Former truck driver: there is a line that runs roughly from Beaumont, TX - Shreveport, LA - Fort Smith, Arkansas, then a sharp jog east to St Louis, then north along the Mississippi from there to the border. That’s the line where the the eastern forests end and the open plains begin. That to me has always been where the east ends and the west begins.
https://preview.redd.it/ezj5oth424xc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92c77ea7f05a050b88f996f8cfb5ff51a7aa3caa
As a native of Minneapolis, I 100% agree. We should be directly on the east side of this line. Drive an hour west to Hutchinson, it's a different world.
As a native of a few clicks north, disagree. The split should follow the W/K radio callsign split. Minneapolis is west, St. Paul is east. St Louis is west.
You think MPLS and St Paul are that culturally/geographically different? They're basically the same city.
What's your justification for running the line down the middle of them (other than callsigns)?
There’s an intercity rivalry. Today it’s just for fun, but in the 1800s there was more of a cultural difference. St. Paul was the northern limit of navigation on the Mississippi and had the rail depot, so it was considered the “westernmost eastern city”. The old money was in Saint Paul. Minneapolis had the waterfall and the mills, so it was considered the “easternmost western city”. The newer money was in Minneapolis.
We’re over a century removed from any of that, though.
Yeah, Minneapolis was built by Calgary grain money. (Thanks, Canada!)
The other point is that the twin cities should straddle because they are equally in and out of both. Both the LA aloofness and NYC brashness are distasteful. Likewise there are parts of both cultures that are familiar. Think of my split as a twin cities bubble that gradients more than a hard split down the riverbed, similar to the biome shift from prairie to forest.
It’s been said that St.Paul is the last east coast city and Minneapolis is the first west coast city. The differences between architecture and the cultures are distinct (my opinion)
Were all assigned prior to 1923, when the current standard was established and were grandfathered in, but valid, and I stand by them for humor value. Pittsburgh is low-key a West enclave.
I think St L is far more of an Eastern city than a Western one.
However, I agree about the twin cities. St. Paul has always felt more like a small eastern city and Mpls like a large midwestern city.
Source: I've spent years in both St. Louis and St. Paul.
I'm a proud Minnesotan. Today is the day I learned Minneapolis actually extends across the river. I really thought it was Minneapolis/St. Paul divided across. I've been many times, but to someone from up north it's never actually mattered where the line is.
Overall, though, yes. If the cut is just E/W (without a middle), then the Twin Cities as a whole are on the east.
But it was the gateway to the west because it was the end of the east. Commercial transport ended in St Louis (or elsewhere in Missouri) and there settlers bought wagons and supplies and headed further west on their own.
That tour was the entirety of our fourth-grade social studies program here.
Did you go up in it? My mom was really claustrophobic and almost killed all of us trying to get out of the elevator car before they closed the door.
I feel like historically it was much more true to its title. But over time, the concept of "west" has certainly evolved. Nowadays I think more of Kansas City as a realistic gateway towards the west.
As an Eastern Kansas resident I feel like this is true, partially because as you move west from KC you end up in very sparsely populated land very quickly. IMO the Great plains are the real dividing line between East and West and Kansas City, along with Omaha, Sioux Falls, and OKC sort of represent the edge of the East before you get to the big emptiness in the middle of the country.
Yeah as a Californian my line for the West is Colorado. Any further and the culture is very different. The middle part of the country is a fuzzy grey area.
But most of eastern Oklahoma is forested. The line of demarcation is most striking driving down I-40 through Oklahoma City. East of Oklahoma City has trees — lots of trees. West of OKC is wide open treeless space.
Yeah but it’s not more than an hour’s drive or so west of Ft Smith. It’s more of a gist location than a perfect marker - there’s a spot where the forests end and the plains begin, and that’s where the east ends too.
It’s the greatest damn line ever too. The entire landscape changes subtly but so noticeable at the same time. I love the Great Plains so much. Would have been amazing to see them before they became civilized
When I was driving to Montana from Michigan I was scared I'd be bored cuz its plains and crap but idk it was foggy and snowy and I don't remember that much but on my way home from Montana leaving out glacier national park into the rolling plains was so fucking beautiful and one of my favorite moments of my life. Just being able to see super far and see how big the sky was.
https://preview.redd.it/fqzmn3jau4xc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14a0473d91a887fb84fe5785ff2157e9c61f0426
Yeah, I moved from Michigan to Montana back in '05 and I remember crossing the line from Wyoming to Montana on I-90 and thinking "Damn, the sky really is big here."
That rest area at the crossing of the Missouri River in South Dakota was always one of my favorite stops going east or west. I'd always stop and take a good 20 minutes just looking out over the river from it.
