What states do you consider to be part of the Midwest?

Missouri is 100% midwest, no contest

the rust belt isn't all in the midwest. western NY is in the rust belt, too.

ok srsly laurel no offense but thinking that the dakotas have mountains is totally blowing my mind! i mean, i've driven all the way across sodak maybe a dozen times (at least), and it is, in my brain, basically shorthand for "the flat expanse of the middle western states"

but i guess some of you just think "plains states"??

many xposts

jaymc otm + would also accept the dakotas east of the missouri r. + missouri north of the missouri r.

south dakota is just like nebraska but about four hundred degrees colder in the winter

also, btw, you know that trope about the midwestern/alaskan "connection"? like, that got thrown around a bit during the elections w/r/t palin's accent and support, etc.?

they were not talking about illinois, indiana, ohio, or pennsylvania.

MIDWEST =

"rust belt"
IN, MI, OH, PA

"north central"
IL, IA, MN, WI

"prairie"
KS, NE, ND, SD

this sounds about right, with the "rust belt" provisos posted above.

mookie otm!

yes cosign

btw for those of you that are defining the midwest as vast expanses of agri flatland, you should prob tweak that definition a little bit, given northern mn, western SD, and pretty much most of WI.

No it's okay! I mean obv I'm totally clueless about the Dakotas. And I really can't recall why I thought they had mountains. I'm trying to think of a book or a toy or a map or something but no good.

mount rushmore?

insidious north dakota tourism propaganda

My Midwest
ND SD NE KS MN IA MO WI IL MI IN OH

I love how emotional people are getting about this!

I've driven across Nebraska on the way to Colorado, but no further north than that.

btw for those of you that are defining the midwest as vast expanses of agri flatland, you should prob tweak that definition a little bit, given northern mn, western SD, and pretty much most of WI.

― Don Quishote (jjjusten), Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:53 AM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, see, i tend to think of Midwestern as more of a cultural thing, which is why western sodak and s missouri and parts of the rust belt and like all of KY doesn't ring right to me

what is oklahoma, btw? just north texas?

ND SD NE KS MN IA MO WI IL MI IN OH

― Mr. Que, Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:54 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is otm

OK=Texas's trucker hat

wisconsin is such an attractive state

it's an area of the map, not whether a place has the characteristic of midwesternness. imo.

some parts of the rust belt, like pittsburgh and buffalo, are not in it. and some parts that are not flat are in it.

yes, you are correct, not a single part of penn or fucking NY is in the midwest, who on earth would even suggest that

also i can categorically say that there are no mountains in the midwest

our state boundaries were drawn by slavers and plutocrats and paid for in blood anyway, fwiw

^^ i mean, just the midwest's

u_u

waht is the mesabi range a range of

holes, now

tru

I really do think being a Chicagoan has a great deal to do with my conception of the Midwest. In some ways, the states that I consider "Midwestern" are ones that don't feel that far away, and that I've been to more than a couple of times. So Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and (obviously) Illinois all fit -- and as I said earlier, I'd be willing to accept Missouri, too (especially since St. Louis is only 4.5 hours away, and I've visited there no fewer than four times).

Whereas the Dakotas and Nebraska and Kansas just feel instinctively wrong to me -- but maybe that's because I've never been to North Dakota or Kansas, and have only been to South Dakota and Nebraska on a big family road-trip vacation to Yellowstone and back when I was nine years old.

Oh wait, my band played a show in Omaha once. But still, that's like 7 or 8 hours away.

Like Iowa, Kansas is quintessentially Midwest to me. We're not in Kansas anymore etc etc.

a graphical delineation needs to be made for the boundaries of 1) the cultural midwest 2) the environmental midwest and 3) the political/economic midwest. then, using GIS spatial analyst tools, the boundaries of these three concurrent regions can be extrapolated and a generalized midwestern boundary that accounts for all geographic aspects of the region can be decided upon. and it won't include kentucky

Kansas is Middle America to me, but not Midwest.

oh brother

or pennsylvania

have you met a person from kansas?? if you ask them the question:

"are you from the midwest?" they will answer YES

yes^^^ same with Nebraska

i mean i realize we all love to have our own personal definitions of the Midwest, and that's fine, too

if you wanna be rong

jaymc where does "Middle America" end and the Midwest begin?

at the edges of a John Cougar Mellencamp video

Missouri is 100% midwest, no contest

― Mr. Que, Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:48 AM (26 minutes ago)

y'all ever been to Springfield? (3rd largest city in MO)

cuz i have and it is way more Southern than Midwestern.

Quick wiki browse: Sits in the Ozarks, Confederate stronghold from 1861-1865, site of the first recorded shoot-out, birthplace/terminus of "SOUTHERN" intercontinental Route 66, etc.

iiiijjjj, you been to Springfield right?

jaymc where does "Middle America" end and the Midwest begin?

The Midwest is part of Middle America.

i dunno there's burbs up here that are pretty "southern" imo

Isn't the Midwest meant to be neutral, "accentless", Mom's Apple Pie America? If so, no way the Dakotas are in it, that's witch country.

lol