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Southern Illinois and Indiana in general are definitely "Southern Culture", I honestly don't consider places like the UP, Upper Wisconsin and Upper Minnesota to be real mid-western if anything they have a "Northwoods" culture of sorts. You pegged Florida pretty well though lol.
This is a new map of much more specific culture regions in the US. I included a few transition areas. They're more of sub regions.
I will not speak for all the border states, but for Oklahoma/Texas and for the majority of the South, this map is very well done. You have demonstrated a nice associational cultural commonality between the vast majority of Oklahoma and Texas (which is true/obvious) as well as the western half of Arkansas in your yellow Western South section. Very well done....haven't seen too many maps that catch this.
Western NY and Western PA are not the Midwest - they are Northeastern. Neither is WV or KY - they are the South.
The Great Plains are just the western edge of the Midwest (and the South, in Oklahoma and Texas). Central and western ND have much more in common culturally with Minnesota than Texas or Wyoming. Eastern Montana and Wyoming are more Western than anything, and have more in common with the Mountain West. The Great Plains also extend into Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. Really, the Great Plains are a geographic region, not a cultural region. The Plains cover all regions (Midwest, West, and South) in the U.S. except the Northeast, and also cover much of Canada.
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Really, the Great Plains are a geographic region, not a cultural region.
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are you interested in physical geography or culture?
Upstate new york has far more in common culturally with new england than it does with any part of West Virginia.
The northeast is complicated that way. There are historical cultural influences. There are geographic topographic zones. And there are modern socio economic regions. None of which really line up with each other. You need to decide what you are mapping before you map the NE.
Now watch someone come in here and try to argue Maryland, D.C., Northern VA, and Delaware have southern culture
-Waits for $mk to step in
At a very minimum to break mid atlantic from greater NY. Historic culture, dialect differences that last to this day, etc. You can talk about the corridor as much as you want, Brooklyn and St Marys County are NOT in the same cultural region.
I would even go further and break greater Philly, the ur region of pennsylvania and much of general american culture, from the chesapeake. The chesapeake was the ur region of Southern culture, and if the northern half is no longer southern, its still distinctive from SE Penn and southern Jersey.
I certainly wouldn't put WV in the Northeast. MAYBE, the far Eastern panhandle of WV...MAYBE. I also wouldn't consider half of Florida to be "Caribbean".
This is a new map of much more specific culture regions in the US. I included a few transition areas. They're more of sub regions.
I can't speak for many of the areas shaded/colored, but I think you did a hell of a good job in labeling/re-defining a "Western South" which includes the majority of Texas and Oklahoma (and portions of Arkansas). This is literally the "Old Southwest". A sub-region of the American South that has not a much at all in common with the "Southwest" of New Mexico and Arizona.
I kinda wonder about south Texas though. It is not truly SW (i.e. interior SW), but anymore it is likely not "western South" either, what with the hispanic/Mexican influence becoming ever more dominent. At one time it was, but today? I would almost consider it a sub-region in the same sense -- perhaps -- as southern Florida? Maybe "Tex-Mex South"? LOL
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