Heh. Way simplistic, but my family always associated Southern = Cantonese speaking (and maybe Fukienese), Northern = Mandarin speaking. Of course, my maternal grandmother actually is Fukienese by birth.... but married into a Hubei family and spent a good amount of time in Chongqing (as did many of her generation) and Sichuan. My paternal grandmother was from Hunan, which is also kind of border between North and South. Nobody REALLY northern, like Beijing or Harbin... So it's all relative.
(Also, holy digression Batman. Sorry to everyone else reading this thread... )
