The Dixie Chicks are a country/rock music trio from the United States comprising Emily Robison, Martie Maguire and Natalie Maines.

They are the highest-selling female band in any musical genre, having sold 36 million albums as of June 2006.

The group formed in 1989 in Dallas, Texas. After years of struggle and personnel changes, the Dixie Chicks achieved massive country and pop success starting in the late 1990s with hit songs such as "Wide Open Spaces", "Cowboy Take Me Away", and "Long Time Gone".

The women became well-known for their lively persona, instrumental virtuosity, soaring ballads, fashion sense and outspoken political comments. As of 2007, they had won 13 Grammy Awards.

Ten days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Natalie Maines publicly criticized U.S. President George W. Bush. The ensuing controversy cost the group half of their concert audience attendance in the United States as chronicled in the 2006 documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing.

At the 49th Grammy Awards Show in 2007, 'the Chicks' - as they are informally known - won all five categories for which they were nominated, including the coveted Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year, in a vote that Maines interpreted as being, at least in part, a statement for free speech.