Where does the Midwest start and end? (college, garden)

[Gaylord_Focker]

Originally Posted by Ben Around

What happened to Minnesota?

I flat forgot it. I’m old

[GraniteStater]

Wichita is very far south in latitude and has a "southern shift/pull" toward Oklahoma and north Texas if locals don't move to Kansas City.

[Doughboy1918]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Wichita is very far south in latitude and has a "southern shift/pull" toward Oklahoma and north Texas if locals don't move to Kansas City.

Is this the same for Emporia, northeast of Wichita?

[goat314]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The Midwest lacks a distinct culture because it was settled from the Northeast (and to a lesser extent the South). So the North as a whole displays more commonalities traveling east to west.

To broadly simplify. The Great Lakes region was first settled by New Englanders who traveled via the Erie Canal through Upstate NY. In contrast, the Lower Midwest (bottom 2/3rds of so of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri) were settled by a mixture of people from Pennsylvania and Virginia.

This can be seen when you look at American dialect maps. People in the Upper Midwest talk more like people from New England/New York, while people in the Lower Midwest talk like people from PA/the Mid Atlantic.



You can also see the differences when it comes to vernacular architecture. People in New England liked to build wood houses, while people from Pennsylvania liked brick houses, and that was carried over in the types of houses you see in old areas in (for example) St. Louis versus Milwaukee.

Yes, being from St. Louis I feel very comfortable in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC. Not as much in New York, Boston, etc. In the Midwest, I feel most at home in Cincinnati, surprisingly a lot of Detroit, and Chicago probably has the residential architecture that resembles St. Louis the most, I don't see the brick buildings with flat roofs in abundance anywhere else in the Midwest like I do in St. Louis and Chicago.

[Corey the Otter]

I guess one way to define the Midwest from the Plains is to separate the corn belt from the wheat belt.

Corn Belt:


Wheat belt:


There definitely is some overlap though.

[Corey the Otter]

Another way to judge what is the Plains and separate it from the Midwest is by looking at the range of many Plains/Western species.

Black-Tailed Prairie Dog:


Pronghorn (Mainly focus on Historic):


Black-Footed Ferret (Historic):


Swift Fox:


Mule Deer:

[Corey the Otter]

Or, what I think may be the best definition, is that the Midwest ends at the line between humid and semiarid climate. This does include the Great Plains (which I've decided could be considered part of the Midwest). The line is right near the state lines for Colorado, Wyoming, and others.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Doughboy1918

Is this the same for Emporia, northeast of Wichita?

Emporia is more in the eastern Kansas sphere of influence (Topeka-KC metro I-70 corridor).

[NW4me]

It seems there are at least two "Midwests:"

1) the Great Lakes

2) the Plains

[CCrest182]

Originally Posted by NW4me

It seems there are at least two "Midwests:"

1) the Great Lakes

2) the Plains

There's three Midwests.

1) Great Lakes (towns/cities within 70 miles of the great lakes, have a pretty distinct Great Lakes accent. Heavily German/Polish/Irish/Scandinavian ethnic presence. Tends to be left leaning politically overall)

2) Heartland (areas of OH, IN, IL, WI, and MN that are 70+ miles from the Great Lakes, as well as all of Missouri, most of Iowa, the very inner/central/southern part of Michigan, and eastern KS/NE. These parts feel much different from the great lakes areas and have different accents and are much more conservative voting. )

3) Great Planes (Begins west of KC/Omaha/Sioux City, extends from Texas all the way up into Canada. There is some overlap with the heartland areas such as western Iowa and Minnesota, but is very different from the Great Lakes region. Very conservative leaning, very white.).