Illinoisan here, Pennsylvania and Idaho need to get their heads checked. I wouldn’t consider anything west of Kansas or east of Ohio(being generous there) as Midwest. Also just about anything south of the Missouri Compromise Line is a southern state, the Midwest is not the home of traitors.
Wait until you see the Confederate flags in PA. Ya know, where the battle of Gettysburg happened. Very much not a southern state. It's wild seeing this shit in my neighborhood.
It won't "rise again" but the spirit of it absolutely has resurfaced in other forms, and will continue too so long as a significant number of people in this country identify with white supremacy and abject hatred.
The original KKK were effectively the remnants of the Confederate army + new recruits. And it's continued to find new banners in the generations since.
So much not a southern state that its bottom border is literally the Mason-Dixon line. Some people are, indeed, whack.
I have seen Confederate battle flags flying on trucks and houses in and around Gettysburg, no less. I get the impression that people are not doing this for historical reenactment purposes...
Seriously. I live in the Cleveland area of Ohio. We are geographically closer to Canada than the Mason Dixon. There's still an abundance of hoople heads flying confederate flags.
Even worse are the ones I see flying in West Virginia – you know, the state that only exists because its inhabitants didn't want to secede along with the rest of Virginia.
I don't think that's anywhere close to universally true but even if it is that's only one more example of why we should never listen to those kinds of people. That opinion is dumb, inaccurate, shallow, and more than a little white-washed.
This is similar to the line my neighbor tried to pull. He had one of those half-and-half flags that was the US flag on one side and Confederate battle flag on the other. Somebody came by in the dead of night and stole it. It became a big hoopla on the block. He tried to tell me, "It's got nothing to do with racism. It's just a rebel flag because we're just rebels in general and ain't nobody tell us what to do."
So have an anarchy flag or fly the Jolly Roger or something instead. For fuck's sake. I don't know if he actually believes that line of shit, or if it's just a cover. (He also has a Trump election sign, one of those corrugated plastic ones, stuck in his screen door. So I suspect the latter.)
No, it's actually true that a lot of people don't really think it through. I personally talked a friend out of flying it by appealing to how it might make others feel. It honestly hadn't really occurred to him. Now granted, said friend is semi-literate at best, but he is a genuinely kind and decent human being who just didn't know anything else.
St. Louis is actually referred to (by its tourism board, at least) as "The Gateway to The West". So, if it's not mid west, I don't know what they're thinking.
To say nothing of Idaho... What bunch of fucking morons. The state is one away from the left coast and they're calling themselves "mid" west? Are they actually that stupid? (Yes, rhetorical.)
I mean, if we went with what the word should indicate, Idaho is absolutely the Midwest. As it stands, there's no Mid or Mideast, the real "Midwest" is actually just the middle of the country. At this point, "Midwest* has almost nothing to do with relative location, it's more of a social and economic distinction, which Idaho does fit in with imo.
IIRC, the term was founded when "The West" was pretty much everything west of St. Louis, but it's been decades since primary school, so I could be (and often am) mistaken.
That map for the Mason-Dixon Line is not correct. The original line was at that latitude but it ended at modern day West Virginia. It was the line of demarcation between Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland. It was used in congressional debate during and after the the Missouri Compromise to refer to the line of division between slave states and free states which lead to an unofficial expansion. Since the 1820s it has been understood to move directly north from it's original endpoint until it hits the Ohio River then to follow the river west to the Mississippi River then to travel along the eastern, northern and western borders of Missouri. It ends on the 36°30' parallel and extends straight west through the Louisiana Purchase. The 36°30' line was applicable in the territories but not among the states. The Mason Dixon was the line of separation among the states.
it was settled by a lot of the same type of Germans who continued west from there during the mid 19th Century.. and its proximity to Cleveland has always sort of made it the easternmost Midwestern city..
Aside from the Browns/Steelers rivalry, I don’t get why there is so much animosity between people in the two cities. Having lived there for a couple of years after growing up in NEOhio, I miss Pittsburgh, and there’s a lot of commonality to be shared there.
Then y’all need to get Ohio to stop giving northern Kentucky Skyline chili if you don’t want them to be somewhat midwestern and southern at the same time. But you damn right about Idaho, culturally they’re closer to Floridian that anything else
I’ve never given Ohio anything other than ridicule lol and Kentucky is southern so them influencing Ohio would be trying to make them southern but they’re bordering Canada so that doesn’t work.
Pennsylvania does seem to be really far east for anyone to legit think that they're in the Midwest, but I haven't had the pleasure of visiting, yet, and don't know much about the people there. I can offer some perspective on a couple states that aren't exactly Midwest states:
Eastern Colorado is geographically and culturaly indistinguishable from Kansas, so I can see how people living in that area could consider it being the Midwest.
Since Oklahoma, my home state, was mostly just Native American territories it wasn't really part of either side of the civil war and so I think a lot of today's population don't want to be associated with the south and its history. I personally would hate to be called a southerner, but I don't think midwesterner is necessarily the right fit either.
I don’t think Ohio is mid west.. I know(think) it had something to do with the original 13 colonies but at this point the naming conventions need to change definitions.
Pretty sure they're implying that the region west of the 13 colonies was called the Midwest, not that Ohio was considered the Midwest because it was one of the original colonies...
That leaves the majority of the country as the Midwest then and that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Really trying to make states fit into 3/4 designations doesn’t work, we need to split them into like 8 to make sense
So originally anything west of the Appalachian mountains was called the west. Then as they explored more of the land and gained territories the line that defined the west moved to the Mississippi, making the territories between the Appalchians and Mississippi the Midwest.
Now the regions are split based on census data, and there are huge swaths of land in the West and Midwest that are sparsely populated so they are larger regions in size.
It makes sense if you actually look into it and take a 5 minute google search to learn about it.
Sure, but designations from 200 years ago are irrelevant to a modern nation spanning a continent with colonies and military bases spanning the globe. To call everything west of the Appalachian mountains “the west” is nonsense now
The Appalachians were historically the eastern boundary of the "midwest". Considering that western PA is to the west of the Appalachians, those Pennsylvanians may, in fact, be correct.
I'm from Western PA, and while I wouldn't say I see a lot of people calling themselves midwesterners, we're more alike than we are different. Western PA is hard to classify in terms of region. Most of us just say we're from Pittsburgh/Erie/whatever and leave it at that. But since it is hard to classify, 10% or so of us saying that we're "Midwestern" does not surprise me.
Rust Belt works. Ohio is really part of three different places; the Rust Belt, Appalachia and the Midwest. Maybe The Rust Belt isn't considered polite anymore, I don't know, but my mother's side of my family is entirely from the Pittsburgh to Cleveland area so I mean no offense. My grandfather was a career engineer at Bethlehem Steel, for example. His joke was that he literally sold bridges for a living.