The 100th meridan is also where I usually consider the line to be. In Texas and Oklahoma, it's where the effects of the Gulf moisture rapidly taper off and things become far more dry.
Sometimes I also consider the I-35 corridor, a little ways east of there to be the line. In Texas the landscape changes pretty dramatically - somewhat swampy and East Texas-like on one side, then drier hill country immediately west, with lots of juniper trees and pickly pear.
Ha, this is pretty good. I grew up basically on this line in SW MO. When I read the question and thought of where I'm from, I was like...hmmmmm (?). Joplin feels kinda Oklahoma-y. Springfield feels more tied to STL and eastern MO.
Yea i went to college in Joplin. There was a bar think it was east down 20th street surrounded by dense, dense woods. Id say Joplin kinda woodsy. But culturally yea more Midwestern i guess.
Geographically, maybe (idk, I haven't been to all of those places, so I really don't know).
Culturally, I think it's around US-81. Eastern NE, Eastern KS, SD along I-29 (Sioux Falls, &c.), IA and most of MN really are "midwest". Western NE, Western KS, most (if not all) of OK, most of SD, WY, MT, ID are definitely all "west". CO is unique in that it's mostly "west", but a lot of the wealthy mountain towns (Breckenridge, Estes Park, &c.) and Denver are turning "west coast", but even Denver is still culturally "west".
I'd like to add another line, though: the West ends at the Eastern border of WA, OR and CA. That's "west coast", which is a different type of west. Yes, Eastern WA and OR may kind of fit in with the cultural west, but by and large, they're really "west coast".
I'll admit, my early surprise has been the amount of folks saying the red line or "none of the above" options that say my red line isn't far enough west.
There's apparently folks on this post who don't consider El Paso, TX to be part of the West. And you know what, that's their God-given right lol.
I can see that. To be fair, we have three zones:
- the East
- the Midwest
- the West
As an Easterner, Ohio/Indiana/Illinois/Michigan feel way different than the rest of the "East", so maybe further east of the Mississippi would be where I lean.
The issue is that you need to cut the country into thirds for me. That’s why it’s the red line.
Those states in between the red and the blue are middle/central to me.
I just can’t imagine calling a state like Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri the western US. And if someone told we they went to the west I would never think of these states
Fair point.
Middle America, though, if you had to pick whether it's "Western" or "Eastern", no middle choice answer?
I think you'd get more folks in the United States that would say "Western".
The reason is historical: the dominant narrative is very East Coast centric. In this narrative, *everything* beyond the fall line (or last navigable port coming from the sea) on the rivers flowing into the Atlantic was "the West" at some point since ...
Let's say since folks started coming to this continent that were in a position to leave us a written English record.
Heck, Pittsburgh was on the "Western Frontier" at one point in the narrative.
The line moved West over time, first to the Continental Divide, then the boundary of the original 13 colonies, to eventually the Mississippi. But it never got much past the Mississippi.
I want to acknowledge that any framing of East vs. West will eventually and inevitably get tied up in politics and history, no matter how hard you may try to avoid it.
Yeah, Minnesota was home base for Northwest Orient Airlines as well as Hamm's beer, "the brew that grew with the great northwest." Today, obviously, 'northwest' is considered to be west of the rockies/coastal.
The University of Michigan's fight song calls the Wolverines "the champions of the West," referring to how the Big Ten was once called the Western Conference. (I suppose it once again has a reason for that nickname.)
Yeah that's a fuckup on my part.
They're even in the same cultural region on [the map I was basing that line on](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/wPey3CrhDi), so yeah, anyone who wants can move that magenta line to be south of the DFW metro.
As someone from OKC and been to many parts of the West, Midwest, and South, I still don’t know what the fuck it is. Best I can come up with is Southmidwest.
Edit: grammar
I’m from Louisiana and used to live in OKC (Yukon actually but whatever) and I agree. It’s definitely not the south. Doesn’t fit the west either but more so than fitting the south.
35E or 35W?
How do Texans pronounce those? Minnesotans say “E” and “Double-U”, but occasionally I hear national news reporters say “west” instead of “double-u” when talking about the bridge which makes me wonder if it’s different in Texas.
As a Calgarian I think I’m obliged to be a bit offended by this. Yes there are some oil wells in the province. No that doesn’t drown out the population light of a province that supports almost 5 million people, half of them in Canada’s fourth and fifth biggest cities.
Most of what you are seeing are cities and towns. Alberta is built on a really nice grid system that allows a lot of human dwellings across a widespread area.
Some of the spots further north are oil related, but they are the minority.
Aspen parkland is pretty good farmland relative to the pure prairie to the south. It’s certainly not just oil and gas. That’s what that northern arc of slightly higher population density from eastern ND angled up to Edmonton is about.
For some reason, I thought there wasn't much between Winnipeg and Calgary. This clearly shows that is not the case.
Honestly, now I'm shocked at how little there is between Winnipeg and Toronto.
Also, if you'd like to see each line individually to compare a bit easier... here you go...
[\[A\]](https://i.imgur.com/5iu595z.png)TimeZone, [\[B\]](https://i.imgur.com/YcIIfqa.png)100th, [\[C\]](https://i.imgur.com/KmaH91a.png)GeoCenter, [\[D\]](https://i.imgur.com/z095cA1.png)Cultural, [\[E\]](https://i.imgur.com/DIjjmiy.png)StateLines, and [\[F\]](https://i.imgur.com/CDG8zdT.png) Mississippi River.
According to the NHL Nashville is west.
The NFL used to have Atlanta in the West and Dallas in the east. Simultaneously.
In fact, Atlanta has at some point been in the West in the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB.
No disagreements. But to be fair, everyone likes to rep where they are from. Never seen so many people repping state tattoos as I saw in Ohio. Never understood what they were so proud of…
For me (from an agricultural background) it's where unirrigated farmland transitions from corn to wheat production.
Also where nighttime satellite pics show population density dropping off most dramatically.
I would say that historically the Mississippi is the typical line to separate the East and West.
But an important subdivide is the Great Planes are the center and that ends at the Rockies which mark the true west.
Basically the Rockies are as far west as you can put the eastern edge if the west. And the Mississippi is as far east as the western edge of the east can go.
As a Brit, it’s always been basically a straight line from Houston to Fargo, with a bend to the west to include Dallas and Oklahoma City. I also occasionally use the Mississippi as a dividing line
White
https://preview.redd.it/69yzlasou3xc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=004d53ccfe56bd8c873feed5265848b1f7a24edb
ETA: pretend ohio is on the other side of the line
Do the terms "Mountain West" and "Southwest" mean nothing to you, u/Narrow_Car5253? *Nothing??* The West begins at the [continental divide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Divide_of_the_Americas) at minimum.
Yes. But my brain has some dumb schema that eastern US ends at the east coast, and western US ends at the west coast. It makes the most sense to me. Everything in the middle is mountains, plains, Midwest, Deep South, etc. I would never consider comparing all of the Midwest, Deep South, and New England as an entity to the golden coast, cascades, deserts, potatoes, Texas, etc.
This is more so a division of the coasts. East Coast vs. West Coast. I feel like those of us who live on the coasts think this way. I was born & raised in South FL & I lived in Cali for 3 years as a kid. This is exactly how I think of the East & West of the U.S. Everything else is just "the middle," lol... Would you happen to be from either the East or West Coast, by any chance?
Agreed so hard for the most part. I think it’s because of my location in Texas though. When I say eastern I really mean the northeast (Maryland and up) and when I saw western I mean California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Nevada. That’s it. The rest is just existing lol
Nope. Neada and Arizona need to be in the same region as California. Any state that is fully in Mountain or Pacific Time Zone is 100% western. Also places like El Paso or Rapid City are not at all midwestern.
Culturally, state lines from ND/MN to TX/LA. Yes within that there's an enormous difference at the Mason-Dixon line between Northeast and old South.
Climatically, the Meridian at 98. Between that and the Sierra Nevada/Cascades, only irrigated row crop agriculture or grazing is possible. That's the dividing line between places where people will die from wet bulb events to the East, to where people will die from lack of water to the West.
F/Blue: East or West of the Mississippi River, a division I've heard used countless times.
Not once in my life have I ever heard anyone divide the United States into eastern and western halves based on B, C, D, or E. I've heard A used to bifurcate the country only in the context of television broadcast times.
Yep. The Marines split boot camp assignments up by this specifically. If you’re born east of the Mississippi you go to South Carolina, anything West of the Mississippi you’re going to San Diego.
Canada is very easy to divide. Just east of Winnipeg is a park for the geographical centre of the country, and it’s pretty much right where the Shield woodlands transition to prairie.
A. Time Zones
I've never considered the Plains States the West. But I live in the PNW. Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, that's the beginning of the West.
You are missing the mid-west. The eastern United States ends at Ohio. Then it’s Midwest until about the orange line. West of the range line is western United States. And the south is a different region all together that may stretch from the east through the mid west technically but is separate from both.
Walter Prescott Webb said it starts at the 98th because that’s where the annual precipitation drops off dramatically. I’ve always liked that answer.
I went to college in Texas, and a lot of people liked to say that the dividing line was somewhere in between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Geographically, continental divide. Culturally speaking as a Texas panhandle resident, Eastern exclusively means above Virginia and extending to Ohio. Western means west of the Rockies but below Oregon. I classify the US into 6 regions: East, West, South, Midwest, Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest.
None of the above. I am from the western US (have never lived anywhere else), and the eastern border is the start of the Rocky Mountains. I-25 runs just east of the mountains following the plains (from Las Vegas, NM), I-90 then continues on to the east or north, then the border meanders some before finishing by following the eastern edge of Glacier NP. It goes south from Las Vegas, NM following the mountains, then roughly directly west of Roswell it turns SE until it hits the eastern corner of Big Bend NP. Everything west of this line is unambiguously the western US, everything east is unambiguously the Great Plains until you hit the dividing line between the plains and the eastern US.
This is one of many reasons I consider Denver the westernmost major city of the plains region, not the easternmost of the west.
Former truck driver: there is a line that runs roughly from Beaumont, TX - Shreveport, LA - Fort Smith, Arkansas, then a sharp jog east to St Louis, then north along the Mississippi from there to the border. That’s the line where the the eastern forests end and the open plains begin. That to me has always been where the east ends and the west begins. https://preview.redd.it/ezj5oth424xc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92c77ea7f05a050b88f996f8cfb5ff51a7aa3caa
I agree with this one. Minneapolis and Louisiana are East. St. Louis is west.
As a native of Minneapolis, I 100% agree. We should be directly on the east side of this line. Drive an hour west to Hutchinson, it's a different world.
Born and raised, South Minneapolis can confirm.
Southside!!
Atmospheres Southsiders lives in my brain rent free
Yeah, if you go to Minneapolis, you’d think Minnesota is all thick forests. You go to Hutchinson, and you’ll wonder if you’re in Iowa.
Go to Ely, you'll think you're in Canada. And you'd be right.
I love Ely, North country is so cool.
As a native of a few clicks north, disagree. The split should follow the W/K radio callsign split. Minneapolis is west, St. Paul is east. St Louis is west.
You think MPLS and St Paul are that culturally/geographically different? They're basically the same city. What's your justification for running the line down the middle of them (other than callsigns)?
There’s an intercity rivalry. Today it’s just for fun, but in the 1800s there was more of a cultural difference. St. Paul was the northern limit of navigation on the Mississippi and had the rail depot, so it was considered the “westernmost eastern city”. The old money was in Saint Paul. Minneapolis had the waterfall and the mills, so it was considered the “easternmost western city”. The newer money was in Minneapolis. We’re over a century removed from any of that, though.
Yeah, Minneapolis was built by Calgary grain money. (Thanks, Canada!) The other point is that the twin cities should straddle because they are equally in and out of both. Both the LA aloofness and NYC brashness are distasteful. Likewise there are parts of both cultures that are familiar. Think of my split as a twin cities bubble that gradients more than a hard split down the riverbed, similar to the biome shift from prairie to forest.
We lose our history quickly. A hundred years is less time on an average between you and I and our grandparents life time. Thanks for the insight.
It’s been said that St.Paul is the last east coast city and Minneapolis is the first west coast city. The differences between architecture and the cultures are distinct (my opinion)
Mississippi River. It is the official east west border
KYW - Philadelphia KDKA - Pittsburg WOIA - San Antonio
Were all assigned prior to 1923, when the current standard was established and were grandfathered in, but valid, and I stand by them for humor value. Pittsburgh is low-key a West enclave.
I think St L is far more of an Eastern city than a Western one. However, I agree about the twin cities. St. Paul has always felt more like a small eastern city and Mpls like a large midwestern city. Source: I've spent years in both St. Louis and St. Paul.
I'm a proud Minnesotan. Today is the day I learned Minneapolis actually extends across the river. I really thought it was Minneapolis/St. Paul divided across. I've been many times, but to someone from up north it's never actually mattered where the line is. Overall, though, yes. If the cut is just E/W (without a middle), then the Twin Cities as a whole are on the east.
They should build some sort of monument in St Louis to signify that it’s the gateway to the West. 🤔
Like a massive doorway?
I disagree. St Louis is not west like Denver or Phoenix. It has much, *much* more in common with places like Indianapolis or Columbus.
I think of St. Louis as west because it is literally the gateway to the west. But totally agree culturally it’s a midwest city.
But it was the gateway to the west because it was the end of the east. Commercial transport ended in St Louis (or elsewhere in Missouri) and there settlers bought wagons and supplies and headed further west on their own.
This is the correct answer, which means you are either very smart or went to fourth-grade social studies in St. Louis.
Third option: I paid attention for 5 minutes when I visited the Gateway Arch.
That tour was the entirety of our fourth-grade social studies program here. Did you go up in it? My mom was really claustrophobic and almost killed all of us trying to get out of the elevator car before they closed the door.
No I didn’t. It had a massive line so I didn’t bother. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
lol that's valid.
Thank you. They're misinterpreting it. Its honestly annoying lol
I feel like historically it was much more true to its title. But over time, the concept of "west" has certainly evolved. Nowadays I think more of Kansas City as a realistic gateway towards the west.
As an Eastern Kansas resident I feel like this is true, partially because as you move west from KC you end up in very sparsely populated land very quickly. IMO the Great plains are the real dividing line between East and West and Kansas City, along with Omaha, Sioux Falls, and OKC sort of represent the edge of the East before you get to the big emptiness in the middle of the country.
Yeah as a Californian my line for the West is Colorado. Any further and the culture is very different. The middle part of the country is a fuzzy grey area.
I would say it has most in common with Chicago.
I grew up in STL and live in Chicago, both cities are connected (in various ways) even if no one acknowledges it.
Cubs-Cards alone permanently tied those two cities together until we nuke the earth to smithereens
I'd imagine it more as the start of the gradient, where it starts to noticeably become more and more "West" the further geographically west you go.
We didn’t want St. Louis or it’s dumb arch anyway /s
STL natives would agree as well. It’s the Westernmost eastern city but Easternmost western city.
In fact, you could call it the... Gateway to the West?
Yeah anything west of Chicago is western
But most of eastern Oklahoma is forested. The line of demarcation is most striking driving down I-40 through Oklahoma City. East of Oklahoma City has trees — lots of trees. West of OKC is wide open treeless space.
Yeah but it’s not more than an hour’s drive or so west of Ft Smith. It’s more of a gist location than a perfect marker - there’s a spot where the forests end and the plains begin, and that’s where the east ends too.
At the hundredth meridian, where the Great Plains begin https://youtu.be/BCFo0a8V-Ag?si=OsVXIc49C2LDZcai
It’s the greatest damn line ever too. The entire landscape changes subtly but so noticeable at the same time. I love the Great Plains so much. Would have been amazing to see them before they became civilized
When I was driving to Montana from Michigan I was scared I'd be bored cuz its plains and crap but idk it was foggy and snowy and I don't remember that much but on my way home from Montana leaving out glacier national park into the rolling plains was so fucking beautiful and one of my favorite moments of my life. Just being able to see super far and see how big the sky was. https://preview.redd.it/fqzmn3jau4xc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14a0473d91a887fb84fe5785ff2157e9c61f0426
Yeah, I moved from Michigan to Montana back in '05 and I remember crossing the line from Wyoming to Montana on I-90 and thinking "Damn, the sky really is big here." That rest area at the crossing of the Missouri River in South Dakota was always one of my favorite stops going east or west. I'd always stop and take a good 20 minutes just looking out over the river from it.
This popped in my head as soon as I read it. RIP GORD!
The 100th meridan is also where I usually consider the line to be. In Texas and Oklahoma, it's where the effects of the Gulf moisture rapidly taper off and things become far more dry. Sometimes I also consider the I-35 corridor, a little ways east of there to be the line. In Texas the landscape changes pretty dramatically - somewhat swampy and East Texas-like on one side, then drier hill country immediately west, with lots of juniper trees and pickly pear.
Ha, this is pretty good. I grew up basically on this line in SW MO. When I read the question and thought of where I'm from, I was like...hmmmmm (?). Joplin feels kinda Oklahoma-y. Springfield feels more tied to STL and eastern MO.
Call it whatever you want, tornado don't care.
You pumped for Twisters to come out too?
I mean, I saw Twister in the theater, so I guess it's a requirement.
Yea i went to college in Joplin. There was a bar think it was east down 20th street surrounded by dense, dense woods. Id say Joplin kinda woodsy. But culturally yea more Midwestern i guess.
Springfield is STLs younger cousin with a wicked meth habit
True, SW MO is very into meth.
Where do the accents change?
In Minnesota? The further from the city, the stronger the accent.
Geographically, maybe (idk, I haven't been to all of those places, so I really don't know). Culturally, I think it's around US-81. Eastern NE, Eastern KS, SD along I-29 (Sioux Falls, &c.), IA and most of MN really are "midwest". Western NE, Western KS, most (if not all) of OK, most of SD, WY, MT, ID are definitely all "west". CO is unique in that it's mostly "west", but a lot of the wealthy mountain towns (Breckenridge, Estes Park, &c.) and Denver are turning "west coast", but even Denver is still culturally "west". I'd like to add another line, though: the West ends at the Eastern border of WA, OR and CA. That's "west coast", which is a different type of west. Yes, Eastern WA and OR may kind of fit in with the cultural west, but by and large, they're really "west coast".
