Talk:Midwestern United States/Archive 1

Other
This page should be deleted because it cipies another page Can anyone explain to me where the fact about church attendance came from?

Answer:

In order to be annoying, I know that someone added these facts to try and include and mislead people into grouping parts of PA into the midwest. Since it was added just to annoy my wife, I will refrain from altering this information and allow an unbiased contributor to change the content.

"In fact, religious attendance is lowest in the United States in the Industrialized Midwest and in the Southeast, and highest in coastal cities like Boston, New York, and Los Angeles" I really think if you are going to quote statistics like this you should include a source.

I deleted the section: Southern areas of Missouri with more affinity to the American South may also not consider themselves Midwestern.

As I am unsure what the writer is referring to unless he is referring to some rural areas. Even there, I do not think that the majority thinks of itself as southern. At least that was my experience growing up in and around Springfield, Missouri. It was rare to come across anyone who thought of Missouri as part of the south. Basically, southern missouri is way to broad in my experience. User:sfmontyo

I'm pretty sure that I based that on something that I read in Missouri, which doesn't seem to be there now. So I gladly defer to you as somebody that would know what they were talking about. (Plus, there's a Missourian in the room with me that agrees with you too.) -- Toby (a native Nebraskan) 23:27 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

I always thought of the Midwest as ending at the Mississippi River, and of the Plains states as constituting a region unto themselves. -Smack 00:32 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Minnesota (west of the Mississippi in part) considers itself "upper midwest") dml

Another question. I've never read Life on the Mississippi, but Huck Finn is better described as a Southern novel than a Midwestern novel. Life on the Mississippi is hardly famous. I say they should be removed from the article. -Smack 00:45 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

- I think this caption is vague. If I didn't know where the US midwest is, I would have no idea what the "salmon-colored" section is... Describing a color as salmon seems like it may be confusing to some, since I think salmon have a fairly limited range. Surely there is some better way to say this. Tuf-Kat 05:50, Oct 2, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to do with a lot of the recent additions. Seems somewhat POV, but I find it hard to specify exactly why. For example:
 * Because the Northwest Ordinance region comprising the heart of the Midwest was the first large region of the United States which prohibited slavery (the Northeastern states emancipated slaves four decades into the 19th century), the region remains culturally apart from the country and proud of its free pioneer heritage. The regional southern boundary was the Ohio River, the border of freedom and slavery in American history and literature (See: Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Beloved, by Toni Morrison).

Now, is it really accurate to say "the region remains culturally apart from the country and proud of its free pioneer heritage"? I've lived in the midwest my whole life and I don't especially feel "culturally apart from the country". But maybe that's just me. Even if it is accurate to say that, is it accurate to say the reason is because it was the first large region to prohibit slavery?

The recent additions are rife with such statements. While I agree that the role the midwest played as free states and with the Underground Railroad were an important part of the midwest's heritage, I don't see it as being the central defining characteristic. I started doing some edits, but I don't have the time to really think through all the ramifications. I'm going to add this to Cleanup to request additional eyes to look at this. Bkonrad | Talk 14:01, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I think it's fair to say that the Midwest often feels overlooked because of heavy biases toward the coasts, though I imagine every place outside the East- and West-coast megalopoli feels a bit cheated from time to time. Anyway, it's flyover country.


 * One thing is that the midwest actually turns out to have been fairly racist from time to time (MLK once said that areas around Chicago were practically worse than many regions in the South). Okay, so I'm basically just saying, yes, this article needs cleanup… &mdash;Mulad 17:32, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but I just wanted to let someone know that in the table of Midwest cities, Minnesota's state abbreviation is listed as MI and it should be MN. It links to the correct page, but is just used incorrectly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.215.251.51 (talk) 21:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

When I recognize blatantly incorrect information carelessly offered as "fact" - especially when accurate information is so readily available - I tend to worry about the validity of the parts I DON'T know anything about. The breakdown of religions in the Midwest is just wrong: someone needs a refresher in Comparative Religion. For those who'd rather do without it, here's an example. There are 140 Catholic Churches in Detroit. There are over 1300 Protestant Churches of which almost 600 are Baptist. You will find the same ratio virtually everywhere in the Midwest: it is overwhelmingly Protestant. Now, for those who are interested, here's a rant. I'm not a religous zealot although this does happen to be my field: I'm just tired of inaccurate internet material in general.(Someone will probably delete everything that follows - please leave this first part, O.K.?)

CHRISTIANITY is a RELIGION, not a denomination (Religions that are NOT Christian include Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hindi, Shintoism and Daoism: but I digress) The MAIN BRANCHES of CHRSTIANITY are: Roman Catholicism; Greek Orthodoxy; Russian Orthodoxy and PROTESTANTISM. The doctrine of Roman Catholicism does not allow DENOMINATIONS: the Pope is the head of the Church and the Church is governed through one hierarchy. Should a particular parish openly deviate from that universal doctrine, it would find itself in trouble with the Vatican. PROTESTANTISM is a BRANCH of CHRISTIANITY. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as anything but a nice guy; they don't believe priests can absolve sin; they allow their ministers to marry; they recognize only Baptism and Holy Communion as Sacraments (marraige is a "Holy Covenant"); they do not pray to Saints and, in general, they tend not to take a stand on issues such as divorce and remarraige; premarital sex or abortion..(There are exceptions: Evangelical Fundamentalists; Pentacostals: "Holy Rollers" or "Born-agains" are all - technically - Protestants. But they are extremely conservative and actively oppose abortion; discourage divorce, and condemn interpretation of the Bible. Also, they tend to refer to themselves only as "Christians" - regardless of the name of their church - and most generally believe that THEY are the only "real" Christians. Old Order Amish; Mennonites; Exclusive Brethren; Open Brethren; Christian Brethern; etc. are all - technically - Protestant demonimations. But they are non-evangelical fundamentalists who keep themselves separate from all other religions - Christian or not - because they view the world as wicked and material. The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (Mormons) does overlap with contemporary Protestantism, but also differs significantly. They believe their founder, Joseph Smith, received revelations directly from God. "Mainstream" / "Contemporary" PROTESTANTISM is divided into many DENOMONATIONS: Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Anglicans -: there are many. For the most part, they differ only in matters of church organization and leadership: they are much more alike than they are different. Exceptions: Baptists believe candidates for baptism must have reached the Age of Reason - I believe around 12 or 13 for them - so they don't baptize babies) Also, baptism must be by immersion in a tank (which is located to one side of the alter and out of view when not in use) - and not annointment from a font. Other errors in this article: Congregationalism is a New England phenomonon. Yes, there are surely Congretational Churches in the Midwest (11 out of over 1300 in Detroit) but it is far from a major presence. "Calvinism" refers to John Calvin who, during the Reformation -which took place in 16th century EUROPE - believed Martin Luther's new doctrines to be TOO LIBERAL. His followers became "Calvinists". There are Modern Calvinists worldwide but as formal, organized congregations with their own churches, they are rare in the U.S. (2 out of over 1300 in Detroit) Yes: some churches in some Protestant denominations are "Calvinistic" in their beliefs - some Baptist churches and virtually all Fundamentalists - but the inclusion of the term in this article is misleading and confusing. That said: the Midwest is OVERWHELMINGLY PROTESTANT - close to 70% - which just about anyone who knows anything about America's immigrants knows. Germans, Scandanavians? Virtually all Protestant - mostly Lutheran. Large urban Black populations: virtually all Baptist. The Catholic French-Canadian immigrants of the late 19th century settled primarily in New England mill towns - and not many Roman Catholic Italians and Spaniards made a beeline for 19th century Ohio or Indiana. Rant finished! 69.177.233.124 (talk) 12:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