80% of the state is to the west of the Appalachian chain. We haven't been midwestern since Ohio gained statehood in 1803. However, nearly 10% of my state has tied itself to an identity as a Midwesterner because for 20 years conservatives have been calling it "the real america". It's like Pennsylvanias flying the Confederate flag. It's about identity, not history or reality.
Some people consider Pittsburgh to be part of the Midwest for whatever reason. I guess it's because it's a rust belt city that's closer to Cleveland than it is Philly.
Yeah, living in Colorado has always been weird hearing that we're "the west". We're about as middle of the country as you can get. 3 states to our west to get to the Pacific, 4 states to the east to get to the Atlantic.
I believe it's because these states are west of the Mississippi River and something something Louisiana Purchase (high school history was decades ago).
Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan are east of the Mississippi. We couldn't reliably cross the Appalachian Mountains until shortly before the American Revolution. Expeditions before Daniel Boone forged the Wilderness Road had to go around so the most direct route between NY and where Chicago is now went about halfway down Alabama. The Appalachians were the original western frontier and the Midwest was the Northwest Territories. As the country expanded westward and new territories were established and the Northwest Territories gained statehood they became the Midwest.
I never have figured out how to categorize Oklahoma, but Midwest has never been on my Oklahoma bingo card. It's more like a less affluent extension of Texas that is full of bogus slot machines and smells like weed everywhere.
There is some surprisingly pretty land up there though. Growing up I always thought of it as a barren dust bowl wasteland. Lots and lots of trees in reality, at least in the eastern half. Don't know what's in the panhandle. I'm not sure anybody does.
Edit: Just as I finished typing this, a commercial came on the TV. To quote, and no I'm not kidding, "Live the flyover life. Move to Oklahoma."
I was born in Southern Arkansas and have lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for 40 years. I consider myself a Southerner, not a Midwesterner. But that's self-reported.
The joke here goes "You know why Texas doesn't slide off into the Gulf of Mexico? Because Oklahoma sucks so hard."
But truth be told, Tulsa is a pretty nice place to live. About half a million people and fairly progressive for a "Southern" state. And while many of the the hardcore conservatives moved to Texas, you still see a lot of Trump flags here.
They are roughly in the middle of the west, as a whole country. I think our Midwest is fairly far east, due in part to the fact that the western edge of the USA was once much further east, and many conventions have survived from that time.
I am from Illinois, which fits most folks idea of what is midwest, but it's really and truly just...middle
Not only is Wyoming solidly in the west, Wyoming arguably defines the west. Cowboys, sagebrush, the Rockies... If any part of Wyoming is "the midwest," so is the moon.
The truth is that pretty much everything about the western US starts with California and then spreads back out. This is because, due to the gold rush, California was settled and made a state first, while the rest of the western states remained "territories" and only achieved statehood much later as they too became more heavily settled.
Basically, the settlement pattern of the western states is backwards after about 1852 or thereabouts, with the California and the west coast filling in first, and the interior states filling in later.
According to google the town of Midwest, WY has 283 people, which is damn near half of the state's population. So add in a few more confused cowboys and that checks out.
One thing I can say about Minnesotans is that we're culturally odd.
We'll take care of eachother, but don't expect pleasant hellos and conversations with anyone. There are a lot of people that hunt, not a lot of people that hunt well or frequently. The Mall of America isn't as awesome as when you were a kid. The death of Prince was a State Tragedy. To outsiders, no, Minnesota does not consist of Duluth, the Twin Cities, and snow filled cornfields. Yes it's too damn cold. Yes it's too damn warm for this time of the year. No we won't quit complaining either way. Say yes to lefsa. Always safe with a caserol at a dinner party.
Never state something in a way that conveys your opinion or feelings too strong. That's rude. Never stand too close to or facing straight towards people in a conversation. That's rude. Don't get too involved. That's rude.
Do smile and raise a hand when you see someone you might know, or someone who does it to you regardless if you can identify them or not.
Skol!
Edit: So I asked my brother, and while he too was aware of hotdish being the correct entrée for a combination of ingredients baked in a pan, he also defaults to caserol. I think it's because our parents and extended family do not live here. For those confused, tater tot hotdish != tater tot caserol
You've got the East and West regions defined by the coasts. Then you have the South, but it's really just the southeast. The rest wants to be called the Midwest. There is no North, I guess...
It's probably named by the people who named middle East, like it's the west of the eastern Nations but they named it coz it was in the middle of their way to the east
Read a US history book on the westward expansion and it will all make perfect sense. Hint; it might have something to do with older names remaining in use up until the current day.
The US started as 13 colonies/states on the East coast. In the terminology, everything past that is "The West", and this general area is the middle-ish part of that, so "Midwest".
It’s the name of the region. The Great Plains aren’t particularly great either, they’re just big. It’s like how the Mediterranean isn’t really in the middle of the world
"Great" in that sense doesn't mean "good," it means big. You see the same use in a lot of bird names as in the great blue heron or the great auk, just off the top of my head.
Maybe on a purely east west dichotomy, but if we're using the typical 4 regions of the u.s. : Northeast, south, Midwest and west, then that is not right.
When the Democrats decided they wanted to be the "Urban Elite Party" and paint the Republican party as the "Rural Uneducated Party", they basically threw away Iowa. Iowa is as middle class plain-folk as you can get, so they will naturally align in opposition to the Urban Elite. That was a tactical error in how the Democratic Party formed its identity.
100 percent spot on. It's also a huge part of how they lost such a ridiculous chunk of blue collar workers in spite of labor leadership being solidly Democrat for decades.
Poor whites and rural hicks became the only working-class people it was still socially acceptable to openly mock in public. This was noticed and exploited by the right with dire consequences for our current political landscape.
Of course, a ton of other variables were at play as well, but the certainty that so-called "coastal elites" held them and everything they valued in contempt played a huge role in convincing blue-collar and middle-class rural whites to vote against their economic interests.
Eastern Wyoming and Montana are the Great Plains, so that at least makes a little sense. Idaho though, there you have me. I am at a loss. Maybe it's their poor public education system?
10% of Tennessee is so high on hillbilly heroin they don't know which question they got asked and just said "yes" on the off chance it was "would you like some free oxy?"
13% of Tennessee West Virginia is so high on hillbilly heroin they don't know which question they got asked and just said "yes" on the off chance it was "would you like some free oxy?"
I bet you that 10 percent are the people who are in the very northwest corner of TN so it would make some sense for them to answer yes given that they're not far from Missouri.
It's because the US started on the east coast and expanded westward, it was named back when it actually was the middle of the west and just never changed it. Same way we still refer to the art movement that began in the late 1800s as "modern art".
I was born in Nebraska and lived there until my early 20s when I moved to Wyoming and I've been here for 30 years. I'm very familiar with both areas. The "Great Plains" stops somewhere in the western panhandle of Nebraska. The pine forests up around Chadron (NW corner) have nearly nothing in common with the Cottonwood infested prairie down around Lincoln (SE corner). If you want to stick along I-80, which makes the discussion easier, there's a solid argument that the "Great Plains" ends somewhere West of North Platte and East of Sidney.
The drastic reduction in precipitation is mirrored by a change in the soil as somewhere around there the soil changes from the rich dark farmland of the East to the tan sand hills of the West. Following the water and soil change the plant life itself becomes notably different; its not only less dense it also has far less of the native prairie grasses in it. The change in plant life also makes the animal life different; for example there are no Antelope on the Eastern side but as you go West they start appearing. Deer and Elk are also different with White Tails disappearing as you move West but Mule Deer and Elk starting to appear. Nebraska has not Native Moose population that I'm aware of but by they can be found even in South Eastern Wyoming.
I've stomped around Colorado and Montana a fair bit too over the last 30 years and it's no different there. The Border Area of Colorado and Kansas is vastly different than the area around Lawrence, Kansas or Manhattan on the East Side. It's the same with the Eastern Border of Montana up against the Dakota's; there's notable and large differences between that area and everything East of North Platte, Nebraska.
The Great Plains as embodied by Iowa, Eastern Nebraska, and Eastern Kansas are separate and distinct from the High Plains of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.
I mean, southwest Colorado was part of the Dust Bowl. Culturally it's definitely part of the Great Plains area. I would argue that eastern Wyoming and Montana are as well. They have more in common with the Dakotas than they do with the Rockies.
I still wouldn't consider it the Midwest, but at least there's a tenuous thread of logic to the idea.
Southwest Colorado would be Durango / Montrose which is on west side of the Rockies! You think that's part of the Great Plains area?
Even SE Colorado such as Pueblo and Lamar are very distinct from towns and cities east of North Platte, Nebraska.
Culturally Eastern Nebraska is heavily Germanic / Western European Immigrant. Hell up into the 2000s there were still lots of little churches with at least one weekly service conducted in German. You won't find that in Pueblo.
I'm struggling to understand all of these cultural similarities that some of you see. Yes they're all Americans but everything from the type of soil they live on to their ancestry and immigration patterns is WILDLY different between Lincoln and Pueblo.
I lived in the States for five years and I still don't really get what Americans mean when they say the midwest. I guess that's partly because Americans also don't know, so you never get the same explanation twice.
It's all the middle junk nobody wants which is why there's so much of it.
Seriously tho, the historic context is that "The West" was west of the Mississippi river, which iirc got started calling that after the Louisiana Purchase. So the previous "west" wasn't accurate enough so the states between the Mississippi and the Appalachian mountains (chiefly the northern states around the Great lakes). Then the area has just kind of expanded to include the plains states since they're also flyover country
Pretty much, there's some pretty clear distinction as well. Like you won't find anyone on any part of a coast calling themself a midwesterner obv, but also the south east has the distinct trait of being The South, for better or worse. Usually worse. Southwest also gets a similar effect from being what everyone thinks of as "cowboy country".
As someone born and raised in the Midwest (Ohio and Illinois) and is currently a resident on the West Coast (Oregon), the way I define it is as such: if there is corn, it's the Midwest. If there are cowboys on horses, it's the west or southwest. Does your state touch the Atlantic or Pacific? That's what coast you are on (Hawaii and Alaska excepted).
Yep, and it's really obvious if you've driven into the state from the east. You find yourself wondering when you're gonna get to Colorado and realize you've been driving in it for 3 hours, it just looks exactly the same as the last 10 hours.
Same thought. No one here thinks it’s the midwest. It’s the west and very apparent. Ghost towns start popping up for attractions, everything’s about the mountains, camping, hiking, skiing/snowboarding.
In fact, weird outliers are a sign that the numbers weren't cooked. In polling, you'll always find a Christian who thinks Jesus isn't real, an Atheist who thinks the ten commandments should be posted in classrooms, people who think Sonic tastes good, and other equally strange and nonsensical results.
I know a dude from Michigan who insists Minnesota is not the Midwest. I won’t show him this map because offering facts and statistics doesn’t change his mind about anything.
Denverites and fort collins are lying to themselves if they think they have more in common with the rest of the mountain west than they have in common with Kansas City.
That's a slur on Denver that I won't countenance, and I've only ever been through its airport. Omaha is a city that cannot justify its existence. Denver at the very least has outdoor activities nearby.
78% of people polled in Ohio believe they are midwestern. People living on that border in Western Pennsylvania might identify geographically or culturally as midwestern, so 9% isn’t that surprising. Now if you broke it down and it showed that people living near Philly thought they were midwestern, that would be laughable.
Have you met anyone from Western Pennsylvania? You'd understand a number of them not knowing where they are on a map!
Lol I kid. Western PA, aka Pennsyltucky, is our Florida Man territory.
Ohio I definitely consider the start of the Midwest.
The others are right though mentioning the obscene number of rebel flags in PA though. My brother was guilty of it for a while in sad to say too. I'm in the Southeast, the most metropolitan part of the state, and they're all over. They're usually hung next to the MAGA stuff, which I'm sure comes as little surprise. Honestly I'd probably prefer the stars and bars to the Trump crap because at least the flag is aesthetically less ugly visually, and the person flying it could just be ignorant or is at least being honest about their beliefs instead of the poorly veiled hate the MAGA trash represents.
Arkansas was the surprising state to me. I guess I just don't ever think about anything related to Arkansas so I lump it in with the Midwest instead of the South, which I think of as the tourist destination states.
But no one in Fort Collins to Denver to CO Springs to Pueblo (almost the entire population of the state) would ever say they’re in the Midwest. Those cities basically start the West.
Interesting to me that Ohio and Michigan two states that I thought were firmly Midwestern identify less as Midwestern than what I always thought of as the Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Many in Utah think they’re Midwest too. It’s wild. (In my case their answers to me indicated they didn’t know where the Midwest is, not that they identified with it)
"It is called the Midwest because of the location of those states in the 1800s before the U.S. expanded to the Pacific Coast. These states were part of the Northwest Ordinance. This term became obsolete once the U.S. expanded westward, resulting in these states becoming the Midwest."
Another site defines it as West of the Mississippi River, but between North and South. So I guess it qualifies.
I don't know if it's providence, algorithm, or confirmation bias, but I just ran into a four-day-old Namexplain video on this exact subject.
TLDR: it used to be the westernmost part of the country, called Northwest Territory, but then we got some more land farther west and changed the name, but then we got more land further further west and didn't.
Illinoisan here, Pennsylvania and Idaho need to get their heads checked. I wouldn’t consider anything west of Kansas or east of Ohio(being generous there) as Midwest. Also just about anything south of the Missouri Compromise Line is a southern state, the Midwest is not the home of traitors.
Edit: correct mason Dixon to Missouri compromise
Wait until you see the Confederate flags in PA. Ya know, where the battle of Gettysburg happened. Very much not a southern state. It's wild seeing this shit in my neighborhood.
Confederate flags are in canada and California, it’s just a flag for racists to roleplay with, the confederacy won’t rise again anywhere.
It won't "rise again" but the spirit of it absolutely has resurfaced in other forms, and will continue too so long as a significant number of people in this country identify with white supremacy and abject hatred.
The original KKK were effectively the remnants of the Confederate army + new recruits. And it's continued to find new banners in the generations since.
It very much depends on what you mean when you say "the spirit of it," which I think you have to admit, is open to a lot of interpretation.
So much not a southern state that its bottom border is literally the Mason-Dixon line. Some people are, indeed, whack.
I have seen Confederate battle flags flying on trucks and houses in and around Gettysburg, no less. I get the impression that people are not doing this for historical reenactment purposes...
It's the racism. That's why.
Seriously. I live in the Cleveland area of Ohio. We are geographically closer to Canada than the Mason Dixon. There's still an abundance of hoople heads flying confederate flags.
I saw more Confederate battle flags in Indianapolis than Atlanta. Fuck Indianapolis.
Even worse are the ones I see flying in West Virginia – you know, the state that only exists because its inhabitants didn't want to secede along with the rest of Virginia.
It means something else to those who fly them, generally speaking. Think Dukes of Hazzard more than Slavery.
Not saying its right, but thats how they see it.
I don't think that's anywhere close to universally true but even if it is that's only one more example of why we should never listen to those kinds of people. That opinion is dumb, inaccurate, shallow, and more than a little white-washed.
This is similar to the line my neighbor tried to pull. He had one of those half-and-half flags that was the US flag on one side and Confederate battle flag on the other. Somebody came by in the dead of night and stole it. It became a big hoopla on the block. He tried to tell me, "It's got nothing to do with racism. It's just a rebel flag because we're just rebels in general and ain't nobody tell us what to do."
So have an anarchy flag or fly the Jolly Roger or something instead. For fuck's sake. I don't know if he actually believes that line of shit, or if it's just a cover. (He also has a Trump election sign, one of those corrugated plastic ones, stuck in his screen door. So I suspect the latter.)
No, it's actually true that a lot of people don't really think it through. I personally talked a friend out of flying it by appealing to how it might make others feel. It honestly hadn't really occurred to him. Now granted, said friend is semi-literate at best, but he is a genuinely kind and decent human being who just didn't know anything else.
South of the Mason-Dixon Line includes almost half of your own state of Illinois, and multiple other states that remained loyal to the union.
Did you perhaps mean to refer to the 36°30′ parallel that was used in the Missouri Compromise?
Personally I'm more worried about the 3% of Iowa who doesn't consider itself the Midwest.
Yes the Illinois/Missouri/Iowa group could be nothing other than Midwest, I don’t know how those aren’t 100%. We’re the poster children of Midwest
Missouri is pretty Southern culturally, due to all the racism.
Oh I know, I live here, it’s still IN the Midwest though. STL and KC are at least decent cities, the rest of the state is horrible though
St. Louis is actually referred to (by its tourism board, at least) as "The Gateway to The West". So, if it's not mid west, I don't know what they're thinking.
similarly, there's a good chunk of Southern Illinois that is basically indistinguishable from Kentucky.. same for Indiana..
my guess is that the 4.7% of missourians saying no are all in the ozarks/boot heel
Nah, they can’t read
There's a big cultural divide for Illinois, Chicago isn't very "Midwest" compared to downstate.
To say nothing of Idaho... What bunch of fucking morons. The state is one away from the left coast and they're calling themselves "mid" west? Are they actually that stupid? (Yes, rhetorical.)
As someone from Idaho: yea this pretty much tracks
I mean, if we went with what the word should indicate, Idaho is absolutely the Midwest. As it stands, there's no Mid or Mideast, the real "Midwest" is actually just the middle of the country. At this point, "Midwest* has almost nothing to do with relative location, it's more of a social and economic distinction, which Idaho does fit in with imo.
IIRC, the term was founded when "The West" was pretty much everything west of St. Louis, but it's been decades since primary school, so I could be (and often am) mistaken.
That map for the Mason-Dixon Line is not correct. The original line was at that latitude but it ended at modern day West Virginia. It was the line of demarcation between Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland. It was used in congressional debate during and after the the Missouri Compromise to refer to the line of division between slave states and free states which lead to an unofficial expansion. Since the 1820s it has been understood to move directly north from it's original endpoint until it hits the Ohio River then to follow the river west to the Mississippi River then to travel along the eastern, northern and western borders of Missouri. It ends on the 36°30' parallel and extends straight west through the Louisiana Purchase. The 36°30' line was applicable in the territories but not among the states. The Mason Dixon was the line of separation among the states.
https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/mason-dixon-line.htm
You are indeed correct, my bad it’s early where I’m at lol
Central Illinoisan here, and I’m pretty sure the half of Illinois south of the Mason-Dixon Line is the South, not the Midwest.
Well, Pittsburgh is culturally midwest even if they aren't geographically so.
it was settled by a lot of the same type of Germans who continued west from there during the mid 19th Century.. and its proximity to Cleveland has always sort of made it the easternmost Midwestern city..
Aside from the Browns/Steelers rivalry, I don’t get why there is so much animosity between people in the two cities. Having lived there for a couple of years after growing up in NEOhio, I miss Pittsburgh, and there’s a lot of commonality to be shared there.
Pittsburgh is geographically midwest as well. The Appalachians were the historical eastern border of the Midwest.
Philly, on the other hand, is culturally... Philly.
We're way too confrontational to be culturally midwest.
Haven't been to much of the Midwest, then, I guess
I figured it was mostly passive aggressiveness rather than aggressiveness. Michigan has it too but I chalked that up to rust-belt overlap.
Could be; I'm in Chicago, so what I see is just active aggressiveness, haha.
I view Pittsburgh as honorary Midwestern territory. It's a fantastic city, too.
Ey. Fuck you for saying so. And, fuck Pittsburgh. 🤌🏼
Then y’all need to get Ohio to stop giving northern Kentucky Skyline chili if you don’t want them to be somewhat midwestern and southern at the same time. But you damn right about Idaho, culturally they’re closer to Floridian that anything else
I’ve never given Ohio anything other than ridicule lol and Kentucky is southern so them influencing Ohio would be trying to make them southern but they’re bordering Canada so that doesn’t work.
Ohio really just doesn’t fit anywhere well
Pennsylvania does seem to be really far east for anyone to legit think that they're in the Midwest, but I haven't had the pleasure of visiting, yet, and don't know much about the people there. I can offer some perspective on a couple states that aren't exactly Midwest states:
Eastern Colorado is geographically and culturaly indistinguishable from Kansas, so I can see how people living in that area could consider it being the Midwest.
