1y ago

"Do you live in the Midwest?" by self-report

267 comments

Disappointed they didn't survey the whole nation. It'd be funny to see figures like "0.1%" for Florida or Hawaii.
- It would probably be 3%, as per the Lizardman Constant.
- It would be one of the few time texas does not look crazy

I'm a little concerned about Pennsylvania.
- That's definitely the Pensytucky region chiming in
- The Appalachians were historically the eastern boundary of the "midwest". Considering that western PA is to the west of the Appalachians, those Pennsylvanians may, in fact, be correct.
  
  I'm from Western PA, and while I wouldn't say I see a lot of people calling themselves midwesterners, we're more alike than we are different. Western PA is hard to classify in terms of region. Most of us just say we're from Pittsburgh/Erie/whatever and leave it at that. But since it is hard to classify, 10% or so of us saying that we're "Midwestern" does not surprise me.
  
  80% of the state is to the west of the Appalachian chain. We haven't been midwestern since Ohio gained statehood in 1803. However, nearly 10% of my state has tied itself to an identity as a Midwesterner because for 20 years conservatives have been calling it "the real america". It's like Pennsylvanias flying the Confederate flag. It's about identity, not history or reality.
- Some people consider Pittsburgh to be part of the Midwest for whatever reason. I guess it's because it's a rust belt city that's closer to Cleveland than it is Philly.
- There's a decent amount of industry there, I think that is likely caused by the overlap between the Rust Belt and the Midwest.
  
  They're just about as dumb as the people in Tennessee thinking it's the Midwest.
  West Virginia can get partial credit, because they were probably just high.

Why is "west" in "midwest"? Can't we just call these states mid?
- Fixed
  
  So living on the line would be living in the Midmid?
  
  Hilarious
  
  Oi get those linea out of Texas its Southwest
- Because the US expanded from the east coast towards the west. The midwest is west of the OG colonies, but not as far west as, well, the west.
  
  Yeah, living in Colorado has always been weird hearing that we're "the west". We're about as middle of the country as you can get. 3 states to our west to get to the Pacific, 4 states to the east to get to the Atlantic.
  Edit: lol at people downvoting geography
- Skill issue.
- I believe it's because these states are west of the Mississippi River and something something Louisiana Purchase (high school history was decades ago).
  
  Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan are east of the Mississippi. We couldn't reliably cross the Appalachian Mountains until shortly before the American Revolution. Expeditions before Daniel Boone forged the Wilderness Road had to go around so the most direct route between NY and where Chicago is now went about halfway down Alabama. The Appalachians were the original western frontier and the Midwest was the Northwest Territories. As the country expanded westward and new territories were established and the Northwest Territories gained statehood they became the Midwest.

Is your house surrounded on all sides by corn?
Does Napoleon Dynamite seem like a documentary about your town?
Then you live in the Midwest.
- Napoleon dynamite takes peace in Idaho. It has a very rural theme to it, but it's not Midwest.
  
  Exactly. It's not geographically midwest, but it embodies an idea of the midwest.
  An endless patchwork of green and yellow squares. Countryside but not natural.

There are people in TN and AR that think they're Midwestern?
"Y'all" talk too funny for that, now.
(I kid, I kid!)
- I don't agree with AR being Midwest, but I bet you that 10 percent of people in TN are those that live right next to Missouri

TIL that 25% of people living in Idaho are even dumber than I previously thought they were ...
- They are roughly in the middle of the west, as a whole country. I think our Midwest is fairly far east, due in part to the fact that the western edge of the USA was once much further east, and many conventions have survived from that time.
  I am from Illinois, which fits most folks idea of what is midwest, but it's really and truly just...middle
  
  Three wests were given to the US, wisest and fairest. Seven to the dwarf lords...
- Idaho is a... special place... if you know what I mean.

I never have figured out how to categorize Oklahoma, but Midwest has never been on my Oklahoma bingo card. It's more like a less affluent extension of Texas that is full of bogus slot machines and smells like weed everywhere.
There is some surprisingly pretty land up there though. Growing up I always thought of it as a barren dust bowl wasteland. Lots and lots of trees in reality, at least in the eastern half. Don't know what's in the panhandle. I'm not sure anybody does.
Edit: Just as I finished typing this, a commercial came on the TV. To quote, and no I'm not kidding, "Live the flyover life. Move to Oklahoma."
- That part of the country is like part midwestern, part southern, part western.
- Well, now you have to move to the panhandle after that commercial, let us know how it is.
  
  I'm pretty sure it's a giant meth lab
- Texan here. Oklahoma definitely has more in common with Kansas than Texas. I'd call it Great Plains, which has a lot of overlap with the midwest but isn't quite the same thing.
  
