# Florida is in the South, how come it's not THE SOUTH

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-in-the-south-how-come-its-not-the-south/176702>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 22, 2003, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-in-the-south-how-come-its-not-the-south/176702 "2003-05-22T01:02:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-in-the-south-how-come-its-not-the-south/176702/41 "2003-05-23T19:17:53Z")

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Go read John D. MacDonald’s books, especially the Travis McGee series. He paints a pretty good picture of the Floridization process.

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**Author:** ![35340](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/8baadc/32.png) [@35340](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/35340)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-is-in-the-south-how-come-its-not-the-south/176702/42 "2003-05-23T20:00:45Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Florida is an incredibly schizoid state. The dividing line between North / South is approximately Interstate 4. North of 4 is the South and south of 4 is something else entirely. I4 runs from Tampa (my metro area) to Orlando to Daytona Beach, and everything gets decidedly more, um…, country as you head north of it.

“The further North you go, the further South you are.”

I’d say the above poster … is close. Living in way South Florida (called SoFla by the nits on TV), I’d say “the South” starts somewhere in Palm Beach county, but it gets thicker/heavier the further north you go. I personally find Tampa way too Southern for me (of course I’m a mixed race liberal hippy chick who was raised in Texas of all places).

South of Palm Beach county is a mixture of Latin cultures, Carribean cultures, and retired white people. A recent poll showed that intolerance of each other among the three groups is as high as ever.

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