Since Oklahoma, my home state, was mostly just Native American territories it wasn't really part of either side of the civil war and so I think a lot of today's population don't want to be associated with the south and its history. I personally would hate to be called a southerner, but I don't think midwesterner is necessarily the right fit either.
Pennsylvanian here, sorry we have a lot of dumb people.
I once worked with a person from Ohio who thought Ohio was the furthest WEST Midwest state.
Map literacy is hard I guess
I don’t think Ohio is mid west.. I know(think) it had something to do with the original 13 colonies but at this point the naming conventions need to change definitions.
Not really. Midwest is more west of Appalachia, north of slave states, and east of the Rockies. It’s the land between the mountain ranges
Ohio was not one of the original 13 colonies
Pretty sure they're implying that the region west of the 13 colonies was called the Midwest, not that Ohio was considered the Midwest because it was one of the original colonies...
That leaves the majority of the country as the Midwest then and that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Really trying to make states fit into 3/4 designations doesn’t work, we need to split them into like 8 to make sense
So originally anything west of the Appalachian mountains was called the west. Then as they explored more of the land and gained territories the line that defined the west moved to the Mississippi, making the territories between the Appalchians and Mississippi the Midwest.
Now the regions are split based on census data, and there are huge swaths of land in the West and Midwest that are sparsely populated so they are larger regions in size.
It makes sense if you actually look into it and take a 5 minute google search to learn about it.
Sure, but designations from 200 years ago are irrelevant to a modern nation spanning a continent with colonies and military bases spanning the globe. To call everything west of the Appalachian mountains “the west” is nonsense now
Disappointed they didn't survey the whole nation. It'd be funny to see figures like "0.1%" for Florida or Hawaii.
It would probably be 3%, as per the Lizardman Constant.
It would be one of the few time texas does not look crazy
I'm a little concerned about Pennsylvania.
The Appalachians were historically the eastern boundary of the "midwest". Considering that western PA is to the west of the Appalachians, those Pennsylvanians may, in fact, be correct.
I'm from Western PA, and while I wouldn't say I see a lot of people calling themselves midwesterners, we're more alike than we are different. Western PA is hard to classify in terms of region. Most of us just say we're from Pittsburgh/Erie/whatever and leave it at that. But since it is hard to classify, 10% or so of us saying that we're "Midwestern" does not surprise me.
Rust Belt works. Ohio is really part of three different places; the Rust Belt, Appalachia and the Midwest. Maybe The Rust Belt isn't considered polite anymore, I don't know, but my mother's side of my family is entirely from the Pittsburgh to Cleveland area so I mean no offense. My grandfather was a career engineer at Bethlehem Steel, for example. His joke was that he literally sold bridges for a living.
80% of the state is to the west of the Appalachian chain. We haven't been midwestern since Ohio gained statehood in 1803. However, nearly 10% of my state has tied itself to an identity as a Midwesterner because for 20 years conservatives have been calling it "the real america". It's like Pennsylvanias flying the Confederate flag. It's about identity, not history or reality.
That's definitely the Pensytucky region chiming in
Some people consider Pittsburgh to be part of the Midwest for whatever reason. I guess it's because it's a rust belt city that's closer to Cleveland than it is Philly.
There's a decent amount of industry there, I think that is likely caused by the overlap between the Rust Belt and the Midwest.
They're just about as dumb as the people in Tennessee thinking it's the Midwest.
West Virginia can get partial credit, because they were probably just high.
Why is "west" in "midwest"? Can't we just call these states mid?
Fixed
So living on the line would be living in the Midmid?
"Middle of nowhere" is the accepted term for that region
You have forgotten the face of your father.
We go by Midworld.
Hilarious
Oi get those linea out of Texas its Southwest
Because the US expanded from the east coast towards the west. The midwest is west of the OG colonies, but not as far west as, well, the west.
Yeah, living in Colorado has always been weird hearing that we're "the west". We're about as middle of the country as you can get. 3 states to our west to get to the Pacific, 4 states to the east to get to the Atlantic.
Edit: lol at people downvoting geography
Skill issue.
I believe it's because these states are west of the Mississippi River and something something Louisiana Purchase (high school history was decades ago).
Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan are east of the Mississippi. We couldn't reliably cross the Appalachian Mountains until shortly before the American Revolution. Expeditions before Daniel Boone forged the Wilderness Road had to go around so the most direct route between NY and where Chicago is now went about halfway down Alabama. The Appalachians were the original western frontier and the Midwest was the Northwest Territories. As the country expanded westward and new territories were established and the Northwest Territories gained statehood they became the Midwest.
Is your house surrounded on all sides by corn?
Does Napoleon Dynamite seem like a documentary about your town?
Then you live in the Midwest.
Napoleon dynamite takes peace in Idaho. It has a very rural theme to it, but it's not Midwest.
Exactly. It's not geographically midwest, but it embodies an idea of the midwest.
An endless patchwork of green and yellow squares. Countryside but not natural.
There are people in TN and AR that think they're Midwestern?
"Y'all" talk too funny for that, now.
(I kid, I kid!)
I don't agree with AR being Midwest, but I bet you that 10 percent of people in TN are those that live right next to Missouri
I never have figured out how to categorize Oklahoma, but Midwest has never been on my Oklahoma bingo card. It's more like a less affluent extension of Texas that is full of bogus slot machines and smells like weed everywhere.
There is some surprisingly pretty land up there though. Growing up I always thought of it as a barren dust bowl wasteland. Lots and lots of trees in reality, at least in the eastern half. Don't know what's in the panhandle. I'm not sure anybody does.
Edit: Just as I finished typing this, a commercial came on the TV. To quote, and no I'm not kidding, "Live the flyover life. Move to Oklahoma."
That part of the country is like part midwestern, part southern, part western.
Well, now you have to move to the panhandle after that commercial, let us know how it is.
I'm pretty sure it's a giant meth lab
As a Kansan, don’t you dare put that evil on us!
I was born in Southern Arkansas and have lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for 40 years. I consider myself a Southerner, not a Midwesterner. But that's self-reported.
The joke here goes "You know why Texas doesn't slide off into the Gulf of Mexico? Because Oklahoma sucks so hard."
But truth be told, Tulsa is a pretty nice place to live. About half a million people and fairly progressive for a "Southern" state. And while many of the the hardcore conservatives moved to Texas, you still see a lot of Trump flags here.
I went to Tulsa once ten years ago and was very pleasantly surprised by it. Really a nice little city.
I always joke that there is East, West, and South Texas, and then there is Meth Texas, AKA Oklahoma.
TIL that 25% of people living in Idaho are even dumber than I previously thought they were ...
They are roughly in the middle of the west, as a whole country. I think our Midwest is fairly far east, due in part to the fact that the western edge of the USA was once much further east, and many conventions have survived from that time.
