[AnAmericanMother]

Virginia was never the Deep South, having much too close a connection with D.C. As D.C. became more powerful, Virginia was sucked into its orbit, with predictable results.

SW Virginia is still very Southern, but more Mountainy Southern (like North Georgia and Western Carolina).

[OldPossum]

That is true. I never hear what I consider to be a Southern “accent” here in central Virginia, and of course, there is not a whiff of any Southern speech in northern Virginia (a definite Yankee enclave).

Those two areas of Virginia cannot be considered as part of the South, IMHO.

As an aside, when I lived in the True South we never thought of Florida as being a Southern state despite its obvious geographic location. The Panhandle was an exception, we concluded.