  As a Kansan, don’t you dare put that evil on us!
- I was born in Southern Arkansas and have lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for 40 years. I consider myself a Southerner, not a Midwesterner. But that's self-reported.
  The joke here goes "You know why Texas doesn't slide off into the Gulf of Mexico? Because Oklahoma sucks so hard."
  But truth be told, Tulsa is a pretty nice place to live. About half a million people and fairly progressive for a "Southern" state. And while many of the the hardcore conservatives moved to Texas, you still see a lot of Trump flags here.
  
  I went to Tulsa once ten years ago and was very pleasantly surprised by it. Really a nice little city.
- I always joke that there is East, West, and South Texas, and then there is Meth Texas, AKA Oklahoma.

I'm from Wyoming and I'm calling bullshit on that number. Unless they talked to people living in the town of Midwest.
- Not only is Wyoming solidly in the west, Wyoming arguably defines the west. Cowboys, sagebrush, the Rockies... If any part of Wyoming is "the midwest," so is the moon.
  
  Isn't the tourism "mascot" for WY a cowboy? Kinda screams Western state to me.
  
  The truth is that pretty much everything about the western US starts with California and then spreads back out. This is because, due to the gold rush, California was settled and made a state first, while the rest of the western states remained "territories" and only achieved statehood much later as they too became more heavily settled.
  Basically, the settlement pattern of the western states is backwards after about 1852 or thereabouts, with the California and the west coast filling in first, and the interior states filling in later.
- According to google the town of Midwest, WY has 283 people, which is damn near half of the state's population. So add in a few more confused cowboys and that checks out.
- Totally agree. I’m in Colorado, nobody would ever call this the midwest. Maybe all the midwestern transplants here were confused about the question?

Who are the 8.4% of my fellow Hoosiers who don't think they live in the midwest and where do they think they live?
- hell
  
  If I owned Hell and Indiana, I would rent out Indiana and live in Hell.
- Chicagoland.
  
  Where exactly is Chicago located? In terms of the country as a whole?
- In the elementary school Indiana history class (4th grade) it was even a part of the curriculum* to learn where were are in the US.
  We were taught that the Northwest Territory became what is now called the Midwest (the area east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers).
  curriculum as of the late 80s / early 90s

So North-Central. Got it. (Am not American and don't know American history very well)
- When I was in highschool I thought Midwest referred to California and stuff because it's the middle (North south wise) and in the west.
- You've got the East and West regions defined by the coasts. Then you have the South, but it's really just the southeast. The rest wants to be called the Midwest. There is no North, I guess...
  
  That's good old Canada.
- Looks northeastern more than mid western
- It called the midwest from a time a ago when the Mississippi river was the western edge. USA grew a bit and then more but the name stayed the same.

Still blows my mind that Midwest apparently means "slightly not easy coast."
Like in my mind it would be Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah. That kind of area. Considering it's midway through the west half of the country.
- Well, it used to be called the Northwest Territory.
  Then we expanded even further west and it became the "old west".
  Then the "old west" came to mean the Southwest region pre-statehood.
  So then they became the "Midwest".
  
  This makes me wanna play some red dead
- It's probably named by the people who named middle East, like it's the west of the eastern Nations but they named it coz it was in the middle of their way to the east
  
  So it should just be mid?
- Read a US history book on the westward expansion and it will all make perfect sense. Hint; it might have something to do with older names remaining in use up until the current day.
- In my mind, the midwest is west of the Mississippi and through the plains. Colorado starts the traditional west with Texas being the exception.

Most of y'all are east of the centerline.
You're the middle east, not midwest.
- I think you’re joking but the name comes from the migration of the incorporation of the states into the union. Not really geographically a reference
  Edit: geographically, not geologically
  
  As a Canadian, thank you for explaining. From the chart, I thought Americans in the middle states were just really bad with geography.
  (also you mean geographically, not geologically)
  
  Happy to learn that you're unaware of all the new states.
  
  Australian checking in with "I had never been told that". I just figured it was geographical like our "mid north coast" but evidently not.
  
  What does that mean?
- It’s the name of the region. The Great Plains aren’t particularly great either, they’re just big. It’s like how the Mediterranean isn’t really in the middle of the world
  
  Or how super foods don't give you superpowers. :)
  
  "Great" in that sense doesn't mean "good," it means big. You see the same use in a lot of bird names as in the great blue heron or the great auk, just off the top of my head.
- funnily enough, this is probably one of those "if you know, you know" things.
  And I don't know what middle of what is implied here.
- If you're west of the Mississippi river, you're the West. Straight up.
  
