Birmingham, Alabama, is the center of steel manufacture and has been called the Pittsburgh of the South, but though the industry has grown rapidly in Birmingham, it has also grown in Pittsburgh, and the Southern city is gaining very slowly.

There are great beds of bituminous coal in the South, but only in West Virginia and Alabama is the production really important, though Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia produce appreciable quantities.
In the total value of the products of mines of all sorts, West Virginia and Oklahoma are among the leaders, owing to their iron, coal, and petroleum output.

Other Southern States follow in the rear.

Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana all have a mineral output which is large in the aggregate but a small part of the total.

The sulphur mines of Louisiana are growing increasingly important.