Why people don't classify the mountian states as it own reigon (schools, live in)

[mwalker96]

Generally when people talk about reigons of the US it is NorthEast, South, Midwest and West Coast. When people talk about states like Colorado, Arizona or Utah they usually say Midwest or West Coast. Why is that?

[btownboss4]

Because the West has much more of a homogenous heritage compared to the east.

[jupiter9]

Mountain states are a sub region within the West.


Western states: California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. That's it.


I have never in my life heard people refer to Colorado, Arizona, or Utah as the Midwest.




The USA has a West vs Midwest, South, and Northeast divide that is apparent culturally and politically.

[CookieSkoon]

Isn't it referred to as the inter-mountain west already?

[Champ le monstre du lac]

Originally Posted by mwalker96

Generally when people talk about reigons of the US it is NorthEast, South, Midwest and West Coast. When people talk about states like Colorado, Arizona or Utah they usually say Midwest or West Coast. Why is that?

Not once have I ever heard anyone refer those three states as the midwest. That's just odd. For New Mexico and Arizona, the regional identity is Southwestern, which transpires to a lot of different things. Colorado is great plains and the Rockies and Utah has overlap between the Southwest and the Rockies. The West has a lot of subregions due to varied topography and its vastness.

[NDak15]

Originally Posted by mwalker96

Generally when people talk about reigons of the US it is NorthEast, South, Midwest and West Coast. When people talk about states like Colorado, Arizona or Utah they usually say Midwest or West Coast. Why is that?

Whoeve calls Colorado, Utah, or Arizona needs to learn how to read a map. As far as terminology goes I've heard Mountain West or Intermountain West, with Arizona and New Mexico called the Southwest and Washington and Oregon called the Pacific Northwest. California seems hard to classify.

[LINative]

Originally Posted by mwalker96

Generally when people talk about reigons of the US it is NorthEast, South, Midwest and West Coast. When people talk about states like Colorado, Arizona or Utah they usually say Midwest or West Coast. Why is that?

Its an interesting question but the answer is that sometimes we do.

The West is usually seen as one big region, I have no idea why. However you do see the West broken down sometimes:

Mountain West (aka Interior West)
Pacific West
Northwest (which is sometimes further broken down into Pacific Northwest)
Southwest
California (which is really Southwest but not included sometimes)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southw..._United_States

MOUNTAIN WEST.

So as you can see above, sometimes the Mountain West is classed as a region. But you ask why not more? Why not a more official region like New England?

Well part of the reason maybe that mountains, especially giant mountain ranges like the Rockies, are usually boundaries between regions, not the connections of a single region. In the case of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, those 3 states look eastward, a significant portion of those states are actually part of the Great Plains, in the case of Montana I would say the majority of the state is plains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plains

In the case of Idaho and Utah, in those states the majority of the open lands of the states are west of the mountains, parts of it being desert.

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by CookieSkoon

Isn't it referred to as the inter-mountain west already?

For those with any kind of Geography education, which has sadly eluded many since it's largely no longer taught in Murican schools. Although lacking that there are the time zone affiliations, which at the very least help to differentiate between the Mountain region and Pacific coast.

[Thoreau424]

I constantly hear "Mountain West", "Mountain Southwest", and "Intermountain West" used. Maybe there's no agreement on one label, but the region definitely is referred to separately and distinctly from the others.

If you live in the region, you'll hear the terms used a lot.

[cjseliga]

Originally Posted by mwalker96

Generally when people talk about reigons of the US it is NorthEast, South, Midwest and West Coast. When people talk about states like Colorado, Arizona or Utah they usually say Midwest or West Coast. Why is that?

Really, I always used the term Intermountain West?

Intermountain West