  Maybe on a purely east west dichotomy, but if we're using the typical 4 regions of the u.s. : Northeast, south, Midwest and west, then that is not right.
  
  Might want to check a map homie, cause I'm pretty sure Iowa is NOT in the captial-W West 😂
  Maybe you meant the Missouri river?

What the fuck are they smoking in Wyoming and Montana and Idaho?
- That’s the “West” part.
  
  But kinda mid tho.
- Eastern Wyoming and Montana are the Great Plains, so that at least makes a little sense. Idaho though, there you have me. I am at a loss. Maybe it's their poor public education system?
- Bro there ain't nothing else to do there
- It's funny that even if that's not considered Midwest colloquially, physically it's the most Midwest you can be in the US.

Iowans calling themselves "midwest" while voting like southerners. You hate to see it.
- Most of the Midwest votes like southerners, what are you on about?
  
  Yeah, but Iowa used to be a swing state (meaning democrats used to have a chance there), now it's as red as Texas.
- When the Democrats decided they wanted to be the "Urban Elite Party" and paint the Republican party as the "Rural Uneducated Party", they basically threw away Iowa. Iowa is as middle class plain-folk as you can get, so they will naturally align in opposition to the Urban Elite. That was a tactical error in how the Democratic Party formed its identity.
  
  100 percent spot on. It's also a huge part of how they lost such a ridiculous chunk of blue collar workers in spite of labor leadership being solidly Democrat for decades.
  Poor whites and rural hicks became the only working-class people it was still socially acceptable to openly mock in public. This was noticed and exploited by the right with dire consequences for our current political landscape.
  Of course, a ton of other variables were at play as well, but the certainty that so-called "coastal elites" held them and everything they valued in contempt played a huge role in convincing blue-collar and middle-class rural whites to vote against their economic interests.
  Now here we are.
  
  paint the Republican party as the "Rural Uneducated Party"
  No paint necessary.

10% of Tennessee is so high on hillbilly heroin they don't know which question they got asked and just said "yes" on the off chance it was "would you like some free oxy?"
- 13% of ~~Tennessee~~ West Virginia is so high on hillbilly heroin they don't know which question they got asked and just said "yes" on the off chance it was "would you like some free oxy?"
- I bet you that 10 percent are the people who are in the very northwest corner of TN so it would make some sense for them to answer yes given that they're not far from Missouri.

This just in: 10% of Tennesseeans forgot what state they live in.
- I envy them
- Probably just a coping method you develop from living there 🤷

"where is the middle-of-the-west?"
(American points north-by-north east)
- It's because the US started on the east coast and expanded westward, it was named back when it actually was the middle of the west and just never changed it. Same way we still refer to the art movement that began in the late 1800s as "modern art".
  
  I'm just being a smartass. Although, Americans do have trouble renaming things.
  This message sent from a Robert E. Lee phone

Very surprised 42 percent of Coloradans and 25 percent of Idahoans would say they live in the Midwest.
- Well, 78% of Americans think that Idaho is Iowa, so this doesn't shock me.
  
  but I thought Iowa was in Idaho? which is it?
- Well they're right...they live basically in the middle of the west.

Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana are Rocky Mountain West, not the MidWest. Good grief.
- All three have a significant portion of their state in the Great Plains.
  
  I was born in Nebraska and lived there until my early 20s when I moved to Wyoming and I've been here for 30 years. I'm very familiar with both areas. The "Great Plains" stops somewhere in the western panhandle of Nebraska. The pine forests up around Chadron (NW corner) have nearly nothing in common with the Cottonwood infested prairie down around Lincoln (SE corner). If you want to stick along I-80, which makes the discussion easier, there's a solid argument that the "Great Plains" ends somewhere West of North Platte and East of Sidney.
  Let's start with water, the average annual precipitation in Lincoln is right at 30" but as you go West it keeps decreasing and by the time you reach Sydney it's down to 15", a reduction of 50!
  The drastic reduction in precipitation is mirrored by a change in the soil as somewhere around there the soil changes from the rich dark farmland of the East to the tan sand hills of the West. Following the water and soil change the plant life itself becomes notably different; its not only less dense it also has far less of the native prairie grasses in it. The change in plant life also makes the animal life different; for example there are no Antelope on the Eastern side but as you go West they start appearing. Deer and Elk are also different with White Tails disappearing as you move West but Mule Deer and Elk starting to appear. Nebraska has not Native Moose population that I'm aware of but by they can be found even in South Eastern Wyoming.
  I've stomped around Colorado and Montana a fair bit too over the last 30 years and it's no different there. The Border Area of Colorado and Kansas is vastly different than the area around Lawrence, Kansas or Manhattan on the East Side. It's the same with the Eastern Border of Montana up against the Dakota's; there's notable and large differences between that area and everything East of North Platte, Nebraska.
  The Great Plains as embodied by Iowa, Eastern Nebraska, and Eastern Kansas are separate and distinct from the High Plains of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