I am from Illinois, which fits most folks idea of what is midwest, but it's really and truly just...middle
Three wests were given to the US, wisest and fairest. Seven to the dwarf lords...
Idaho is a... special place... if you know what I mean.
I'm from Wyoming and I'm calling bullshit on that number. Unless they talked to people living in the town of Midwest.
Not only is Wyoming solidly in the west, Wyoming arguably defines the west. Cowboys, sagebrush, the Rockies... If any part of Wyoming is "the midwest," so is the moon.
Isn't the tourism "mascot" for WY a cowboy? Kinda screams Western state to me.
The cowboy on the bucking bronco is also on their license plate.
The truth is that pretty much everything about the western US starts with California and then spreads back out. This is because, due to the gold rush, California was settled and made a state first, while the rest of the western states remained "territories" and only achieved statehood much later as they too became more heavily settled.
Basically, the settlement pattern of the western states is backwards after about 1852 or thereabouts, with the California and the west coast filling in first, and the interior states filling in later.
pretty sure midwest is not the same thing as west lol
According to google the town of Midwest, WY has 283 people, which is damn near half of the state's population. So add in a few more confused cowboys and that checks out.
Totally agree. I’m in Colorado, nobody would ever call this the midwest. Maybe all the midwestern transplants here were confused about the question?
One thing I can say about Minnesotans is that we're culturally odd.
We'll take care of eachother, but don't expect pleasant hellos and conversations with anyone. There are a lot of people that hunt, not a lot of people that hunt well or frequently. The Mall of America isn't as awesome as when you were a kid. The death of Prince was a State Tragedy. To outsiders, no, Minnesota does not consist of Duluth, the Twin Cities, and snow filled cornfields. Yes it's too damn cold. Yes it's too damn warm for this time of the year. No we won't quit complaining either way. Say yes to lefsa. Always safe with a caserol at a dinner party.
Never state something in a way that conveys your opinion or feelings too strong. That's rude. Never stand too close to or facing straight towards people in a conversation. That's rude. Don't get too involved. That's rude.
Do smile and raise a hand when you see someone you might know, or someone who does it to you regardless if you can identify them or not.
Skol!
Edit: So I asked my brother, and while he too was aware of hotdish being the correct entrée for a combination of ingredients baked in a pan, he also defaults to caserol. I think it's because our parents and extended family do not live here. For those confused, tater tot hotdish != tater tot caserol
I've never been so offended by something absolutely correct. My shotgun that I haven't used in a decade and the 0 deer I killed with it are upset now.
Minnesotan card revoked
Got me there. It actually caused a few fights in my former marriage, geen bean caserol is not in any way similar to green bean hotdish.
You ARE too good for a free banana though..
Gotta call it a hot dish, or people will look at you weird.
Mall of America is even MORE awesome now that no one can stop me from buying out the entire Lego store!
but it no longer has a Microsoft store, which was the 2nd best place to nerd out after the Lego store
Wasn't there also a board game store? I hope the pandemic didn't kill that off.
Pandemic was actually pretty good for most board game stores, as people needed something to do at home.
Imposter! A true Minnesotan would know you bring hotdish. Casserole is a Southern dish.
Edit: Also, WTF is up with "caserol" instead of casserole?
i can't spell anything for too shits
I wave to every single person I see when out for my run regardless of whether I know them
Who are the 8.4% of my fellow Hoosiers who don't think they live in the midwest and where do they think they live?
hell
If I owned Hell and Indiana, I would rent out Indiana and live in Hell.
Chicagoland.
Where exactly is Chicago located? In terms of the country as a whole?
In Chicago.
The tip of the great droopy penis lake.
In the elementary school Indiana history class (4th grade) it was even a part of the curriculum* to learn where were are in the US.
We were taught that the Northwest Territory became what is now called the Midwest (the area east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers).
So North-Central. Got it. (Am not American and don't know American history very well)
When I was in highschool I thought Midwest referred to California and stuff because it's the middle (North south wise) and in the west.
You've got the East and West regions defined by the coasts. Then you have the South, but it's really just the southeast. The rest wants to be called the Midwest. There is no North, I guess...
That's good old Canada.
Looks northeastern more than mid western
It called the midwest from a time a ago when the Mississippi river was the western edge. USA grew a bit and then more but the name stayed the same.
Still blows my mind that Midwest apparently means "slightly not easy coast."
Like in my mind it would be Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah. That kind of area. Considering it's midway through the west half of the country.
Well, it used to be called the Northwest Territory.
Then we expanded even further west and it became the "old west".
Then the "old west" came to mean the Southwest region pre-statehood.
So then they became the "Midwest".
This makes me wanna play some red dead
It's probably named by the people who named middle East, like it's the west of the eastern Nations but they named it coz it was in the middle of their way to the east
So it should just be mid?
Definitely is.
In my mind, the midwest is west of the Mississippi and through the plains. Colorado starts the traditional west with Texas being the exception.
Read a US history book on the westward expansion and it will all make perfect sense. Hint; it might have something to do with older names remaining in use up until the current day.
Most of y'all are east of the centerline.
You're the middle east, not midwest.
As a Canadian, thank you for explaining. From the chart, I thought Americans in the middle states were just really bad with geography.
(also you mean geographically, not geologically)
As an American, I can confirm they are just bad with geography.
Happy to learn that you're unaware of all the new states.
Eh, most of them kinda suck anyway...
Yeah, I'm especially ashamed of [your state here], but [my state here] really is a trailblazer.
Australian checking in with "I had never been told that". I just figured it was geographical like our "mid north coast" but evidently not.
What does that mean?
The US started as 13 colonies/states on the East coast. In the terminology, everything past that is "The West", and this general area is the middle-ish part of that, so "Midwest".
It’s the name of the region. The Great Plains aren’t particularly great either, they’re just big. It’s like how the Mediterranean isn’t really in the middle of the world
Or how super foods don't give you superpowers. :^)
"Great" in that sense doesn't mean "good," it means big. You see the same use in a lot of bird names as in the great blue heron or the great auk, just off the top of my head.
Are you telling me that great tits don’t have lovely mammaries?
Yeah I’m sorry I know they’re the particularly large plains. They’re just also several shit states and couldn’t resist the pun to mock them
funnily enough, this is probably one of those "if you know, you know" things.
And I don't know what middle of what is implied here.
If you're west of the Mississippi river, you're the West. Straight up.
Maybe on a purely east west dichotomy, but if we're using the typical 4 regions of the u.s. : Northeast, south, Midwest and west, then that is not right.
Might want to check a map homie, cause I'm pretty sure Iowa is NOT in the captial-W West 😂
Maybe you meant the Missouri river?
Iowans calling themselves "midwest" while voting like southerners. You hate to see it.
Most of the Midwest votes like southerners, what are you on about?
Yeah, but Iowa used to be a swing state (meaning democrats used to have a chance there), now it's as red as Texas.
