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I know what you mean by "Deep Midwest" but a better name would be either "Core Midwest" or something that encapsulates the "middle-ness." The Deep South refers to the far deep parts of the coastal south (outside of south Florida and south Texas). That's why its "deep." Deep implies connotations of "towards the bottom."
Anyway, I'd say Iowa is the centre of that subregion, and it extends west to eastern Nebraska, up to southeast South Dakota, across far southern Minnesota, southern Wisconsin, most of Illinois, most of Indiana, southern Michigan, western Ohio and west through the top half of Missouri and northeast Kansas.
Sounds just like the "Corn Belt", as opposed to the "Wheat Belt", which is largely from the Panhandle of Texas up to western MN, the Dakotas and Montana..
I've traveled through there numerous times. It's very similar to northern Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. It's an ag dominated economy and rural area. Joplin, Springfield, Nevada, etc are definitely more Midwestern than Southern.
I suppose if by "Midwestern" you mean Ohio and Michigan, sure, it's not that Midwestern. If by Midwestern you mean the rest of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, it's very Midwestern. Also, if by "Southwest MO" you just mean Branson, I'd also agree. That's heavily Ozark which is more like Appalachia than anything.
In terms of culture, it isn't similar to most of the Midwest. In terms of climate, it is much more aligned with the South than the Midwest.
The first time (and one of the only times) I heard the term Deep Midwest was in a rock music magazine in 1981. The magazine was based in Detroit and one of their writers saw a concert in Omaha and he considered Nebraska and the rest of the Plains states to be the deep Midwest. That stuck with me all this time.
The first time (and one of the only times) I heard the term Deep Midwest was in a rock music magazine in 1981. The magazine was based in Detroit and one of their writers saw a concert in Omaha and he considered Nebraska and the rest of the Plains states to be the deep Midwest. That stuck with me all this time.
I consider Nebraska to be partly Midwest and partly West. The Sand Hills and western Nebraska have very low population densities with a wide expanse of open range and little crop land. This seems far more like the West in terms of rural economies of scale compared to anything in the Midwest.
I agree with you completely. I visit DFW fairly often (a good friend from college lives there), and the country side (especially towards Waco) is all but indistinguishable from large chunks of the Midwest. Gently rolling black dirt farmland where they're growing corn, wheat, and soy. It's not the Midwest, but it sure feels like it.
There's a lot of commonality that crosses north/south lines between the Mississippi and the Rockies. Is it all the same thing? No; but Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas/Ft. Worth are more alike than the average person would think, or the average resident of either area would likely acknowledge.
I lived in DFW and honestly, you're right. They're almost like opposite twins.
1. Both are in states with international boundaries.
2. The largest metros in each state.
3. Relatively close to another state (specifically the state most similar to it)
4. Extreme temperatures but in different seasons (summer for DFW, winter for MSP)
5. In a state that has a large shoreline, yet still a good distance from said shoreline.
6. I-35 splits.
IMO anywhere that's in the Eastern Time Zone is too far east to be "Deep Midwest". Generally speaking, central/northern IL (including Chicago, which like Atlanta within the Deep South, is Midwestern but unique with its big city vibe), the southern half of WI, southern MN, Iowa, northern Missouri, the eastern 2/3 of Kansas (except for the southeasternmost nine counties), as well as the eastern halves of Nebraska and South Dakota. North Dakota and the northern halves of MN and WI start to get a bit too "Canadian" to be typical Midwest. Northern/Central IN, the NW half of Ohio, and the southern half of Michigan are also "classically Midwest", but are more "Shallow/Near/Eastern Midwest" much like how VA/KY/most of TN & NC are Upper South.
I'm about to make my first visit to St. Louis and Kansas City next week (after some bickering from someone who is afraid from all the flooding, but thankfully won that fight).
Iowa probably is the most "Midwestern" of the Midwestern states, in the sense that no one would call any part of it a part of a different region and it embodies the stereotypes the word "Midwest" brings to mind, but Missouri is often considered quasi-Southern.
I would agree with this. Iowa to me is quintessential Midwest. Missouri has many Southern characteristics.
Iowa is sort of the Texas of the Midwest. It doesn't fit either the Great Lakes nor the Great Plains profile neatly (just like Texas isn't really Upper South or Deep South, though it does have certain elements of both). Both have people that are very proud of their state (though Iowans are a bit more low-key about it).
I won't go so far to say that "Iowa is Iowa" when assigning it to a geographic region, as it's clearly Midwestern (there's this great debate as to how to define Texas as Southern, Western, Southwestern, or its own thing entirely) but it's still unique in the sense that it has little Southern influence like its Lower Midwestern peers (though extreme southern Iowa might qualify as "lower Midwest"), and likewise it has a general lack of the Upper Midwestern influence that is prevalent in much of MN, WI, and MI (again, the northernmost portions of the state do exhibit the Upper Midwestern characteristics).
I'm going to say most of Iowa, and the northern portion of Illinois , including Chicago, are the quintessential Midwestern areas. Chicago is the perfect urban representative of the Midwest, and the surrounding areas, full of corn and soybeans, are the epitome of our nation's midsection..
I agree with you completely. I visit DFW fairly often (a good friend from college lives there), and the country side (especially towards Waco) is all but indistinguishable from large chunks of the Midwest. Gently rolling black dirt farmland where they're growing corn, wheat, and soy. It's not the Midwest, but it sure feels like it.
There's a lot of commonality that crosses north/south lines between the Mississippi and the Rockies. Is it all the same thing? No; but Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas/Ft. Worth are more alike than the average person would think, or the average resident of either area would likely acknowledge.
I've always thought Kansas City felt like Minneapolis meets Dallas. St. Louis is more like Chicago meets New Orleans.
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