The University of North Alabama (abbreviated UNA) is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the state's oldest four-year public university.

Occupying a 130-acre (0.5 km²) campus in a residential section of Florence, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. The four cities comprise a metropolitan area with a combined population of 140,000 people.

The University of North Alabama, which celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2005, has undergone numerous sweeping changes in the course of its long history. Originally founded as LaGrange College in 1830, it was reestablished in 1872 as the first state-supported teachers college south of the Ohio River. A year later, it became one of the nation's first coeducational colleges.

Within the last half century, the University of North Alabama has developed into a comprehensive regional university exerting a major influence over the cultural, social and economic life of Northwest Alabama and providing educational opportunities for students pursuing undergraduate and graduate majors offered through the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Nursing and Health.

Coordinates: 34°53′13.41″N 86°19′25.32″W / 34.8870583°N 86.3237°W / 34.8870583; -86.3237

North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 12 counties: Cherokee, Colbert, DeKalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 1,000,985, or 20.94% of the state's population as of 2010 Census.

The anchor city of the region is Huntsville, but other cities of notable size include (in order of population): Decatur, Florence (along with its sister cities Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia), Madison, 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. Most corporations use Decatur as a regional hub for the Northwest Alabama region because Huntsville is located further east. However, historically Florence has been the main cultural center of the NW.

Alabama (ⁱ/ˌæləˈbæmə/) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 23rd-most populous of the 50 United States. Alabama ranks second in the area of its inland waterways.

From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship, in part because of continued dependence on agriculture. Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature until the 1960s, while urban interests and African Americans were under-represented. Following World War II, Alabama experienced growth as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and technology. In addition, the establishment or expansion of multiple military installations, primarily those of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, added to state jobs.