state historic park. The area is known as "the valley of the three forks of the Wolf," as noted in the 1941 film "Sergeant York." Below Pall Mall, the river continues westward across the northeastern Highland Rim into Pickett County, passing just east and north of Byrdstown as it flows through rolling farmland and forest. About a mile downstream from the TN 111 bridge, its water becomes slack due to the impoundment of Dale Hollow Lake on the Obey River. The lake's Wolf River embayment winds along the Kentucky-Tennessee border and has its confluence with the Obey River embayment just southeast of the point where Pickett County, Clay County, Tennessee, and Clinton County, Kentucky meet. Before the lake was impounded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1943, the confluence was the site of the community of Lillydale, formerly called Mouth of Wolf. The Lillydale name lives on in a Corps recreation area on the south shore of the lake. The Wolf River embayment also lies in Cumberland County, Kentucky.

The Memphis–Clarksdale–Forrest City Combined Statistical Area, TN–MS–AR (CSA) or Greater Memphis is the commercial and cultural hub of the Mid-South or Ark-Miss-Tenn. The census-defined combined statistical area covers eleven counties in three states, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. As of 2020 census, the Memphis metropolitan area had a population of 1,389,905 The Forrest City, Arkansas Micropolitan area was added to the Memphis area in 2012 to form the Memphis–Forrest City Combined Statistical area. In 2023 the Clarksdale, Mississippi Micropolitan area was also added to form the new Memphis-Clarksdale-Forrest City Combined Statistical Area which as of 2023 had a population of roughly 1.4 million people according to census estimates.

The greater Mid-South area has a population of 2.4 million, according to 2013 census estimates. This area is covered by Memphis local news channels and includes the Missouri Bootheel, Northeast Arkansas, West Tennessee, and North Mississippi.