# North Alabama

north alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 16 counties: Blount, Cherokee, Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Etowah, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 1,000,985, or 20.94% of the state's population as of 2010 Census.Huntsville is the largest metropolitan area in the region. The anchor city of the region is Huntsville, but other cities of notable size include (in order of population): Decatur, Madison, Florence (along with its sister cities Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia), and Athens. Decatur and Florence share the designation of anchor city for Northwestern Alabama because they are the largest economic centers north of Birmingham and west of Huntsville.