The South Atlantic United States form one of the nine Census Bureau Divisions within the United States that are recognized by the United States Census Bureau.

Geography

This division includes eight states and one district; Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.. This division is also a recognized geographical division used by the United States Geological Survey.

Together with the East South Central States (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee) and the West South Central States (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas), the South Atlantic States constitute the United States Census Bureau's broader Census Bureau Region of the South (the other three regions being the Northeast, Midwest, and West, all of which have two divisions).

Demographics

As of 2010, the South Atlantic States had a combined population of 61,774,970. The South Atlantic States region covers 292,589 square miles. With the exception of West Virginia, the region has saw rapid population growth and economic development in recent decades.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's oceanic divisions, following the Pacific Ocean. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi), it covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas".

The oldest known mention of "Atlantic" is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4): Atlantis thalassa (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς θάλασσα; English: Sea of Atlas). The term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, was applied to the southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century. Before Europeans discovered other oceans, their term "ocean" was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that are now known as the Atlantic. The early Greeks believed this ocean to be a gigantic river encircling the world.

The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.

The South Atlantic is the portion of the Atlantic Ocean which lies south of the Equator.

South Atlantic may also refer to: