We live in The Midlands.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by JimboPGH

You're hung up on "Appalachia" being in the title. Pretend it's a different name.

As for New Mexico, all I really know about that state is from watching crash courses on the Spanish Empire in North America and Breaking Bad. So I don't really know.

My point is it should be a different name. The eastern plains of NM look nothing like Appalachia. I've not been there a lot, but I've driven down I-25 through NM, and I've spent a lot of time on the eastern plains of Colorado just to the north of NM. I'm not aware of any major Scotch-Irish settlement in NM and couldn't find anything on the web; likewise am aware on none in CO, not on a scale like in PA anyway.

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by FallsAngel

My point is it should be a different name. The eastern plains of NM look nothing like Appalachia. I've not been there a lot, but I've driven down I-25 through NM, and I've spent a lot of time on the eastern plains of Colorado just to the north of NM. I'm not aware of any major Scotch-Irish settlement in NM and couldn't find anything on the web; likewise am aware on none in CO, not on a scale like in PA anyway.

The point isn't whether or not areas look like Appalachia, it's that the first heavy wave of white settlement in those areas was Scotch-Irish/Appalachian. Think Davey Crocket.

Or just call it the damn Borderlands if you want.

As for county-by-county breakdowns, I think there are some flaws, and one could certainly make a good argument for expanding the midlands into areas of Western PA, Northern West Virginia, and much of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois that are considered Greater Appalachia.

But despite it's flaws, the first half of the book makes a great case for thinking about American regionalism as bands of different colonial regions running westward to the Rockies, instead of the useless designations of "Northeast" and "Midwest."

[Katarina Witt]

I can find no evidence that there is any significant Scotch-Irish community in New Mexico. Here are the majority groups as of 2000: New Mexico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to the 2000 United States Census,[45]:6 the most commonly claimed ancestry groups in New Mexico were:,
Mexican (16.3%)
American Indian (10.3%)
German (9.8%),
Spanish (9.3%) and
English (7.2%).