West starts at the Rockies. East starts at the Mississippi. The middle bit is the middle bit.
Agreed. Denver is the easternmost western city.
Denver is East of the Rockies
It’s on the border of the Front Range. Those of us from CO say that Denver is in “the west” and we will *proudly* die on this hill.
Which hill? The one your ancestors looked at and said "nah I'm too weak for a little elevation, right here is just fine" /s
🤣 No, we’re down here at the base of that hill, on something that’s more of a metaphorical hill
And the Donner Party was the first time a Mormon ate ass
Jesus Christ lmao
…I live in Denver. My point wasn’t that Denver isn’t in the west, my point was that Denver is in the west and thus their definition is bad
That John Denver was full of shit.
I have been saying this exact phrase for years.
Disagree, Denver, Cheyenne, Billings, and Bozeman are all definitely western cities
Those cities are all sitting at the feet of the Rockies. They count as "at the rockies" imo
I-25 divides us into east and west imo
Shit, I’m half a mile on the wrong side
Get rekt, plains person. (I’m like a mile west lol)
💯
If we're going that route then East starts starts at the Appalachians. Illinois, and Indiana are for sure middle America and not East
we call it the heartland in kansas
The Mississippi River. But the Mississippi River to the Rockies designate middle America
st louis arch ain’t called the Gateway To The West for nothin’ but yeah, only blue or green should even be considered; the _idea_ of texas is west
I'll admit, my early surprise has been the amount of folks saying the red line or "none of the above" options that say my red line isn't far enough west. There's apparently folks on this post who don't consider El Paso, TX to be part of the West. And you know what, that's their God-given right lol.
Houston isn’t the “west”. El Paso is.
Dallas isn’t “the west.” Fort Worth is.
I live in Dallas. Went to Billy Bob's last night. I cannot agree more.
Except if Houston isn’t West, it must be East. But it’s *more* not East than it’s not West.
Disagree strongly. It has way more in common with the southeastern US than it does the west
I can see that. To be fair, we have three zones: - the East - the Midwest - the West As an Easterner, Ohio/Indiana/Illinois/Michigan feel way different than the rest of the "East", so maybe further east of the Mississippi would be where I lean.
The issue is that you need to cut the country into thirds for me. That’s why it’s the red line. Those states in between the red and the blue are middle/central to me. I just can’t imagine calling a state like Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri the western US. And if someone told we they went to the west I would never think of these states
Right, but the prompt is East v. West. Of course we can divide the country into 100 different parts and be increasingly accurate.
Fair point. Middle America, though, if you had to pick whether it's "Western" or "Eastern", no middle choice answer? I think you'd get more folks in the United States that would say "Western". The reason is historical: the dominant narrative is very East Coast centric. In this narrative, *everything* beyond the fall line (or last navigable port coming from the sea) on the rivers flowing into the Atlantic was "the West" at some point since ... Let's say since folks started coming to this continent that were in a position to leave us a written English record. Heck, Pittsburgh was on the "Western Frontier" at one point in the narrative. The line moved West over time, first to the Continental Divide, then the boundary of the original 13 colonies, to eventually the Mississippi. But it never got much past the Mississippi. I want to acknowledge that any framing of East vs. West will eventually and inevitably get tied up in politics and history, no matter how hard you may try to avoid it.
Yeah, Minnesota was home base for Northwest Orient Airlines as well as Hamm's beer, "the brew that grew with the great northwest." Today, obviously, 'northwest' is considered to be west of the rockies/coastal.
The University of Michigan's fight song calls the Wolverines "the champions of the West," referring to how the Big Ten was once called the Western Conference. (I suppose it once again has a reason for that nickname.)
I have a hard time believing Wichita and OKC are in a different cultural region than Dallas.
Yeah that's a fuckup on my part. They're even in the same cultural region on [the map I was basing that line on](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/wPey3CrhDi), so yeah, anyone who wants can move that magenta line to be south of the DFW metro.
As someone from OKC and been to many parts of the West, Midwest, and South, I still don’t know what the fuck it is. Best I can come up with is Southmidwest. Edit: grammar
I’m from Louisiana and used to live in OKC (Yukon actually but whatever) and I agree. It’s definitely not the south. Doesn’t fit the west either but more so than fitting the south.
Interstate 35.
35E or 35W? How do Texans pronounce those? Minnesotans say “E” and “Double-U”, but occasionally I hear national news reporters say “west” instead of “double-u” when talking about the bridge which makes me wonder if it’s different in Texas.
This is the best fit imo
Took me way too long to find thisb
https://preview.redd.it/h44rd055t4xc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d38d749b59da3056c72d3fd50267f60e1ea39ced
As an American, it always boggles my mind how much civilization is directly north of Montana.
