<P> The phrase is also used to describe Yorkshire, England's largest county . This is used interchangeably with God's Own County . </P> <P> The phrase later found sporadic use to describe several American regions . Most known is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan . It was also 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 remain widely used to describe a region, though it is still occasionally used to describe the United States overall . </P> <P> 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 eigenes Land" (God's own country) to criticize American culture and society . </P> <P> The earliest recorded use of the phrase as applied to New Zealand was as the title of a poem about New Zealand written by Thomas Bracken . It was published in a book of his poems in 1890, and again in 1893 in a book entitled Lays and Lyrics: God's Own Country and Other Poems . God's Own Country as a phrase was often used and popularised by New Zealand's longest serving prime minister, Richard John Seddon . He last quoted it on 10 June 1906 when he sent a telegram to the Victorian premier, Thomas Bent, the day before leaving Sydney to return home to New Zealand . "Just leaving for God's own country," he wrote . He never made it, dying the next day on the ship Oswestry Grange . Bracken's God's Own Country is less well known internationally than God Defend New Zealand which he published in 1876 . The latter poem, set to music by John Joseph Woods, was declared the country's national hymn in 1940, and made the second national anthem of New Zealand along with God Save the Queen in 1977 . </P>

Who described kerala as god's own country