"Midwest" will always be somewhat vague
There's nothing "Western" about Ohio anymore and it is well to the east of a majority of the states of the U.S. but will always be deemed "Midwestern" due to the Northwest Ordinance. However, a few years ago I read where a particularly dominant University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball teams was dubbed the "Monsters of the Midwest". I know that's a play on the old Chicago Bears, the "Monsters of the Midway", but then I thought, well, only seventy miles or so north of Lexington is the very Midwestern-feeling Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati, although to me nowhere is much more stereotypcially Southern than Lexington (except for its climate), with all of the whiskey distillation, horse farms, and tobacco raising in the area. Louisville, too, is somewhat Midwestern with its frequent Knights of Columbus halls, and much faster pace of life than rural Kentucky or much of the rest of the South; not for nothing is the tourism motto of Bullitt County, the next county due south of Louisville, "Where the real South begins". Northwest Tennessee has much more of the landforms of the Midwest than what one generally associates with that state, but the culture in most ways seems determinedly Southern. Oklahoma is quite Midwestern in many ways: Tulsa has at least as much of a Midwestern feel to it as it does Southern, and certainly, oil companies to the contrary, hardly feels Southwestern at all. "Midwest" will in some ways always mean just what the speaker wants it to mean. Rlquall 20:06, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I think we have to consider that there is a prejudice in the United States with people who are culturally Southern. See Southern United States under "Lifestyle".  We've seen nomenclature changes before in cultural groups who wish to distance themselves from stereotypes.

--ScottyFLL 20:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally, I don't see much difference between suburban Cincinnati and Lexington. Tobacco and whisky are produced even across the river into such Ohio counties as Brown County, and the AQHA's horse show for the region is held not in Lexington nor even Louisville, but Columbus. Agriculture doesn't really change in the seventy miles between Lexington and Cincinnati; it's not until you get north of Dayton that you see the archetypically Midwestern crop farms. And let us not forget the water tower in the Cincy suburb of Florence, Kentucky stating, in the plaintive Southern tradition, "Welcome to Florence, y'all." Of course, all this just goes to show that "Midwest" is largely a subjective term, as you've said. -- SwissCelt 05:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The football fight song of The University of Michigan goes, "Hail, hail, Michigan, the champions of the West." Those of us who actually LIVE in the West have to chuckle. RickK 20:41, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Well, Michigan was in the West (well, sort of) back when Hail to the Victors was written. Also, not to start an edit war, but to the anonymous recent editor: "Scots-Irish" is equally acceptable as "Scotch-Irish", just as "Scots whisky" is almost as acceptable as "Scotch Whisky". Rlquall 22:24, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * That line in The Victors is actually a reference to the Big Ten Conference, which was originally nicknamed the "Western Conference" (as the only other conference existing at the time was a league of East Coast schools). The song was written by student Louis Elbel after a last-second victory over Chicago that clinched the 1898 Western Conference title. Funnyhat 06:52, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Two points, briefly

1)Let's try to add new threads to the bottom, not the top of talk pages, so that the thing makes logical sense to someone trying to read it from start to finish. 2)Let's all try to sign our posts, regardless of how good and right we think that they are.

Rlquall 05:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't much care for the wording "very liberal liberal arts colleges" even though I know that political liberalism and "liberal" in the sense of liberal arts are two diffent things and that the sentence is largely correct in that all of the liberal arts colleges listed are also politicallly liberal. It just sounds confusing. I'm less pleased with the idea about "mixing of Protestantism and Calvinism". That to me is like saying "a mixture of wine and Merlot". Calvin was a Protestant, Calvinism is a species of Protestantism. Rlquall 23:24, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

the term midwest is rather confusing. it's obviously a completely separate area from what's called the west. Gringo300 02:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's why it's not called "the west"; it's called "the midwest". Granted, it's a bad name for the region, but that's not for us to decide. That's what it's called. Tverbeek 03:06, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nice revised map - but...
...the inclusion of West Virginia and Kentucky as peripherally Midwestern in cultural character seems like stretching the definitions a bit, even if there may be a great deal of commuting and other economic ties across the Ohio River. //Big Adamsky 17:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Kentucky I would have to agree with. It may be on the edge of the South, but historically and culturally it most certainly *is* part of the South. Northern Kentucky on the Ohio River near Cincinnati is quite Midwestern, but the other 95% of the state is very clearly Southern. So in that case I would have to agree that Kentucky should not be included in this defintion West Virgina on the other hand is a more difficult issue. Culturally it's a mix of Southern, Midwestern and Northeastern -- particularly in terms of it's industrial culture that has many similarities to neighboring Pennsylvania (which is unquestionably Northeastern). Unlike Kentucky, however, West Virgina is historically not part of the South. On the other hand it doesn't fit very well under the definition of Midwestern nor Northeastern either. The point being, West Virginia is literally the location where the three major regions east of the Mississippi come together and this makes it very different to identify it with one region or another. As a result I would consider it a border state -- particularly between the Midwest and the South. { stereoisomer 4:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC) }


 * All these people are claiming parts of Kentucky and West Virginia as "Midwest". Personally, I don't see it... not at all. I think the confusion comes in thinking of Ohio as culturally homogenous, which it isn't. One need only compare the areas around Ohio University, Youngstown State University, and Bowling Green State University to learn the differences in culture within the state of Ohio. The three campuses compare more favorably to the University of Tennessee (at Knoxville), the University at Buffalo, and Iowa State University (respectively) than to one another. Accordingly, the parts of Ohio bordering Kentucky and West Virginia are much more Appalachian in nature (or "Southern", although this is itself a misnomer when applied to the region) than Midwestern. -- SwissCelt 05:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The confusion doesn't come from thinking Ohio is culturally homogenous -- not in my case anyway. I've lived her almost my entire life (and in all four corners of the state and Columbus as well) and I'm well aware of Ohio's variety of culture. Honestly, I don't think there's more than a few states in the entire nation that are culturally homogenous (maybe none at all, in fact). With that said, the claim that regions along the Ohio River are more Appalachian or Southern in nature is, well, quite ridiculous. Much of those regions are definitively Midwestern as are much of the regions immeadiately across the Ohio River in Kentucky. For example, cities like Florence, KY and Portsmouth, OH are virtually indistinquishable from any number of other cities further north (e.g. Middletown, Piqua, Lima, Findlay). However, I would agree that West Virginia is not Midwestern and that some of the regions that border it in Ohio have a fair amount of its Appalachian flavor -- but in addition to their overall Midwestern flavor. -- Stereoisomer 19:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm happy I'm not the only who thought it strange to include West Virginia and Kentucky in the Midwest. I lived in Ketucky for 2 years, and even the extreme north, which most locals seem to consider to be more Midwestern than southern in culture, still seemed "southern" to me, someone born and raised in Chicagoland. Its all relative to a point, but too much of a stretch to say that Kentucky and West Virginia are midwestern. Kemet 23 February 2006

St. Louis or Cincinnati are not the definiton of Midwestern cities as they are too often considered to have a strong Southern inflence and are the cities Louisville is compared to when some people categorize it as the Midwest (Cincinnai more than St. Louis; St. Louis got there Southern vibe from the black Migration to the North). Cincinnati as called by residence of upper Ohio Cincinatucky is obviously more mix of Southern and Midwestern. Louisville is more of a boom town to all, But maybe 5 Midwestern cities when it comes to population growth. Also Louisville is growing faster than New Orleans (post Katrina) and just about every major Louisiana, Alabama, and mississippi cities.

