The state has diverse geography, with the north dominated by the mountainous Tennessee Valley and the south by Mobile Bay, a historically significant port.

Following the American Civil War, Alabama would suffer decades of economic hardship, in part due to agriculture and a few cash crops being the main driver of the state's economy.

In 1960, the establishment of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville helped boost Alabama's economic growth by developing a local aerospace industry.

Alabama's economy in the 21st century is based on automotive, finance, tourism, manufacturing, aerospace, mineral extraction, healthcare, education, retail, and technology.

The economy of the central Black Belt (named for its dark, productive soil) was built around large cotton plantations whose owners' wealth grew mainly from slave labor.

[62] Continued racial discrimination and lynchings, agricultural depression, and the failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation led tens of thousands of African Americans from rural Alabama and other states to seek opportunities in northern and midwestern cities during the early decades of the 20th century as part of the Great Migration out of the South.

One result was that Jefferson County, containing Birmingham's industrial and economic powerhouse, contributed more than one-third of all tax revenue to the state, but did not receive a proportional amount in services.

[72][73] African Americans continued to press in the 1950s and 1960s to end disenfranchisement and segregation in the state through the civil rights movement, including legal challenges.

Natural wonders include the "Natural Bridge" rock, the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies, just south of Haleyville; Cathedral Caverns, in Marshall County, named for its cathedral-like appearance, which features one of the largest cave entrances and one of the largest stalagmites in the world; Ecor Rouge, in Fairhope, the highest coastline point between Maine and Mexico;[95] DeSoto Caverns, in Childersburg, the first officially recorded cave in the United States;[96] Noccalula Falls, in Gadsden, which has a 90-foot waterfall; Dismals Canyon, near Phil Campbell, which is home to two waterfalls and six natural bridges and is said to have been a hideout of Jesse James;[97] Stephens Gap Cave, in Jackson County, which has a 143-foot pit and two waterfalls and is one of the most photographed wild cave scenes in America;[98] Little River Canyon, near Fort Payne, one of the nation's longest mountaintop rivers; Rickwood Caverns, near Warrior, which has an underground pool, blind cave-fish, and 260-million-year-old limestone formations; and the Walls of Jericho canyon, on the Alabama–Tennessee border.

Alabama receives an average of 56 inches (1,400 mm) of rainfall annually and enjoys a lengthy growing season of up to 300 days in the southern part of the state.

Occasionally, thunderstorms are severe with frequent lightning and large hail; the central and northern parts of the state are most vulnerable to this type of storm.

[104] Alabama, along with Oklahoma and Iowa, has the most confirmed F5 and EF5 tornadoes of any state, according to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center for the period January 1, 1950, to June 2013.

As of 2010[update], the three largest denominational groups in Alabama are the Southern Baptist Convention, The United Methodist Church, and non-denominational Evangelical Protestant.

[169][170] The state has invested in aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries, including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication.

In addition, Alabama produces aerospace and electronic products, mostly in the Huntsville area, the location of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Materiel Command, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal.

Construction began in 2013, with plans for it to become operable by 2015 and produce up to 50 aircraft per year by 2017.b[194][195] The assembly plant is the company's first factory to be built within the United States.

[208] Movies filmed in Alabama include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Get Out, 42, Selma, Big Fish, The Final Destination, Due Date, and Need for Speed.

[226] On May 14, 2019, Alabama passed the Human Life Protection Act, banning abortion at any stage of pregnancy unless there is a "serious health risk", with no exceptions for rape and incest.

[228] On June 24, 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Judge Thompson lifted the injunction, allowing the law to go into effect.

United States Supreme Court decisions in Baker v. Carr (1964) required that both houses have districts established on the basis of population, and redistricted after each census, to implement the principle of "one man, one vote".

[242] During Reconstruction following the American Civil War, Alabama was occupied by federal troops of the Third Military District under General John Pope.

In 1874, the political coalition of white Democrats known as the Redeemers took control of the state government from the Republicans, in part by suppressing the black vote through violence, fraud, and intimidation.

After 1890, a coalition of White Democratic politicians passed laws to segregate and disenfranchise African American residents, a process completed in provisions of the 1901 constitution.

As counties were the basis of election districts, the result was a rural minority that dominated state politics through nearly three-quarters of the century, until a series of federal court cases required redistricting in 1972 to meet equal representation.

Alabama state politics gained nationwide and international attention in the 1950s and 1960s during the civil rights movement, when whites bureaucratically, and at times violently, resisted protests for electoral and social reform.

In 2007, the Alabama Legislature passed, and Republican governor Bob Riley signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" over slavery and its lingering impact.

[245] The 2023 American Values Atlas by Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority of Alabama residents support same-sex marriage.

In 2007, more than 82 percent of schools made adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward student proficiency under the National No Child Left Behind law, using measures determined by the state of Alabama.

Some notable examples of Alabama literature include Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, Winston Groom's Forrest Gump, Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, and the biographies of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Alabama has several professional and semi-professional sports teams, including three minor league baseball teams.

For rail transport, Amtrak schedules the Crescent, a daily passenger train, running from New York to New Orleans with station stops at Anniston, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa.