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New York should be grouped with the New England states because NY feels more like New England to me. Delaware and Maryland are both Mid-Atlantic States, not South Atlantic States. Delaware and Maryland has nothing in common with Georgia and Florida. DE and MD feels more like NJ and PA.
southern delaware feels more like south carolina than NJ. ever been? sure, wilmington is more like PA, but it ends just a bit south of there...
New Jersey was considered a Middle Colony, along with New York, PA, and Delaware, (sometimes Maryland too). I've never really considered New York to be separate from the Mid-Atlantic states, though I recognize that Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland share similar accents and architecture that are distinct from NY and North Jersey. I would argue neither NJ or NY could be considered New England, though of course many early towns in NJ were settled by New Englanders and have a similar feel to NE towns. If we do make distinctions, I'd say South Jersey would be Mid-Atlantic and North Jersey would be "Tri-State?" along with Connecticut, perhaps arguing that the New York metro area is so populous that it could be its own region. Broadly, it's all Northeast Corridor, which is good enough for me.
Those are the official designations by the Census Bureau; I don't really think it's up for debate.
It's absolutely up for debate. The Census Bureau splits the country up for administrative purposes........that map was never intended to be used as a tool in cultural geography.
I think South Jersey is mid-Atlantic. The culture there is similar to Delaware, Maryland, Southeast PA. But definitely not North Jersey.
It is possible for a state to be both mid-atlantic and northeastern. That is New Jersey (and New York and PA).
Delaware and Maryland are also both Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern. The Mid-Atlantic is a subregion of the Northeast. New Jersey has a lot in common with Pennsylvania, Delaware (sharing the Delaware River and the Delaware Bay with PA and DE) and Maryland (both NJ and MD among the richest states in the US and both having bad cities like Newark, Camden and Baltimore, etc.) Northwestern New Jersey feels like Northeastern Pennsylvania with mountains and hills, Northeastern New Jersey feels like NYC and Long Island (both also considered Mid-Atlantic, Northern New York State could be made as part of New England) with built up areas and Southern New Jersey feels like Delaware and Eastern Maryland with beaches and farms.
Last edited by muppethammer26; 06-17-2014 at 07:38 PM..
It's absolutely up for debate. The Census Bureau splits the country up for administrative purposes........that map was never intended to be used as a tool in cultural geography.
I think South Jersey is mid-Atlantic. The culture there is similar to Delaware, Maryland, Southeast PA. But definitely not North Jersey.
Eastern Long Island looks and feels lot like New England. They are culturally similar and even the weather patterns are shared. When I want to know what the weather will be like, I have to listen to CT or Boston weather stations, not NYC stations. But it doesn't make it New England. We can say this place is like that place and that place is like the other place, but it doesn't change the fact that boundaries have been defined a long time ago. You can say that Arizona is part of New Mexico because they have many similarities, but they are 2 different states. The question wasn't "Is NJ culturally like a Mid-Atlantic state?" It is "Is NJ considered a Mid-Atlantic state?" And it absolutely, undeniably IS.
Interestingly, if the Mason-Dixon line was extended further east, parts of South Jersey would be below the Mason-Dixon line.
Quote:
The Mason-Dixon line does not technically run through New Jersey, but if the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland were extended due east, it would run south of Penns Grove, north of Hammonton and just below Barnegat.
This might be because New Jersey had a complicated history with slavery:
Quote:
Also lying north and east of the boundary was New Jersey, where slavery was formally abolished in 1846, but former slaves continued to be "apprenticed" to their masters until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865.
It's absolutely up for debate. The Census Bureau splits the country up for administrative purposes........that map was never intended to be used as a tool in cultural geography.
I think South Jersey is mid-Atlantic. The culture there is similar to Delaware, Maryland, Southeast PA. But definitely not North Jersey.
I think the real question is: "why does it matter"?
I'm originally from New Jersey and it's always been considered a Mid-Atlantic state.
Interestingly, if the Mason-Dixon line was extended further east, parts of South Jersey would be below the Mason-Dixon line.
It's actually not that interesting. The line was originally established to resolve a border dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Only later did it become associated with the North/South divide and slavery. Maryland also never seceded or joined the Confederacy, so the significance of the line itself is overblown to begin with. The only people who find it "interesting" that if the line were extended east it would have bisected NJ are the people who fly Confederate flags from the back of their pickups and claim it's because they're proud of their "Southern Heritage," of which they have none.
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