The fact is that Louisville has much more Culturally, Historically, and Architecturally in common with Memphis than St. Louis. Afterall most people view Louisville as a Southern city. Louisville was (back in the 19th century) actually defined as the manufacturing Captial of the South and the Gateway city to the South. Due to Louisville's location on the Ohio, which helped it to attract to Industry to the area just like other Southern River cities suchas Memphis and New Orleans and even non river cities like Birmingham. Louisville's title as the manufacturing Capital of the South also came into play when the L&N (Louisville and Nashville) (there was no L&C; Louisville and Chicago) was constructed that connected Louisville to Nashville and further South to Atlanta. Louisville also had one of the largest slave owning populations (there were no slaves in the North except for the southern edge of Missouri) in the country (even though it was just across the river from a free state) which was just a reflection of it's state which had the 3rd largest slave population after (Virginia and Georgia). During the Civil War Louisville was constently under question by the North for aiding the Confederacy, and was by no means trusted by the North. To this day a Confederate monument stands in the City's first suburb Old Louisville. Also unlike Midwestern cities Louisville does not have a sigifigant population of Eastern and Southern Europeans (from places like Poland and Hungary) that came during a European Migration period (WWII). Even small Midwestern cities like South Bend and Toledo received a substantial number of immigrants from those areas of the world.

Archtiecturally Louisville's first suburb Old Louisville with it's wrought iron, huge fountains, huge Magnolias looming over the streets and Victorian style architecture that are found only in the most prominent Southern cities of the 19th century like Charleston, New Orleans, Savanah, and even Richmond, NOWHERE in the Midwest. Also Louisville like New Orleans urban areas (at least in the West or older parts of town) are lined with Shotgun houses destintively Southern, found mostly in cities like New Orleans.

Culturally Louisville is much much more of a Southern city than Midwestern, Like i've said earlier if you compare louisville's Culture, History, and Architecture to that of New Orleans and Birmingham (2 Deep Southern cities) and then compare it to that of Minnianapolis and Milwaulkee (2 upper Midwestern cities) Louisville undoubtibly has 3x more in common with the Southern cities.

KNOW LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY IS WILL AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE SOUTH!!!!

Kansas should not be considered peripherial. Nearly every survey I've seen has put that state as the heart of the region. James Shortridge's "The Middle West" It s Meaning in American Culture is a good read for that. Great Lakes states are not the only Midwestern states.


 * All the data here regarding Cincinnati is highly questionable. Cincinnati has virtually nothing in common with Southern culture or identity and is indeed definitive of a Midwestern city. Cincinnati most closely identifies with Chicago due to it's history of similar businesses, industries and culture. If any city in the region is a hybrid of Midwestern and Southern, then it is indeed Louisville. Cincinnati and Louisville are often compared because of a) their proximity, b) they're Ohio River cities, and c) they're approximately the same size. But that's where the simalarities end. Everything south of the Ohio River is distinctly different than what lies to the north. Even driving 15-30 minutes south of Cincinnati into Northern Kentucky will yield a cultural experience significantly different (e.g. attitudes, accents, entertainment) than that of downtown or suburban Cincinnati. Furthermore, the term 'Cincinatucky' is flat out bogus. My family has lived in Ohio (specifically Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland) for over 150 years, I've lived her almost all my life and I, nor anyone else I know, has ever used the word "Cincinatucky" or seen it in print anywhere in Ohio or the surrounding region. -- Stereoisomer 00:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually in Cleveland, we generally consider Cincinnati to be part of Kentucky. Unlike the focus of much of this dialogue (Midwest vs. South), Cleveland is a mix of Midwest and Northeastern (generally divided by the Cuyahoga River) due to the original immigrants settling the two cities of Cleveland (primarily settled by New Englanders) and Ohio City (primarily settled by Appalachians). I view Cleveland as one-half Hartford (on the East Side) and one-half Cincinnati (on the West Side). That said, I agree that no one, in their right mind, views WV and Kentucky as "Midwestern". It seems to me that "Midwest" is comprised of the Great Lakes States (primarily the Old Northwest Territory) and some portion of the eastern Plains States (I believe Missouri and Iowa are Midwestern, but it probably doesn't go farther west than Mississippi and Missouri River states). In sum, all of the fringe areas of any region will share some influence from and characteristics of their neighbors. That should suggest neither exclusion of the fringes nor inclusion of the neighbors. Mayor Pez 04:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * While I think you made a lot of accurate statements here, particularly equating the Midwest with the Old Northwest Territory, 99.9% of Cleveland doesn't agree with you regarding Cincinnati being part of Kentucky. I've lived in Cincinnati and Cleveland both for several years and I never once heard anything as ludicrous as Cincinnati being equated with Kentucky. -- Stereoisomer 19:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

"Midwest" and "Heartland" used synonymously?
I've noticed this article (and others) refer to the two as if they overlap considerably when in fact they are two very distinct regions. It has always been my understanding that the Midwest is essentially the states that lie north of the Ohio River, south of the Great Lakes, west of the Northeastern states (New England, etc.) and east of the Mississippi River. The Heartland, on the other hand, is the states that lie East of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Mississippi River. With the possible exception of Texas which is so large that, depending on what part of the state you're in, you can experience distinctly Southern, Southwestern or Heartland culture.

For example (and I realize this isn't citable information), I was raised in and currently live in Ohio and it is unheard of around here to refer to this region as the Heartland. In addition, I have a large chunk of family in Oklahoma and it is unheard of out there to refer to that region as the Midwest. On the other hand I have another large chunk of family in Illinois where Chicago area people refer to the region as the Midwest, whereas those south of Peoria commonly refer to the region as the Heartland. The point being, there is most definitely some overlap (which is to be expected), but essentially the two terms are *not* interchangable. { stereoisomer 4:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC) }


 * The "heart" of something is its center. It is not bound by man-made geographic boundaries nor by culture.  If you look at a map of the U.S., what is referred to as the Heartland is just where you'd expect it to be, and would include much of what we also call the "Breadbasket".  It would not include the Chicagoland area, but southern Illinois would definitely fit.


 * There is almost always going to be overlap when we deal with "regions". New York could be considered Eastern, Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, in relation to the rest of the country.

--ScottyFLL 20:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've tried to disambiguate this section a little bit, and moderated the strong point of view to a more inclusionary tone. It still needs work, but at the very least it now recognizes the fact that the Midwest is different things to different people.

Disamibiging page
This page was disambiguadted from a region in Australia by Silsor and moved to Midwest region of the United States. Under WikiProject U.S. regions' naming conventions it should be at Midwest (United States), if disambiged, and Midwest if not. I had nothing to do with deciding to disambig the page I'm simply placing the now disambiged page at the title it should be at. Please do not direct comments or complaints about the disambig about the page at me. Thanks. -JCarriker 11:45, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'd personally prefer a disambiguation page on Midwest, as the term is generalistic enough that even though people are most likely to be searching for the United States region, it wouldn't hurt them to have to click through a disambig page. Just running all other midwestern regions through the US page strikes me as being a bit too centric on the English-speaking northern hemisphere. --54x 12:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Dispute?
Um... can someone tell me what's disputed here? The only "issue" I can see appears to be a difference opinion about markup, and which of two substantially-equivalent maps to use. Tverbeek 00:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. regions. Thryduulf 12:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

College listings
Could we just do away with all college listings in the Culture section? It's getting to be a bit ridiculous; every user who reads this page wants to add their alma mater to the state. Unless we have some strict guidelines about what colleges we list, the listing is useless. --BaronLarf 15:36, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * I know I'm reviving this topic from the dead, but I'm coming to agree with Larf. The college section is becoming unmanagable.  Every 400 person independent school is being listed here.  I'm as guilty as anyone is of bloating it (I added my alma mater, though it is the US News & World Report #2 Midwest school), but maybe we should just leave the references to uncontested powerhouses like Notre Dame, Chicago, and  Northwestern and remove the rest. Craig R. Nielsen 02:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah the information is redundant, let the individual state articles take care of this kind of thing. Since we obviously can't list all the schools and ranking them by importance is by nature POV, let's just strike the whole section. Grey Wanderer | Talk 23:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree at most mention one can include a few schools ie. Northwestern, Chicago, Washington U, but other than that just remove the whole section. - thank you Astuishin 04:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I see this monstrous list of colleges has re-emerged it seems completly out of place, and in my view should simply be removed. So longer as there is even a section on colleges in this page, I'm afraid the temptation for wiki-boosterism will be to difficult to resist. - thank you  Astuishin (talk) 10:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. Just about the only editing that happens to that section is rearranging the order of the colleges and changing the pictures.  Let's wait a few more days to get more input, but I think it should be removed (again,) and a link added to the main list of colleges in America (this.)  --Confiteordeo 21:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems like no other users object, I think we should go ahead and replace the list with the link.- thank you Astuishin (talk) 14:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. --Confiteordeo 19:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Walter Mondale
It may be worth mentioning that Minnesota, as the only state that voted for Walter Mondale in 1984, is Mondale's home state. That's not to say that Minnesota doesn't tend to be strongly "blue", but my impression is that the home-state thing had a lot to do with it that year. TishaStacey 18:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC) (forever an Iowan)

Colours and appearance
I have made a proposal to change the colour of the map box, please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. regions --Qirex 05:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

"Great Plains" states
Amid all the arguing about what states are in the Midwest (frankly, I think the poll numbers quoted somewhere above should be considered dispositive: OH is, KY isn't...), I think you've all missed the far more debatable designation of states as "Great Plains". The table in "Definition" lists Iowa, Indiana, Illinois (and others, but that's a nice start) as being Great Plains states, while the Wikipedia article on the Great Plains shows the region not touching any of those states. Now, I know it's not quite that simple, and as with the Midwest designation there are probably many reasonable points of view (and some unreasonable ones) represented hereon, so I suggest... let's just delete the designations entirely.

I'll let it sit for a while, but if no one makes an argument for keeping the extraneous references in the "Definition" section, I'm removing them. atakdoug (talk) 19:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The table does not look useful. If you want to know what the referenced regions are, it is more effective to just follow their links. --JWB (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Raised and now back living in Indiana - I can assure you that Indiana is not a "Great Plains" state nor does anyone here think it is. Similarly, irrespective of what the Census Bureau says, no one around here would consider the Dakotas, Nebraska, or Kansas as being part of the Midwest - they are Plains states.Jmdeur (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Sometimes Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas are listed as part of the Midwest, but not generally. It's easy to get a reference where they aren't. In the textbooks I remember, they aren't. The thing is that, in the Dakotas anyway, the economics split the states in two, eastern third is agriculture and western 2/3 is range, grasslands, or small grains. --71.214.221.153 (talk) 22:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This whole debate is exemplary of how the definitions made up by government bureaucrats to facilitate national activities such as the Census are not always significant or helpful for making cultural or regional distinctions as understood by people actually living in the defined areas. As pointed out by others, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas have always been (and likely always will be) considered part of the Great Plains, not the Midwest, whether from the perspective of geography, society, politics, or culture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.124.83.188 (talk) 20:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Grain Belt and related photographs argument
I know it's been a while since I've argued/discussed on here, but maybe we can consider the Grain and Corn belts as a good way to describe Midwestern states in terms of similar cultures and related regions? Frank12 (talk) 04:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The vast horizons of wheat and corn in the Midwest are a central feature of the world's food supply. The absolutely pathetic "wheat" picture could be replaced with close up of some mature wheat grains head along with a panoramic golden and mature field. 68.97.65.236 (talk) 11:34, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

States officially in Midwest
Illinois,indiana, I know this has been a point of debate, but an unknown ISP has twice removed several states officially (according to the Census Bureau's geographic regions) considered part of the Midwest from the introduction of the article. Not only is the ISP wrong to unilaterally remove them (because, regardless of differing definitions, all states listed ARE officially in the Midwest), but by removing them he or she creates a contradiction between the intro and the rest of the article, which refers to all of those states as being in the Midwest. I've undone the revisions both times, but I wanted to discuss them to avoid an edit war, particularly with an unregistered user. Pmr2011 (talk) 01:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The edit "CERTAINLY NOT" by ISP 71.235.96.162, from 16:18 13 July, appears quite clearly to be an instance of vandalism as understood by this community. That these states are often referred to as, or understood to be, Midwestern states is fully supported by the reference, which is from a US Gov Census Dept map. I am reverting the edit and noting this observation. Brrryan (talk) 16:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You should not be taking the definition from one particular government organization. If the Census Bureau had decided to split up the states into five groups instead of four, the grouping would be different. Most other sources (online encyclopedias, dictionaries) that I've looked at, and the grade school geography texts I remember, do not include the Dakotas, Nebraska, or Kansas as Midwestern states. The article should follow what is common usage, and common usage does not appear to include those states.

--71.214.221.153 (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The "official" definition does, in fact, include four Great Plains states as part of the Midwest. Of course, the "official" definition is different from the "customary" definition, which does not include those states, and which represents the shared understanding of the vast majority of people living in the region.  In that sense, the "official" definition could be said to be "wrong", in that it doesn't match the "customary" definition, but the truth of the matter is that two different groups of stakeholders have two different definitions which are relevant to their respective purposes.  If the article has a fault, it's that it gives too much weight to the opinion of only one of those stakeholder groups (specifically, the governmental entities).

Here is a recent article on midwest governors getting together to discuss highspeed rail: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/26/governors-holding-midwest_n_245060.html The states represented included: Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. These are traditionally what most people in the region consider to be midwestern states - the Census Bureau can create whatever reporting regions they want, but to say that this is the "official" definition of the midwest is silly. 192.158.61.172 (talk) 14:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * When I search for definitions of the Midwest most of the results include Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. A couple basic dictionary definitions: Midwestern, Merriam-Webster: "region N central United States including area around Great Lakes & in upper Mississippi River valley from Ohio —sometimes considered to include Kentucky on the E to North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, & Kansas on the W." the Midwest, Cambridge Dictionary Online: "an area in the US which includes Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas." A couple of books are mentioned in many search results, The American Midwest: an interpretive encyclopedia and The American Midwest: essays on regional history. The first one presents the Midwest as a twelve state region: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. See The American Midwest: an interpretive encyclopedia, page 4 and page 58. The other as a 13 state region: The American Midwest: essays on regional history (map on page 16) defines the Midwest as 13 states--the 12 above plus Kentucky. But definitions are not nearly as widely agreed upon as for, say, New England, as the first book points out: The American Midwest: an interpretive encyclopedia, p. 5: "Even the peoples of the Midwest cannot always agree on where the region begins and ends. Citizens of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois sometimes claim to be the original Midwesterners because their states were the first to emerge from the Northwest Territory in the early 1800s. Residents of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas, states created in the second half of the nineteenth century, are not sure that Ohio and Indiana are even part of the Midwest." And from page 60: "midway across Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, midwestern imagery gives way to that of the West. Most residents of the High Plains still regard themselves as Midwestners, and both the rural way of life there and the vast expanse of the land certainly conform to core symbols. A Corn Belt economy of 160-acre farms and a dense rural population was not sustainable on the true plains, however. ..Many of the farmers transformed themselves into ranchers and learned to live confortably in this "big sky" country. The cowboy image dominates west of the hundredth meridian." The second book also points out the "mushiness" of the region; quoted in this book review: Book review of The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History, "The Midwest...suffers from the lack of geographically defined borders and specific stereotypes. When it comes to definition, the Midwest is a mushy place; experts cannot even agree on where it begins and ends." In any case, both of these books contain in-depth essays on the origin and changing meaning of the term "Midwest". All this said, I agree at least that the word "official" is out of place. The map may show the Census Bureau's "official" definition, but this definition is official only within the Census Bureau and has no official power beyond that. The word "official" only occurs once in this article--the caption for the Census map. I'll edit it from "Midwest as shown by U.S. Census Bureau official map" to "Midwest as defined by U.S. Census Bureau". Pfly (talk) 05:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

This article inappropriately links the Census Bureau term with a colloquialism. "Midwest" is like "New England," a term one won't find defined in the same way by the Census Bureau. This renders this page essentially wrong as currently headed. It should be clearly stated that the article is about a US Census region and NOT about the "Midwest." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:4:3B80:5594:9C6C:767:B12B:51EB (talk) 20:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Map
What information does Image:US map-Midwest.PNG rely on? At least coming from Omaha, listing Nebraska a questionable is an bit of an insult. Omahapubliclibrary (talk) 20:01, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism??
A large share of the Political Trends section of this article corresponds almost exactly to an entry in the After Fighting for Hours" blog. Can someone else look at it besides me? Aside from the possible plagiarism, the entire Culture section sounds more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.152.210 (talk) 06:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Cities
There's a long list of major cities mentioned in the second paragraph of the article. Everyone seems to be adding a favorite city, making the list excessive. To establish criteria for which cities to include in this list, I limited it to any city over 200,000 in population per the latest U.S. Census Bureau data or a city that is the largest in its state, if the state doesn't have a city > 200,000 (e.g., Wichita, Kansas). That seems pretty objective. Please adhere to the criteria so we don't have "list creep." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.24.161 (talk) 20:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Limiting to any city over 200,000 is pretty arbitrary. Looking at the population of the city proper isn't the correct thing to do, as places like Grand Rapids have a relatively small population (197,800) as they cover a small area (45.3 square miles). Madison, for example, just barely tops 200,000 (208,054) but it also covers a much larger area (84.7 square miles). If you compare their Metropolitan Statistical Area populations, it tells a different story:
 * Grand Rapids - ~777,000 (2007)
 * Madison - ~556,000 (2007)
 * Even more pronounced is the difference in their Combined Statistical Area populations:
 * Grand Rapids - ~1,323,000 (2007)
 * Madison - ~614,000 (2007)
 * The Grand Rapids area population is more than twice as large as Madison's. It is also larger (and in some cases much larger) than Akron, Des Moines, Fargo, Lincoln, Madison, Sioux Falls, Toledo, and Wichita, cities currently mentioned in the article. In short, Grand Rapids is more of a major city than others mentioned.
 * Another example of why you can't base it on the population of the city proper:
 * Providence - population 173,618 (2000), covering just 20.5 square miles
 * Anchorage - population 260,283 (2000), covering a whopping 1961.1 square miles
 * Is Anchorage more major than Providence? Examine their MSA populations:
 * Providence - population 1,600,856 (2007)
 * Anchorage - population 362,340 (2007)
 * Providence dwarfs Anchorage in area population. Phizzy (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Without a set of objective criteria that delineate which cities* should be included in the list, the paragraph will simply be subject to the whim of every editor coming down the pike who wants to list his/her own city there, resulting in inevitable list bloat. If you'd like to come up with a set of criteria that others can agree upon, you're welcome to do that. After you've defined the criteria, then you can also do the research that determines which cities in the 12-state area fit the criteria, and edit the paragraph accordingly. *(Note that the paragraph refers to cities, not metropolitan areas.)
 * Note that the paragraph refers to major cities. Are Fargo and Sioux Falls more major than Grand Rapids (or even Flint or Lansing, for that matter)? Most would say no. Perhaps we should use the Ranally city rating system as a guide:

Phizzy (talk) 16:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The Ranally city rating system seems a bit odd; it considers St. Paul as separate from Minneapolis, when they clearly function together as a metropolitan area. But I think the real question here is: What's the purpose of listing cities in the lede? After all, the largest cities in the Midwest, largest urban areas, and largest metro areas are listed very clearly in a section below. Is the lede paragraph supposed to be about the cities that have the biggest impact on the country as a whole, on the region, in their own area? (Some cities were included in the paragraph because they were the largest cities in their state.) Or are they supposed to be just cities of great size? (The opening sentence of the paragraph does imply that size is the criterion.) Personally, I think the list is excessive for a lede, which is why I was trying to shorten it, as well as establish criteria for those who wanted to make additions in the future. I'd be satisfied with:
 * Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Detroit and Indianapolis. Sault Ste. Marie is the oldest city in the region, having been founded in 1668. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.136.53 (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding St. Paul, it is a "B" city, a "secondary major regional business center" - secondary to Minneapolis. Regarding your suggestion for rewriting the opening sentence, I would be satisfied with your suggestion above as well. Phizzy (talk) 00:35, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Although this discussion is probably dead, as a person who grew up in St. Paul, the prominence of Minneapolis in tables like this befuddles me. They share a metro area, and the population isn't all that different - 380,000 for Minneapolis and 280,000 for St. Paul. Individually, they wouldn't count as huge cities - it seems like that only happens together. So counting them separately, I'd expect them both to be lower, and counting them together, I'd expect Minneapolis-St. Paul to be where Minneapolis is in the chart. Awickert (talk) 07:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

We really don't need a long list of cities because that's covered by List of Midwestern cities by size and List of Midwestern urban areas in the cross-references. The lists of major cities (List of Midwestern cities by size, List of Midwestern urban areas, and Ranally have considerable overlap:

Cities appearing in every list = 8

Cities appearing in 2/3 lists = 10

Cities appearing in 1/3 lists = 12

Only one of the above 12 cities (Wichita) is not included in the "Ten largest Midwestern U.S. cities" section. So it seems that we've got the major cities covered either through the tables already in the article or through the cross-references. Grand Rapids and Flint would be left out of the article, but so would a lot of other cities. (Unless someone wanted to expand the "cities" section to describe (not list) urban areas in the Midwest.) So I think I'll change the lede paragraph to the really short version —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.135.67 (talk) 01:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey, what about Flint, MI? That is a major automotive center, and when considering the urban area, the population is about 365,096, and the metro is 443,883. That is way more major than Sioux Falls, Fargo, and a few other cities on that list. Plus, it is a major automotive center, one might say it is the second most important automotive center in the United States. That city needs to be included on the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ds1776 (talk • contribs) 00:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Forget Flint... what about Columbus?? -- JeffBillman (talk) 23:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Term "Middle West"
I removed the term "Middle West" as a way to refer to the area. In American English, that term is never used, at least no to refer to this area. Before it is re-added, I would request a source to be added with this term. If the usage is archaic or used by other countries, it should not be included in the lede sentence. Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 09:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The Dakotas, Nebraska, and Missouri are NOT Midwestern states.
The Dakotas, Nebraska, and Missouri are GREAT PLAINS and CENTRAL states. The original Midwest lies entirely in the North, and borders the Great Lakes reaching up in the Northeast. The fact that Wikipedia users have chosen to have ND, SD, NE, and MO as part of the North is embarrassing and angering. While we're at it why don't we say Maryland is now part of New England, or Montana is the Pacific Northwest? This is ridiculous. Also, someone has altered the Northern US article to meet his or her agenda. Photos showing northern states in red were also removed. Nikki88 (talk) 17:29, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you getting Midwest confused with the old "northwest territory" definition used in the early 1800's? Anyway the Midwest Region is defined by the US Census B. There are a total of four regions and Central is not one of them. They are Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. I've lived in Ohio, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska and they all label themselves midwestern. (Currently live in CA) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.17.230.35 (talk) 07:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Nikki88 is definitely the first person I've ever heard claim that the Dakotas and Nebraska aren't northern states. I realize "North" really isn't much of an American region, and I'm glad we don't use it, but I would certainly call them "Northern" if I had to classify states as such (with the exception of southern MO's culture).  I'm sorry you were embarrassed to be considered similar to us Great Lakes States :).  I think from reading these debates, the only states to not have their Midwestern-ness questioned are IL, IA, MN, and WI.  There's a reason all 12 states are lumped together as the Midwest/North Central (more like North AND Central) and then split between Great Lakes and Great Plains states: they're all similar with varying differences.  Kinda like looking for differences between Cheerios, they're there, but they're still Cheerios.  And please take no offense to that, I know all states are unique in their makeup, but regionally-speaking, every one relates to a few others.207.40.118.194 (talk) 16:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

the 4 states in question do have a different culture then the states east of the Mississippi. they just don't seam to fit in with the great lake states very well, especially Kansas.

Nebraska and the Dakotas are definitely part of the Midwest, according to both the US Census and everyone that lives here. Nebraska and the Dakotas were also Union territories during the Civil War, so we're "Northern" as well. Anyone who came here claiming otherwise would get run out of town. Natan2012 (talk) 00:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Population table
The population table is embarrassing. St. Louis is clearly a Midwestern city and would properly be listed as the fourth largest in the urban area and metro area categories. To confuse matters even more, the population table claims to represent the entire Midwest, and was displayed right next to a map titled "Midwest" which showed Missouri as a Midwestern state. A decision one way or the other needs to be made to make this article consistent and encyclopedic.

J. Crocker (talk) 17:54, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

80% lies in the Eastern portion?
I've added a citation needed tag to "The term "Midwest" is a misnomer, as approximately 80% of this region lies in the eastern half of the United States." because it doesn't give any source for this claim. DHN (talk) 19:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Does this really need a citation? If you look at the map on the right side of the article, it seems rather obvious that approximatley 80% of the midwest lies in the eastern half of the U.S. I'm not trying to be a smartass. I'd genuinely like to know if a citation is necessary for a statement that appears to be self-evident. How about this? As an alternative to finding a citation, might we just say that "a good deal of" the midwest lies in the eastern half of the U.S., as opposed to saying 80%? 68.39.178.188 (talk) 22:52, 29 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The section titled "History of the term Midwest" seems to address all this. Why not let the issue be described there? Commenting on it in article's second sentence seems a bit much. Pfly (talk) 07:31, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Rail and Key Industry
Why isn't their any metion of rail in this article???? Since most of the communities in the Midwest were founded because of rail development. --Atilla5 (talk) 02:05, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

This region is also known as the Great Plains and while the related agricultural production is noted, absent is the mention of the numerous world-renowned manufacturers of heavy equipment, such as John Deere and Caterpillar which are headquartered here. This is also true of many aircraft manufacturers, such as Cessna based in Wichita, where the geography was well-suited to experimental flying before the concept of airports. The importance of the Wright brothers of Dayton is notable in any discussion of the Midwest, a well. Wisconsin is 'the grand central station' of both Harley Davidson and dozens of manufacturers of both large and small gasoline and diesel engines. All are keys to the economic vitality of this region.68.97.65.236 (talk) 11:48, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Bias concern
The article needs to be careful about giving too much weight to any particular entity in saying what the right definition of the term Midwest is. Certainly it is entirely reasonable to limit the scope of the article to the definition used by the U.S. Census Bureau but the article should make more effort up front (preferably in the lead) to mention other states that are sometimes called Midwestern:
 * Kentucky
 * First one looks legit as far as book overview, however with no search in book or word cloud it's hard to say more. JWB
 * Why didn't you just look at the book? --Mcorazao (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Tennesee
 * This appears to be based on what can be fit into a rectangular map page. JWB
 * ? So they drew the map so that it extended well below Tennessee just by accident? --Mcorazao (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oklahoma
 * The book overview of the first does not mention OK as being in the Midwest. OK does not even appear in the word cloud for the second book. JWB
 * Arkansas
 * This refers to "Southern Development Bank", not Midwest. --JWB (talk) 04:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The entire book is about the Midwest? --Mcorazao (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Similarly some of the states in the census definition are considered by some sources Western rather than Midwestern.

--Mcorazao (talk) 19:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC) There is a long discussion of overlapping cultural areas in the Culture section.

There could be material on which areas are economically integrated with each other. KY seems to be well connected to the Midwest in this sense.

But most fundamentally, the major usage is for the exclusive four-regional division, including the boundary between North and South, which is traditionally a distinct one. --JWB (talk) 04:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This argument is WP:OR. Whether or not any particular definition makes WP look nice or makes the articles more symmetric is beside the point. And even the boundary between North and South has always been pretty fuzzy albeit clearer than most other divisions.
 * It is entirely reasonable to limit the focus of an article, provided the focus is notable and reasonably consistent with some widespread view on the topic (which is the case in this article). However implying directly or indirectly that this focus is predominantly considered the only valid definition by experts on the subject is another matter. Certainly implying that in this article is fallacious. --Mcorazao (talk) 22:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. A good guideline that I follow in discussing geographical topics is to avoid being too definite in any statements or implications. It is easy to assign too much meaning to a definition provided by some particular entity (e.g. a government) and fall into the trap of WP:OR. --Mcorazao (talk) 22:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ohio's swing state stsus not mentioned
Ohio has proven to be one of major targets of presidential candidates. Especially in the last four elections. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.5.253.214 (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Political Trends - Iowa reliably democratic?
The political trends section lists Iowa as being one of the states that is 'reliably democratic'. The state's two senators are split one democrat, one republican. The congressmen, as of late, have tended to be more democratic than republican, but not by much. The two most recent governors have been democrats, but for any particular election, the race is always close. The current governor is not a shoe-in for reelection. It supported George Bush (at least once) for election. But also supported Obama. THe state is definitely NOT 'reliably' Democratic. --71.214.221.153 (talk) 00:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia's rule has always been not to say something unless its a fact. Iowa being RELIABLY democratic is not a fact and most likely POV. -Chris141496 (talk) 18:45, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Great Plains" states, continued...
So why does this article use some US Census Bureau definition, whereas other articles such as Southwestern United States use a more "varied" approach? I ask this because I, like others who have posted above, generally don't consider the Dakotas and Nebraska to be the Midwest, and I also would be hesistant with Missouri and Kansas. I like how the southwest article uses a map that shows states that are always considered and ones that are partially (i.e., only a geographic portion of the state) or sometimes considered part of the region. My definition would generally include MN, WI, IA, IL, MI, and OH. In other words the same states that were in the Big Ten Conference until 1990 when Penn State was invited to join. Anyway, just throwing it out there. I also see someone above suggesting southern states sometimes being considered. That seems more far fetched but in any case wondering whether a map that shows more viewpoints and not just the US Census Bureau regions which is a pretty arbitrary definition it seems to me (and which as far as I know does not necessarily coincide with anything other than their own policy). MDuchek (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Way up on this talk page, under "States officially in Midwest", I said how most sources I have found that define the Midwest include Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, and linked to a number of strong sources--dictionary definitions and in-depth studies of the Midwest. I'd argue that the map shows the Midwest as defined not just by the Census, but by a great many other strong sources. That said, the lead text does focus fairly strongly on the Census. I think it would be fine to revise the text to not be so strongly Census-based in the lead. Pfly (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I know this is all original reasearch but pretty much everyone I know in eastern South Dakota thinks of it as the Midwest. However, as you go west over the Missouri that changes and you get mixed responses with some saying Midwest, some Western, and some Mountain. While I would object to removing the Dakotas entirely from the definition of Midwest I have no problem with stating the ambiguity of the situation. A fitting anecdote to this, I once was talking to a man from Ohio. He asked the group I was in if anybody was from the Midwest like he was. I said that I was from South Dakota. He replied that South Dakota wasn't in the Midwest. I replied to him that it was in fact in the Midwest but that Ohio wasn't. So yes the term Midwest is very nebulous and the article should reflect this. sdgjake (talk) 14:46, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Like I said, the SW article uses a map showing states that are always included (AZ and NM) and showing states that are only sometimes or only partially included.  And even that is controversial.  What to include for this one is much harder it seems to me, but maybe something akin to that could be used, or maybe no map at all.  And/or note that states included in the midwest may also be included in other so-called regions.  In any case I agree with the above suggesion on at least expanding the sourcing of the definition beyond the US Census Bureau.


 * But as to you considering South Dakota midwest, I'd suggest you take a look at the map in Great Plains (i.e., I consider SD Great Plains, though I remember last year driving west through North Dakota the landscape changing after a certain point, so I can understand why you might call part of both states Midwestern).MDuchek (talk) 18:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The Midwestern Governor's Association includes South Dakota, as does the federal government. --and it goes back some 130 years, as [www.firstmidwestbank.com/ First Midwest Bank has served Eastern South Dakota since 1883]. Rjensen (talk) 18:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As for how to map this "mushy" Midwest region, I'm not sure the usual approach on Wikipedia will work (showing "states usually considered part of the region" one color and those "sometimes considered" another color). I might argue that there is no single group of states "usually considered" Midwest in the first place! Something that might work though is a map showing how the concept of "Midwest" changed over time. The article gets into this topic a bit in a few places, like the subsection "History of the term Midwest". A map like this might also be able to illustrate the changes in terminology, from the early "West" or "Northwest" to "Middle West" to, most recently, "Midwest". Something to think about anyway. Pfly (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Any Nicknames for MidWest
I have heard Midwest, Middlewest, North Central, and Mid-Motherfucking-West.

Removed foul and irrelevant text.
I removed foul and irrelevant text. Mickman1234 (talk) 09:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Prehistory
How can you say there was 'affinity' to the Ainu of Japan ? I know they reached the Haida (Queen Charlotte) Island, but doubt there is evidence for anything further South, especially away from the coast.(92.228.160.165 (talk) 07:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC))

Minnesota a Great Plains or Great Lakes State?
In the article's introduction Minnesota is listed as a Great Plains state.

However, under 'definition' Minnesota is listed as a Great Lakes state.

Which one is it? Shouldn't it be listed as a Great Lakes state in both places since it is bordered by lake Superior? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.237.122 (talk) 18:03, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Can we call it both? A Great Plains state that also happens to be a Great Lakes state.  Frank12 (talk) 20:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Religion section
"Roman Catholicism is the largest religious denomination in the Midwest, varying between 19 and 29% of the state populations.[45]" This line seems misleading. The paper (?) doesn't seem to be online and the cite doesn't have a page number, so I can't find what number the citation is using, but the Midwest is not known as Catholic; namely it's protestant. I suspect that sentence is technically accurate only if you subdivide various protestant denominations up, and then Catholicism appears to be the single dominant group.

Here's some specific sources: Category:Religion in the Midwestern United States. I went through each state article on that list and protestant is the largest in every one, usually around 52% (when stats are in the article).

The wording in the Illinois article acknowledges this: "Roman Catholics constitute the single largest religious denomination in Illinois; they are heavily concentrated in and around Chicago, and account for nearly 30% of the state's population.[65] However, taken together as a group, the various Protestant denominations comprise a greater percentage of the state's population than do Catholics." The Indiana article is similar. I've updated this article to be more inline with our state based sections on the same subject. Shadowjams (talk) 00:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I tweaked the wording after this edit to avoid the issue. But, as a simple matter, Protestantism is clearly a valid descriptor of a religion just as is the less specific "christian" or the more specific denomination "baptist". Defining one's self as "baptist" (or "protestant" or any other division or denomination) wouldn't seem odd would it? Even the Gallup poll cited uses "protestant" as a "religion," at least in the common, familiar sense used here. Our article on the subject defines it as one of the three major "divisions" within Christianity. The wording now avoids the issue altogether. Shadowjams (talk) 06:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that looks good. Looking at the Gallup reference again, it's unclear to me whether the choices were Catholic, Protestant, etc., so that the interviewees were identifying themselves specifically as Protestant as opposed to Catholic, or if the choices were Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, etc., and Gallup combined the non-Catholic choices as Protestant when reporting the results - that is, the interviewees did not actually identify themselves as "Protestant". Indyguy (talk) 17:21, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Hatched areas on map
Why doesn't the current SVG map include hatched areas like this one? Also, there were a couple people at the talk page of that file a while ago who mentioned that parts of Oklahoma and/or Texas may be considered Midwestern to an as well, so I would suggest that the hatched states be reinstated plus some parts of OK and TX. Dustin ( talk ) 05:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

