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
Well, Pittsburgh is culturally midwest even if they aren’t geographically so.
I view Pittsburgh as honorary Midwestern territory. It’s a fantastic city, too.
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.
Pittsburgh is geographically midwest as well. The Appalachians were the historical eastern border of the Midwest.
Philly, on the other hand, is culturally… Philly.
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.
Ey. Fuck you for saying so. And, fuck Pittsburgh. 🤌🏼
I once worked with a person from Ohio who thought Ohio was the furthest WEST Midwest state.
Map literacy is hard I guess
Pennsylvanian here, sorry we have a lot of dumb people.
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
There’s a big cultural divide for Illinois, Chicago isn’t very “Midwest” compared to downstate.
my guess is that the 4.7% of missourians saying no are all in the ozarks/boot heel
Nah, they can’t read
Missouri is pretty Southern culturally, due to all the racism.
similarly, there’s a good chunk of Southern Illinois that is basically indistinguishable from Kentucky… same for Indiana…
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.
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.
You are indeed correct, my bad it’s early where I’m at lol
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
Central Illinoisan here, and I’m pretty sure the half of Illinois south of the Mason-Dixon Line is the South, not the Midwest.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.)
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.
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?
Maybe one of Idaho’s clones is in Iowa. He’s got a lot of 'em.
They aren’t clones. They’re gholas. Like, dude, get your terminology straight
How could Iowa exist within a potato?
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.
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I believe this is closer to reality. I forgot an east coast subgroup.
edit: It’s called the mid atlantic and people are big mad about its exclusion on a shitty, crude map in context to a discussion about the Midwest. lmao
Mid Altlantic exists as well.
Idaho should be in the Rockies and perhaps all of Utah.
I’ll concede Idaho. Utah is iffy.
Philadelphian here…swallowing my vomit after being grouped with new england
Have some water.
Nothing PA is midwestern. Nothing PA is New England. Nothing PA is The South.
So, does PA get it’s own, like TX?
PA, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and maybe Maryland are considered the Mid Atlantic.
They are not New England, but they are the Northeast.
West Virginia is not the south. West Virginia exists because they were so insistent on not being the south.
The sheer number of confederate flags that fly in WV sure does make it feel southern.
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.
“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.
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.
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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.
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.
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Jesus Christ…
So North-Central. Got it. (Am not American and don’t know American history very well)
Looks northeastern more than mid western
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