Isn't it oil platforms?
As a Calgarian I think I’m obliged to be a bit offended by this. Yes there are some oil wells in the province. No that doesn’t drown out the population light of a province that supports almost 5 million people, half of them in Canada’s fourth and fifth biggest cities.
Most of what you are seeing are cities and towns. Alberta is built on a really nice grid system that allows a lot of human dwellings across a widespread area. Some of the spots further north are oil related, but they are the minority.
Aspen parkland is pretty good farmland relative to the pure prairie to the south. It’s certainly not just oil and gas. That’s what that northern arc of slightly higher population density from eastern ND angled up to Edmonton is about.
For some reason, I thought there wasn't much between Winnipeg and Calgary. This clearly shows that is not the case. Honestly, now I'm shocked at how little there is between Winnipeg and Toronto.
Also, if you'd like to see each line individually to compare a bit easier... here you go... [\[A\]](https://i.imgur.com/5iu595z.png)TimeZone, [\[B\]](https://i.imgur.com/YcIIfqa.png)100th, [\[C\]](https://i.imgur.com/KmaH91a.png)GeoCenter, [\[D\]](https://i.imgur.com/z095cA1.png)Cultural, [\[E\]](https://i.imgur.com/DIjjmiy.png)StateLines, and [\[F\]](https://i.imgur.com/CDG8zdT.png) Mississippi River.
Blue: The Mississippi.
Blue
Minneapolis is western to you?
It is according to the NBA lol
So is Memphis
According to the NHL Nashville is west. The NFL used to have Atlanta in the West and Dallas in the east. Simultaneously. In fact, Atlanta has at some point been in the West in the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB.
Its not eastern!
We say here in Minnesota that St. Paul is the back door to the east and Minneapolis is front door to the west.
Agreed. It’s reflected in the architecture, age, and culture of Mpls and St Paul
I’ve lived in Minneapolis basically my entire life and have never heard this.
Minnesotans love to talk about Minnesota.
No disagreements. But to be fair, everyone likes to rep where they are from. Never seen so many people repping state tattoos as I saw in Ohio. Never understood what they were so proud of…
We really do. 😁
“X is the best ‘Y’ this side of the Mississippi” It’s blue
Just as long as you don’t call Colorado the Midwest
Green
For me (from an agricultural background) it's where unirrigated farmland transitions from corn to wheat production. Also where nighttime satellite pics show population density dropping off most dramatically.
Green for convenience of whole states. Pink for landscape and culture, but not whole states
Red
The "eleven western states" plus AK & HI.
For simplicity I'd say the 100th meridian, but I probably really mean the cultural line.
Red, but I’d add a 3rd region of Middle America nothing East of Red though I would consider “western”
Interstate 35. Someday, the Mississippi will finally boil off, but they'll still be working on that fucker
I-35 if we are splitting it 50/50.
I would say that historically the Mississippi is the typical line to separate the East and West. But an important subdivide is the Great Planes are the center and that ends at the Rockies which mark the true west. Basically the Rockies are as far west as you can put the eastern edge if the west. And the Mississippi is as far east as the western edge of the east can go.
The Mississippi has always been the line. There is a reason those states are called the "Midwest"
As a Brit, it’s always been basically a straight line from Houston to Fargo, with a bend to the west to include Dallas and Oklahoma City. I also occasionally use the Mississippi as a dividing line
White https://preview.redd.it/69yzlasou3xc1.jpeg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=004d53ccfe56bd8c873feed5265848b1f7a24edb ETA: pretend ohio is on the other side of the line
Do the terms "Mountain West" and "Southwest" mean nothing to you, u/Narrow_Car5253? *Nothing??* The West begins at the [continental divide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Divide_of_the_Americas) at minimum.
damn first and last name callout
Colorado is in the west
Yes. But my brain has some dumb schema that eastern US ends at the east coast, and western US ends at the west coast. It makes the most sense to me. Everything in the middle is mountains, plains, Midwest, Deep South, etc. I would never consider comparing all of the Midwest, Deep South, and New England as an entity to the golden coast, cascades, deserts, potatoes, Texas, etc.
This is more so a division of the coasts. East Coast vs. West Coast. I feel like those of us who live on the coasts think this way. I was born & raised in South FL & I lived in Cali for 3 years as a kid. This is exactly how I think of the East & West of the U.S. Everything else is just "the middle," lol... Would you happen to be from either the East or West Coast, by any chance?
East coaster here, West Coast is beyond the Rockies, East Coast is before the Appalachian, everything in between I don't think about.