I lived in the States for five years and I still don't really get what Americans mean when they say the midwest. I guess that's partly because Americans also don't know, so you never get the same explanation twice.
- It's all the middle junk nobody wants which is why there's so much of it.
  Seriously tho, the historic context is that "The West" was west of the Mississippi river, which iirc got started calling that after the Louisiana Purchase. So the previous "west" wasn't accurate enough so the states between the Mississippi and the Appalachian mountains (chiefly the northern states around the Great lakes). Then the area has just kind of expanded to include the plains states since they're also flyover country
  
  So basically anything that not the extreme east or west or south becomes midweast?

As someone born and raised in the Midwest (Ohio and Illinois) and is currently a resident on the West Coast (Oregon), the way I define it is as such: if there is corn, it's the Midwest. If there are cowboys on horses, it's the west or southwest. Does your state touch the Atlantic or Pacific? That's what coast you are on (Hawaii and Alaska excepted).
- As someone who has spent most of their life in Ohio, but grew up in New Jersey ... there is a lot of corn in New Jersey.
- So PA is a weird one because it's so wide.
  Yes, Philly is undoubtedly on the east coast.
  But Pittsburgh is on the other side of the mountains.
  I wouldn't call Pittsburgh the "east coast".
  
  Pittsburgh is the gateway to the Midwest. The city is WAY more like Cleveland than Philly.
  
  Pittsburgh certainly isn't easy coast or mid west. I consider Pittsburgh Appalachian.
  
  Same with New York and Buffalo. Buffalo just doesn't seem like an east coast city.

Ok Colorado and Wyoming thinking they’re Midwest is new to me. As is Ohioans thinking we arent
- Coloradan here. We don't. I'm very suspicious of this data.
  
  The eastern third of CO is all plains and definitely feels like the Midwest, but hardly anyone lives there.
  
  Same thought. No one here thinks it’s the midwest. It’s the west and very apparent. Ghost towns start popping up for attractions, everything’s about the mountains, camping, hiking, skiing/snowboarding.
- You'll never get everyone to agree on anything in a poll.
  
  In fact, weird outliers are a sign that the numbers weren't cooked. In polling, you'll always find a Christian who thinks Jesus isn't real, an Atheist who thinks the ten commandments should be posted in classrooms, people who think Sonic tastes good, and other equally strange and nonsensical results.

Looks legit. As a Chicagoan I can confirm that Iowa is the middlest-west there is.

I know a dude from Michigan who insists Minnesota is not the Midwest. I won’t show him this map because offering facts and statistics doesn’t change his mind about anything.
- Well this map is self reported so I don't think it can be considered fact
  
  It's a fact that it's self reported.
- I'm morbidly curious what region Minnesota is in if it's not the Midwest. Surely he doesn't call it part of the Old West? That would just be bonkers.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territory
  Only half of Minnesota was part of the OG Northwest Territory, so in that sense, your friend is maybe correct.

Just check if they say ope

I believe this is closer to reality. I forgot an east coast subgroup.
edit: It's called the mid atlantic and people are big mad about its exclusion on a shitty, crude map in context to a discussion about the Midwest. lmao
map
- Idaho should be in the Rockies and perhaps all of Utah.
  
  I'll concede Idaho. Utah is iffy.
  map2
- Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey are not New England. They’d disagree with that assessment, as would those from New England.
  
  Have they tried not being so crammed in there?
  My comment said "closer to reality".
  I never claimed to be the leading expert with possession of omnipotent peer reviewed literature and a Supreme Court ruling.
- West Virginia is not the south. West Virginia exists because they were so insistent on not being the south.
  
  The sheer number of confederate flags that fly in WV sure does make it feel southern.
- Mid Altlantic exists as well.
- Philadelphian here...swallowing my vomit after being grouped with new england
  
  Have some water.
  Nothing PA is midwestern. Nothing PA is New England. Nothing PA is The South.
  So, does PA get it's own, like TX?
- Maybe an east coast subgroup could contain ... OH I DON'T KNOW ... MAYBE NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, and most of PA????!!! mfrs are pedantic af over a finger drawn map.

Idaho? Really? That 25% must not know geography at all...
- Idaho and Montana I understand - no one one from the Midwest or PNW will claim either, but culturally Midwest is closer.