When the Democrats decided they wanted to be the "Urban Elite Party" and paint the Republican party as the "Rural Uneducated Party", they basically threw away Iowa. Iowa is as middle class plain-folk as you can get, so they will naturally align in opposition to the Urban Elite. That was a tactical error in how the Democratic Party formed its identity.
100 percent spot on. It's also a huge part of how they lost such a ridiculous chunk of blue collar workers in spite of labor leadership being solidly Democrat for decades.
Poor whites and rural hicks became the only working-class people it was still socially acceptable to openly mock in public. This was noticed and exploited by the right with dire consequences for our current political landscape.
Of course, a ton of other variables were at play as well, but the certainty that so-called "coastal elites" held them and everything they valued in contempt played a huge role in convincing blue-collar and middle-class rural whites to vote against their economic interests.
Now here we are.
What the fuck are they smoking in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho?
That’s the “West” part.
But kinda mid tho.
Eastern Wyoming and Montana are the Great Plains, so that at least makes a little sense. Idaho though, there you have me. I am at a loss. Maybe it's their poor public education system?
Bro there ain't nothing else to do there
It's funny that even if that's not considered Midwest colloquially, physically it's the most Midwest you can be in the US.
10% of Tennessee is so high on hillbilly heroin they don't know which question they got asked and just said "yes" on the off chance it was "would you like some free oxy?"
13% of
TennesseeWest Virginia is so high on hillbilly heroin they don't know which question they got asked and just said "yes" on the off chance it was "would you like some free oxy?"I bet you that 10 percent are the people who are in the very northwest corner of TN so it would make some sense for them to answer yes given that they're not far from Missouri.
This just in: 10% of Tennesseeans forgot what state they live in.
I envy them
Probably just a coping method you develop from living there 🤷
"where is the middle-of-the-west?"
(American points north-by-north east)
It's because the US started on the east coast and expanded westward, it was named back when it actually was the middle of the west and just never changed it. Same way we still refer to the art movement that began in the late 1800s as "modern art".
I'm just being a smartass. Although, Americans do have trouble renaming things.
This message sent from a Robert E. Lee phone
Good thing you brought it up, though. I was really confused about where midwest turned out to be.
Very surprised 42 percent of Coloradans and 25 percent of Idahoans would say they live in the Midwest.
Well, 78% of Americans think that Idaho is Iowa, so this doesn't shock me.
but I thought Iowa was in Idaho? which is it?
How could Iowa exist within a potato?
Maybe one of Idaho's clones is in Iowa. He's got a lot of 'em.
Well they're right...they live basically in the middle of the west.
Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana are Rocky Mountain West, not the MidWest. Good grief.
All three have a significant portion of their state in the Great Plains.
I was born in Nebraska and lived there until my early 20s when I moved to Wyoming and I've been here for 30 years. I'm very familiar with both areas. The "Great Plains" stops somewhere in the western panhandle of Nebraska. The pine forests up around Chadron (NW corner) have nearly nothing in common with the Cottonwood infested prairie down around Lincoln (SE corner). If you want to stick along I-80, which makes the discussion easier, there's a solid argument that the "Great Plains" ends somewhere West of North Platte and East of Sidney.
Let's start with water, the average annual precipitation in Lincoln is right at 30" but as you go West it keeps decreasing and by the time you reach Sydney it's down to 15", a reduction of 50!
The drastic reduction in precipitation is mirrored by a change in the soil as somewhere around there the soil changes from the rich dark farmland of the East to the tan sand hills of the West. Following the water and soil change the plant life itself becomes notably different; its not only less dense it also has far less of the native prairie grasses in it. The change in plant life also makes the animal life different; for example there are no Antelope on the Eastern side but as you go West they start appearing. Deer and Elk are also different with White Tails disappearing as you move West but Mule Deer and Elk starting to appear. Nebraska has not Native Moose population that I'm aware of but by they can be found even in South Eastern Wyoming.
I've stomped around Colorado and Montana a fair bit too over the last 30 years and it's no different there. The Border Area of Colorado and Kansas is vastly different than the area around Lawrence, Kansas or Manhattan on the East Side. It's the same with the Eastern Border of Montana up against the Dakota's; there's notable and large differences between that area and everything East of North Platte, Nebraska.
The Great Plains as embodied by Iowa, Eastern Nebraska, and Eastern Kansas are separate and distinct from the High Plains of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.
I mean, southwest Colorado was part of the Dust Bowl. Culturally it's definitely part of the Great Plains area. I would argue that eastern Wyoming and Montana are as well. They have more in common with the Dakotas than they do with the Rockies.
I still wouldn't consider it the Midwest, but at least there's a tenuous thread of logic to the idea.
Southwest Colorado would be Durango / Montrose which is on west side of the Rockies! You think that's part of the Great Plains area?
Even SE Colorado such as Pueblo and Lamar are very distinct from towns and cities east of North Platte, Nebraska.
Culturally Eastern Nebraska is heavily Germanic / Western European Immigrant. Hell up into the 2000s there were still lots of little churches with at least one weekly service conducted in German. You won't find that in Pueblo.
I'm struggling to understand all of these cultural similarities that some of you see. Yes they're all Americans but everything from the type of soil they live on to their ancestry and immigration patterns is WILDLY different between Lincoln and Pueblo.
I lived in the States for five years and I still don't really get what Americans mean when they say the midwest. I guess that's partly because Americans also don't know, so you never get the same explanation twice.
It's all the middle junk nobody wants which is why there's so much of it.
Seriously tho, the historic context is that "The West" was west of the Mississippi river, which iirc got started calling that after the Louisiana Purchase. So the previous "west" wasn't accurate enough so the states between the Mississippi and the Appalachian mountains (chiefly the northern states around the Great lakes). Then the area has just kind of expanded to include the plains states since they're also flyover country
So basically anything that not the extreme east or west or south becomes midweast?
Pretty much, there's some pretty clear distinction as well. Like you won't find anyone on any part of a coast calling themself a midwesterner obv, but also the south east has the distinct trait of being The South, for better or worse. Usually worse. Southwest also gets a similar effect from being what everyone thinks of as "cowboy country".
As someone born and raised in the Midwest (Ohio and Illinois) and is currently a resident on the West Coast (Oregon), the way I define it is as such: if there is corn, it's the Midwest. If there are cowboys on horses, it's the west or southwest. Does your state touch the Atlantic or Pacific? That's what coast you are on (Hawaii and Alaska excepted).
As someone who has spent most of their life in Ohio, but grew up in New Jersey ... there is a lot of corn in New Jersey.
So PA is a weird one because it's so wide.
Yes, Philly is undoubtedly on the east coast.
But Pittsburgh is on the other side of the mountains.
I wouldn't call Pittsburgh the "east coast".