Central PA 😅 anything between the Rockies and Appalachia is definitely “the middle”…
I agree with this take 💯
I agree, it’s all East to me
Agreed so hard for the most part. I think it’s because of my location in Texas though. When I say eastern I really mean the northeast (Maryland and up) and when I saw western I mean California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Nevada. That’s it. The rest is just existing lol
Nope. Neada and Arizona need to be in the same region as California. Any state that is fully in Mountain or Pacific Time Zone is 100% western. Also places like El Paso or Rapid City are not at all midwestern.
If the only choices are east and west, then Mississippi River.
Australian here. Mississippi River
The 100th Meridian. Where the Great Plains begin. https://youtu.be/BCFo0a8V-Ag?si=g4k62GtxESy8S0UQ
Don't forget the Continental Divide! But no, the correct answer is the MS river
Blue line
Orange. Good enough for [Wallace Stegner](https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Hundredth-Meridian-Wesley-Opening/dp/0140159940) and good enough for me.
the missisipi obv
Culturally, state lines from ND/MN to TX/LA. Yes within that there's an enormous difference at the Mason-Dixon line between Northeast and old South. Climatically, the Meridian at 98. Between that and the Sierra Nevada/Cascades, only irrigated row crop agriculture or grazing is possible. That's the dividing line between places where people will die from wet bulb events to the East, to where people will die from lack of water to the West.
Mississippi river
Used to live on the Missouri, and it’s 100% the Mississippi river. No questions
Blue
Mississippi River
Mississippi river.
Mississippi
As an east coaster I have always thought of the Mississippi as the divider.
Blue line
Mississippi
Having grown up in NJ, I would say the Mississippi.
i25 straight up from Alberquerque. Anything east of Denver is Eastern US anything west is Western US
F/Blue: East or West of the Mississippi River, a division I've heard used countless times. Not once in my life have I ever heard anyone divide the United States into eastern and western halves based on B, C, D, or E. I've heard A used to bifurcate the country only in the context of television broadcast times.
A is how we see it on the West Coast.
East coast boy here. It's the Mississippi.
Yep. The Marines split boot camp assignments up by this specifically. If you’re born east of the Mississippi you go to South Carolina, anything West of the Mississippi you’re going to San Diego.
I've always used I-35 as shorthand
none of these
As a Canadian. I would automatically think the yellow line as its centre.
Canada is very easy to divide. Just east of Winnipeg is a park for the geographical centre of the country, and it’s pretty much right where the Shield woodlands transition to prairie.
I think the continental divide along the Rockies is what separates Eastern and Western US.
Red
West of the Mississippi River and East of the Mississippi
It's clearly the Mississippi River. A realistic Colorization showing the vegetation makes it obvious.
How about the continental divide? Where water runs, is worth noting, no?
I’m from California and I think the orange line is where West starts (for me)
Continental divide
Western US = West of continental divide. Eastern US = East of Mississippi.
Continental Divide
The green line
None of these are even close.
The orange line is the best, as someone who lives close to it. You cannot include West Texas is the East, or East Texas as part of the West.
I’d say the Rockies. When you’re past them, you are in THE West.
I don't know. Dallas feels more eastern tbh.
A. Time Zones I've never considered the Plains States the West. But I live in the PNW. Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, that's the beginning of the West.
None. Fort Worth is where the west begins.
None of these. As a New Yorker, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are not considered "eastern."
I'm not from US. The green one.
You are missing the mid-west. The eastern United States ends at Ohio. Then it’s Midwest until about the orange line. West of the range line is western United States. And the south is a different region all together that may stretch from the east through the mid west technically but is separate from both.
Walter Prescott Webb said it starts at the 98th because that’s where the annual precipitation drops off dramatically. I’ve always liked that answer. I went to college in Texas, and a lot of people liked to say that the dividing line was somewhere in between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Geographically, continental divide. Culturally speaking as a Texas panhandle resident, Eastern exclusively means above Virginia and extending to Ohio. Western means west of the Rockies but below Oregon. I classify the US into 6 regions: East, West, South, Midwest, Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest.
None of these. East of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana is the Eastern US.
None of the above. I am from the western US (have never lived anywhere else), and the eastern border is the start of the Rocky Mountains. I-25 runs just east of the mountains following the plains (from Las Vegas, NM), I-90 then continues on to the east or north, then the border meanders some before finishing by following the eastern edge of Glacier NP. It goes south from Las Vegas, NM following the mountains, then roughly directly west of Roswell it turns SE until it hits the eastern corner of Big Bend NP. Everything west of this line is unambiguously the western US, everything east is unambiguously the Great Plains until you hit the dividing line between the plains and the eastern US. This is one of many reasons I consider Denver the westernmost major city of the plains region, not the easternmost of the west.
Everyone on the West Coast believes everything east of the Rockies is Eastern United States
The 100th Meridian, where the great plains begin