sunbelt

plural sunbelts · alternative Sunbelt · alternative Sun Belt

1. USAn area or belt of land that receives a lot of sun; specifically, a zone comprising the southern and western states of the USA where the weather is typically sunny, characterised by an influx of population from the north and often typified as having conservative political views.First known use 20th c.

   Lack of water, fertile land, productive mines, and heavy industry made it an unlikely candidate. But the same forces which forged the new west and lured millions of people to the sunbelt, also boosted Las Vegas.

   1995, Eugene P. Moehring, Resort City in the Sunbelt: Las Vegas, 1930–1970, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 13

   1 more example

   Anglos to whom I talked in Miami […] persisted in the related illusions that the city was small, manageable, prosperous in a predictable broad-based way, southern in a progressive sunbelt way, American, and belonged to them.

   1987, Joan Didion, Miami, Granta, published 2005, page 51

plural Sunbelts

1. Alternative letter-case form of sunbelt.

   After all, Richmond—the capital of Virginia—is much closer to New York City in terms of mileage than it is to Atlanta, Georgia, the city on the East Coast most widely considered to be quintessentially Sunbelt.

   2014, Sean P. Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt […] , Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 7