Dixie, also known as Dixieland or Dixie's Land, is a nickname for all or part of the Southern United States. While there is no official definition of this region, or the extent of the area it covers, most definitions include the U.S. states below the Mason–Dixon line that seceded and comprised the Confederate States of America, almost always including the Deep South. The term became popularized throughout the United States by songs that nostalgically referred to the American South.
Bayou Navigation in Dixie, engraving of a Louisiana Steamboat, 1863
C.D. Blake's I'se Gwine Back To Dixie and other similar songs included the usage of Dixie nostalgically.
The Mason–Dixon line, also called the Mason and Dixon line or Mason's and Dixon's line, is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, constituting parts of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia. It was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon as part of the resolution of a border dispute involving Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in the colonial United States. The dispute had its origins almost a century earlier in the somewhat confusing proprietary grants by King Charles I to Lord Baltimore (Maryland), and by his son King Charles II to William Penn.
The Mason–Dixon line, where the Torrey C. Brown Rail Trail becomes the York County Heritage Trail near New Freedom, Pennsylvania
A historical marker at Front and South streets in Philadelphia, where the survey began
A crownstone boundary monument on the Mason–Dixon line; these markers were originally placed at every 5th mile (8.0 km) along the line, ornamented with family coats of arms facing the state they represented. The coat of arms of Maryland's founding Calvert family is shown; on the other side, are the arms of William Penn, who founded the Province of Pennsylvania
The Mason Dixon Trail