God's Own Country

God’s Own Country, is a phrase that was first used to describe the Wicklow Mountains and has subsequently been used to refer to several places, including Surrey, Australia, United States, New Zealand, Kerala state, Yorkshire,Cornwall, Scotland and Wales. The phrase has been abbreviated to Godzone or less often Godzown.

The expression was first used to describe the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland by Edward du Bois, writing under the pseudonym "A Knight Errant" in 1807, and in a poem describing the English county of Surrey in 1839. The phrase was also used in its more literal meaning to refer to Heaven, in a poem by Elizabeth Harcourt Rolls Mitchell in 1857.

The phrase later found sporadic use to describe several American regions. Most known is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Also was used by the Confederate army to describe parts of Tennessee in the 1860s. The phrase was also used to describe California in the 1860s, and by Clement Laird Vallandigham to describe the land of the Mississippi plains. None of these remained a widely used to describe a region, though it is still occasionally used to describe the United States overall.

During World War II, German Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels sarcastically mocked the USA as "Aus Gottes eigenem Land" (From God's Own Country) in an essay that appeared in the German newspaper Das Reich on August 9, 1942. Goebbels ridiculed America as a young land that lacked culture, education and history in contrast with Germany. In 1943, the Nazis published an anti-American, anti-semitic propaganda book written by Erwin Berghaus called "USA - nackt!: Bilddokumente aus Gottes eigenem Land" (USA naked! Photo documents from God's own country) which also mockingly characterized the USA with the phrase. Several modern German newspapers such as Die Welt, Der Tagesspiegel and Die Zeit have also used the phrase "Gottes eigenem Land" (God's own country) to criticize American culture and society.

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