Determine empty column with Nothing, = Nothing or IsNullOrEmpty

When you want to determine if a database column is empty (i.e not null but there is not any value in it) what are the differences between the below options:

customerRegion varchar(10) NULL is retrieved from the SQL database:

1. If customerRegion = "" Then
2. If customerRegion = Nothing Then
3. If String.IsNullOrEmpty(customerRegion) Then
4. If customerRegion Is Nothing Then

1,2,3 returns True 4 returns False when the column is empty.

Is 1 and 2 technically the same thing? and Why is 4 returning False?

Out of 1,2 and 3 which one should be used to determine if the column is empty (or is there any other way of doing it)?

Thanks

1. If customerRegion = "" Then - This tests to see if the column contains an empty (0 length) string. This is the "best" option because the value will never be Nothing. If the column value was null, it would equal DBNull, not Nothing.
2. If customerRegion = Nothing Then - This is very confusing because many people will think it's interchangeable with #4 (Is Nothing). When you test if a string equals Nothing, VB.NET automatically considers Nothing to be an empty string. That is why it evaluates to True.
3. If String.IsNullOrEmpty(customerRegion) Then - This will work well, but it's unnecessary since the column value will never be null (Nothing) (see #1).
4. If customerRegion Is Nothing Then - This will never return true (see #1).