Pittsburgh is the gateway to the Midwest. The city is WAY more like Cleveland than Philly.
Pittsburgh certainly isn't easy coast or mid west. I consider Pittsburgh Appalachian.
Same with New York and Buffalo. Buffalo just doesn't seem like an east coast city.
Ok Colorado and Wyoming thinking they’re Midwest is new to me. As is Ohioans thinking we arent
Coloradan here. We don't. I'm very suspicious of this data.
The eastern third of CO is all plains and definitely feels like the Midwest, but hardly anyone lives there.
Yep, and it's really obvious if you've driven into the state from the east. You find yourself wondering when you're gonna get to Colorado and realize you've been driving in it for 3 hours, it just looks exactly the same as the last 10 hours.
The trick is, as soon as you can see the tip of Pikes Peak, you’re in Colorado.
Same thought. No one here thinks it’s the midwest. It’s the west and very apparent. Ghost towns start popping up for attractions, everything’s about the mountains, camping, hiking, skiing/snowboarding.
You'll never get everyone to agree on anything in a poll.
In fact, weird outliers are a sign that the numbers weren't cooked. In polling, you'll always find a Christian who thinks Jesus isn't real, an Atheist who thinks the ten commandments should be posted in classrooms, people who think Sonic tastes good, and other equally strange and nonsensical results.
Looks legit. As a Chicagoan I can confirm that Iowa is the middlest-west there is.
I know a dude from Michigan who insists Minnesota is not the Midwest. I won’t show him this map because offering facts and statistics doesn’t change his mind about anything.
Well this map is self reported so I don't think it can be considered fact
It's a fact that it's self reported.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territory
Only half of Minnesota was part of the OG Northwest Territory, so in that sense, your friend is maybe correct.
I'm morbidly curious what region Minnesota is in if it's not the Midwest. Surely he doesn't call it part of the Old West? That would just be bonkers.
Just check if they say ope
Denverites and fort collins are lying to themselves if they think they have more in common with the rest of the mountain west than they have in common with Kansas City.
YyyyyuuuuP. I've always called Denver, "Omaha with a view of the mountains".
That's a slur on Denver that I won't countenance, and I've only ever been through its airport. Omaha is a city that cannot justify its existence. Denver at the very least has outdoor activities nearby.
Idaho should be in the Rockies and perhaps all of Utah.
West Virginia is not the south. West Virginia exists because they were so insistent on not being the south.
You'll also find a ton in Ohio and Pittsburgh and even Canada. At this point, the flag has very little to do with being southern.
Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey are not New England. They’d disagree with that assessment, as would those from New England.
Mid Altlantic exists as well.
Philadelphian here...swallowing my vomit after being grouped with new england
PA, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and maybe Maryland are considered the Mid Atlantic.
They are not New England, but they are the Northeast.
Idaho? Really? That 25% must not know geography at all...
Idaho and Montana I understand - no one one from the Midwest or PNW will claim either, but culturally Midwest is closer.
Almost 10% of Pennsylvania thinks they are in the midwest? HAHAHAHAHHA
78% of people polled in Ohio believe they are midwestern. People living on that border in Western Pennsylvania might identify geographically or culturally as midwestern, so 9% isn’t that surprising. Now if you broke it down and it showed that people living near Philly thought they were midwestern, that would be laughable.
Have you met anyone from Western Pennsylvania? You'd understand a number of them not knowing where they are on a map!
Lol I kid. Western PA, aka Pennsyltucky, is our Florida Man territory.
Ohio I definitely consider the start of the Midwest.
The others are right though mentioning the obscene number of rebel flags in PA though. My brother was guilty of it for a while in sad to say too. I'm in the Southeast, the most metropolitan part of the state, and they're all over. They're usually hung next to the MAGA stuff, which I'm sure comes as little surprise. Honestly I'd probably prefer the stars and bars to the Trump crap because at least the flag is aesthetically less ugly visually, and the person flying it could just be ignorant or is at least being honest about their beliefs instead of the poorly veiled hate the MAGA trash represents.
Arkansas was the surprising state to me. I guess I just don't ever think about anything related to Arkansas so I lump it in with the Midwest instead of the South, which I think of as the tourist destination states.
I think it probably has to do with the overlap between the Midwest and the rust belt.
42% of Colorado has lost their damn mind.
If you are east of the front range cities it pretty much is the Midwest. That makes up about 42% of the state. Seems accurate to me.
But no one in Fort Collins to Denver to CO Springs to Pueblo (almost the entire population of the state) would ever say they’re in the Midwest. Those cities basically start the West.
Probably the NW. Just guessing.
Are the Rockies normally considered the Midwest?
3.3% of Iowans must think they live on Mars
Nah, they're just in Davenport.
Interesting to me that Ohio and Michigan two states that I thought were firmly Midwestern identify less as Midwestern than what I always thought of as the Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Many in Utah think they’re Midwest too. It’s wild. (In my case their answers to me indicated they didn’t know where the Midwest is, not that they identified with it)
Who in the hell is calling Pennsylvania the Midwest?
I'm thinking the survey must have caught some tourists who were in PA at the moment.
Well that's a hot take that nearly makes ontario a cold midwest
Not that bad, to be honest, but those Oklahomans are kidding themselves.
I would consider this data partial casserole containment fields at best.
Link to the poll? I wonder if the sample size was kinda small.
Found it, or at least details from the source. Looks like 11,000 responses.
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/middle-west-review-and-emerson-college-polling/
When I got to Ohio, I was so confused when people called it the Midwest. I was like, have you seen a map.
That's because it is considered part of the Midwest?? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States
Not saying it’s inaccurate because of history but wow does it not match modern US geography.
This is how I, a Michigander, feel about anyone west of the Mississippi claiming the monocer.
That river WAS the beginning of the west, how that could be Midwest is beyond me ...
I'm in PA and I don't consider it to be the Midwest even slightly...
Sure do! Love my home state of MN
So top center of the flex box.
Fly over states represent!
Wyoming has a plurality!
I live in the middle of the most western state of the contiguous US. Does that count?
I am a flyover cow MOOOO
I don't live in the un-united states and I'm glad I dont
Jesus Christ...
If you aren't in the B1G Ten at this moment, say no.
Im In Illinios and still dont get how were considered midwest..?
"It is called the Midwest because of the location of those states in the 1800s before the U.S. expanded to the Pacific Coast. These states were part of the Northwest Ordinance. This term became obsolete once the U.S. expanded westward, resulting in these states becoming the Midwest."
Another site defines it as West of the Mississippi River, but between North and South. So I guess it qualifies.
I don't know if it's providence, algorithm, or confirmation bias, but I just ran into a four-day-old Namexplain video on this exact subject.
TLDR: it used to be the westernmost part of the country, called Northwest Territory, but then we got some more land farther west and changed the name, but then we got more land further further west and didn't.
That's Pennsylvania.
The luggage tag of the US