Denverites and fort collins are lying to themselves if they think they have more in common with the rest of the mountain west than they have in common with Kansas City.
- YyyyyuuuuP. I've always called Denver, "Omaha with a view of the mountains".
  
  That's a slur on Denver that I won't countenance, and I've only ever been through its airport. Omaha is a city that cannot justify its existence. Denver at the very least has outdoor activities nearby.

Almost 10% of Pennsylvania thinks they are in the midwest? HAHAHAHAHHA
- 78% of people polled in Ohio believe they are midwestern. People living on that border in Western Pennsylvania might identify geographically or culturally as midwestern, so 9% isn’t that surprising. Now if you broke it down and it showed that people living near Philly thought they were midwestern, that would be laughable.
- Have you met anyone from Western Pennsylvania? You'd understand a number of them not knowing where they are on a map!
  Lol I kid. Western PA, aka Pennsyltucky, is our Florida Man territory.
  Ohio I definitely consider the start of the Midwest.
  The others are right though mentioning the obscene number of rebel flags in PA though. My brother was guilty of it for a while in sad to say too. I'm in the Southeast, the most metropolitan part of the state, and they're all over. They're usually hung next to the MAGA stuff, which I'm sure comes as little surprise. Honestly I'd probably prefer the stars and bars to the Trump crap because at least the flag is aesthetically less ugly visually, and the person flying it could just be ignorant or is at least being honest about their beliefs instead of the poorly veiled hate the MAGA trash represents.
  Arkansas was the surprising state to me. I guess I just don't ever think about anything related to Arkansas so I lump it in with the Midwest instead of the South, which I think of as the tourist destination states.
- I think it probably has to do with the overlap between the Midwest and the rust belt.

42% of Colorado has lost their damn mind.
- If you are east of the front range cities it pretty much is the Midwest. That makes up about 42% of the state. Seems accurate to me.
  
  But no one in Fort Collins to Denver to CO Springs to Pueblo (almost the entire population of the state) would ever say they’re in the Midwest. Those cities basically start the West.

3.3% of Iowans must think they live on Mars
- Nah, they're just in Davenport.

Wait, what? Where do people in Montana think they live? The south?
- Probably the NW. Just guessing.
- Are the Rockies normally considered the Midwest?
  
  I would consider the Rockies as their own distinct cultural and geographical region, tbh. Most of Montana that I've ever seen wasn't in the mountains but that could just be a matter of perspective.

Many in Utah think they’re Midwest too. It’s wild. (In my case their answers to me indicated they didn’t know where the Midwest is, not that they identified with it)

Interesting to me that Ohio and Michigan two states that I thought were firmly Midwestern identify less as Midwestern than what I always thought of as the Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.

Who in the hell is calling Pennsylvania the Midwest?
- I'm thinking the survey must have caught some tourists who were in PA at the moment.

Well that's a hot take that nearly makes ontario a cold midwest

Link to the poll? I wonder if the sample size was kinda small.
- Found it, or at least details from the source. Looks like 11,000 responses.
  https://emersoncollegepolling.com/middle-west-review-and-emerson-college-polling/

Not that bad, to be honest, but those Oklahomans are kidding themselves.

I would consider this data partial casserole containment fields at best.

I'm in PA and I don't consider it to be the Midwest even slightly...

When I got to Ohio, I was so confused when people called it the Midwest. I was like, have you seen a map.
- That's because it is considered part of the Midwest?? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MidwesternUnitedStates
  
  Not saying it’s inaccurate because of history but wow does it not match modern US geography.
- This is how I, a Michigander, feel about anyone west of the Mississippi claiming the monocer.
  That river WAS the beginning of the west, how that could be Midwest is beyond me ...

Wyoming has a plurality!

Sure do! Love my home state of MN

I live in the middle of the most western state of the contiguous US. Does that count?

Fly over states represent!

So top center of the flex box.

If you aren't in the B1G Ten at this moment, say no.

Jesus Christ...

I don't live in the un-united states and I'm glad I dont

I am a flyover cow MOOOO

Im In Illinios and still dont get how were considered midwest..?
- "It is called the Midwest because of the location of those states in the 1800s before the U.S. expanded to the Pacific Coast. These states were part of the Northwest Ordinance. This term became obsolete once the U.S. expanded westward, resulting in these states becoming the Midwest."
  Another site defines it as West of the Mississippi River, but between North and South. So I guess it qualifies.
- I don't know if it's providence, algorithm, or confirmation bias, but I just ran into a four-day-old Namexplain video on this exact subject.
  TLDR: it used to be the westernmost part of the country, called Northwest Territory, but then we got some more land farther west and changed the name, but then we got more land further further west and didn't.

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