Delta

The Delta fills the flat alluvial floodplain in northwestern Mississippi, the region between the Mississippi River and the Yazoo River that geographers call the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta. The land is famously level — some of the flattest agricultural country in the United States — with deep soil left by centuries of flooding and a network of bayous, sloughs, and oxbow lakes from the river’s old courses. Bolivar, Coahoma, Tunica, Sunflower, Leflore, Washington, Humphreys, Sharkey, and Yazoo counties stretch across the region, with Clarksdale, Greenville, Greenwood, Indianola, and Cleveland as the main towns. Vicksburg sits at the southern edge. The Mississippi Blues Trail and Mississippi Country Music Trail mark sites across the region. Most travel here runs around the music. Clarksdale is the cradle of Delta blues — Ground Zero, Red’s Lounge, the crossroads of US 49 and 61, the Delta Blues Museum. B.B. King’s birthplace and museum sit in Indianola; the Grammy Museum is in Cleveland; Greenwood holds the Robert Johnson grave. Add agricultural history at Hopson Plantation and Civil War history at Vicksburg, and most visits run three or four days following a music-and-history thread.