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Where is the American midwest? Where are people talking about when they say the midwest? What is it like there, in terms of communities, people, geography, etc?

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

well, it gets kind of confusing, because people stretch "midwest" to some states which are not exactly midwest. plus you have "upper midwest" and "lower midwest", but usually the midwest is minnesota, wisconsin, michigan, ohio, indiana, illinois, missouri and iowa. although sometimes they try to sneak the dakotas in there, and maybe kentucky, nebraska and kansas, but to me, the midwest is the 8 states only.

geographically, there's a lot of glaciation -- hills and rivers/lakes and such (except illinois which is relatively flat and boring). the people vary from state to state, but for the most part i think the midwest has the most down to earth people in the country. plus there are a lot of "working class" people, since it used to be the industrial center of the country. but a lot of those jobs are being outsourced, at least in wisconsin.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

pshh... who needs the midwest when you've got the northeast

I would go with Moondogs list, except I would not count Kentucky, but definitely Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, and maybe Oklahoma. Problem is that there is a certain amount of overlap in the regions, so it depends on where you live or which books you consult. People in Kentucky do not consider themselves in the Midwest.

To the "boring and flat" list I would add west-of-Mississippi-river-valley Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas...

Where is the American midwest? Where are people talking about when they say the midwest? What is it like there, in terms of communities, people, geography, etc?

The midwest considers itself, in general, to be middle America (not just geographically, but socially as well.) The typical "American" accent you hear on newscasts, etc is based on Midwestern accents. I would say a higher percentage of families in the midwest are traditional nuclear families. It is the part of the country where traditional values are are thought to still be held important-- people from the midwest are often described as straight-forward, salt-of-the-earth types (euphemisms for simple ). Family, love, honesty and a sense of community are values typically held dear.

Of course, most of the above paragraph is simply the way the rest of the country views us, or the way we like to view ourselves. I personally am from Wisconsin, but have lived in Iowa and Minnesota (three states always included in descriptions of the midwest) for several years as well, so when I travel I just say I'm from the Midwest.

Now, what do people from other parts of the country think of us? Typically, when I say I'm from Wisconsin they think I was raised on a dairy farm; when I say I'm from Iowa they think I am a farmer; and when I say I'm from Minnesota, they think I'm nuts because we elected Jesse Ventura.

The core states of the midwest typically place a lot of value on things like education. Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota consistently rank very high on standardized test scores. Probably because of that very fact, those states are actually quite liberal.

Of course, you can pretty much take the above with a grain of salt-- we have a spread of people just like any other place. But, in general, that is the way we think of ourselves in relation to the rest of the country.

I love the Midwest. I go to school here in Indiana, which is pretty well the epitome of the Midwest. Most people in the Midwest seem to be moderate to conservative politically, working to middle class, many in rural areas, though there are some big cities (Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinatti...) From Ohio to the Dakotas and from Michigan to Missouri. Some plains within those areas, some forest (or what used to be forest). Only coasts are on the great lakes. Hot, humid summers and cold, dry winters.

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In geography classes here in the dakotas, they teach us that we are part of the midwest, and that it stretches from north dakota, down to oklahoma.

It's just one of the 5 regions that the US of A is divided into

i guess to me, the dakotas, kansas, nebraska and oklahoma are plains states and not necessarily midwest you guys live in "tornado alley" not the midwest

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

I (sadly) have to agree with pancake. While in classes here in craptastic South Dakota, we were told that the Dakotas were in the midwest. Now keep in mind that in school I was also told the Earth is flat and science is the tools of the devil
As far as plains states are concerned, Eastern SD is most definately plains, but my side, the Western side, the best side, is far from that. I do think I'm "lucky" to live in the Black Hills. For any one who loves out doors activities or geology, you just can't beat the Black Hills.

According to what I've gathered from a simple google search, we're all right! The Midwest stretches from ND to Michigan and Ohio and down to Kansas and/or Oklahoma. Here's a link I found on google

Last edited by Pancake at 25-Nov-2004 17:03