The Midwest is made up of 12 different states Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan. The Midwest has many lakes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.135.193.210 (talk) 22:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Oklahoma and Texas are not culturally midwestern and do not belong. They are southern states. Kryan74 (talk) 03:33, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Huh, I don't remember starting this thread... In any case, culture is one thing that I won't go into, but you saying "They are southern states", especially Oklahoma, is just your personal opinion. Geographically, Oklahoma is in the Central United States, with the mean location of all the points in Oklahoma being closer to the center point of the 48 states than to the southern border or even to the Gulf Coast. One last thing, please stop replying to expired discussions. You've done this multiple times, and you're lucky you ever received a response this time. Dustin  ( talk ) 03:34, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Being in the center does not constitute being midwest. Midwest is a defined region, not a term for being in the middle. Texas and Oklahoma are culturally, historically and geographically southern states. The hatch marks would indicate incorrect data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.182.74.68 (talk) 16:01, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

"Midwest" has many definitions
The article opens with a lead sentence that defines "Midwestern United States" specifically as a region defined by the census bureau and previously called by another name. Yet in fact, as the lead section goes on to mention, the term is a long-established one with many different definitions as to exactly what states are included. If the article is meant to only be about the census-bureau-defined region, then it needs to be retitled and the historical material moved to another article. If it is meant to be about the Midwest in general, the lead section needs to be rewritten (and, incidentally, should contain in the first paragraph a link to the country) and content that relates specifically to the Census Bureau definition should be explicitly marked as such.

I'm tagging this bit as NPOV in that it's not being neutral about which definition to lead with. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 23:35, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * This article isn't about "the Midwest"; per the lede sentence, it's about "one of the four geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau". 32.218.152.225 (talk) 16:24, 12 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Here, Here! Totally shocked by reading the lead of this article a few minutes back. It's pretty much inappropriate to link to it given the lead, where one might in a history topic. Forsooth! Where is the historic backdrop in this lead? The Ohio Country, the Revolutionaries inspired and motivated by Great Britain's deal with the Native Americans to block westward expansion; the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Purchase and the post-war charge along the eastern migration trails to settle the near west&mdash;today's Midwest! Christ on a crutch, is there no editor involved on this topic with any sense of history and an understanding of carts come after horses? US Census be damned, cite US Postal and railroad practices, not some jumped up johnny come lately bureau with delusions of grandeur. Where and why pray tell has the project taken to so consistently denigrate pre-great society terminologies? The US Census Bureau as an authority should NEVER EVER be in the lead... just look at the awful terminologies they foist off on the country. At best these folks were C students with less than no clues to the ways of the world. These are a bunch of professional Near-do-wells making up classifications on a fancy form of government welfare... employees of a broken, bloated over-populated government agency. Bring back the history, and diminish the governmental overreach to it's appropriate mention in the Geography section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fabartus (talk • contribs) 16:56, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Having the term Midwest as defined by the Census Bureau is nonsense. No one uses the term as defined that way, except the people at the CB. It makes as much sense as defining the Wikipedia New England article to include New York & New Jersey because some guy I know doesn't know the definition and uses the term wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:4011:800:0:0:0:0:24 (talk) 14:11, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Geographically speaking, shouldn't the American Midwest be comprising the states of Montana, Wyoming Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas (and maybe also Idaho and Utah)? (Ie. west of the Mississipi River, east of the Rocky Mountains, south of Canada, and north of the Sun Belt).   I think Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan no longer qualify as 'midwest' in the 21st century. --BrianJ34 (talk) 07:28, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Areas in the south of the US
Why are only areas in the north of the USa included in the "Midwest". Why are not states like Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama included? They seem to be just as western as those included. --84.210.115.70 (talk) 19:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe because there's no longitudinal logic to how regions are denoted. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree. I live on the coast of Georgia and if I go due North I end up in Ohio. These people are saying I live too far South to be in the Mid-West. Just get your arms around that. It's basic eighth grade geography people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.131.153.207 (talk) 00:15, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Stop this arbitrary nonsense of definition by a Census Bureau.
The U.S. has four main time zones. Those are to be used to define east, mideast, midwest, west. Period. Externet MB75.223.145.242 (talk) 01:02, 8 April 2017 (UTC)


 * You mean Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific? Do you not realize that a lot of the midwest is in Eastern time? Dicklyon (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree that "Midwest" is an outdated term, but I believe the Census Bureau continues to combine those 12 states into the region based on more than just their pure geographic location in the lower 48. Shared culture and history have helped define those states as that region since the days of the Northwest Territory.  I also think it's perfectly fine to let states be in more than one region, a great example being Ohio, which I've seen mapped as the meeting place for the Midwest, Northeast, and Appalachia.  Referring to a post above, that's why I also think it's OK for Minnesota to be both a "Great Lakes" state and a "Great Plains" state.  Being in the middle of the country poses a challenge for regional definition when the only clearly defined boundary is Canada to the north.  Frank12 (talk) 20:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

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Requested move 13 June 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 01:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Midwestern United States → Midwest – WP:COMMONNAME--this is actually called "the Midwest" but no one casually refers to this as "the Midwestern United States". Although it's maybe not quite as common as "New England" or "The South", this is a very common designation for a fairly well-defined area in the United States. Also note that Midwest redirects here. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:40, 13 June 2017 (UTC)


 * This would be inconsistent with titles of other regions of the United States (e.g., Southern United States). —  AjaxSmack  13:31, 13 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Well South is ambiguous, primarily refers to a direction, which is why Southern United States obviously can't be titled South. 2602:306:3653:8440:10D6:49F6:C2C5:3F61 (talk) 20:13, 13 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Opposed per AjaxSmack. This is more an instance of consistency with WP:PLACE and WP:NCCST over WP:COMMONNAME, similar to how US city names almost all follow the "city, state" format even if a city is the only one with a specific name. The exceptions to that title format are the select major cities that are generally not referenced with their respective state, like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. --JonRidinger (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose I'm not sure Midwest should redirect here as numerous other regions around the world such as Mid-West Region, Ireland and Mid West (Western Australia) share similar names. Furthermore as noted the proposal is less precise and inconsistent with articles for other regions. AusLondonder (talk) 22:37, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Such a move would reduce clarity, and be inconsistent with other region articles. V2Blast (talk) 10:07, 17 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Role in Creation of Time Zones
The Finance section seems to overstate the results of a decision made here in 1883: In 1883, the standardized system of North American time zones was adopted by the general time convention of railway managers in Chicago. This gave the continent its uniform system for telling time. The entire continent? Feels like this conflicts with the history presented for the International Meridian Conference. Also seems a little superfluous to mention it here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whyamikeenan (talk • contribs) 23:27, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Good point-I dropped it. The city is a common locale for national meetings which are not part of Midwest history.  Rjensen (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Whether or not it belongs in this article is one thing - as a matter of history though, it did happen  .  But it seems it was in this article because the Railroads made what the midwest is in the 1800s and that also had wider ramifications for the world beyond the midwest. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:30, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is an important point, but This is not the place because it was a national convention of railroad leaders, most of them from the East Coast. They used Chicago as a convenient meeting place. It still is, though the heyday is gone. Cheap air flights make it just as easy to get to Orlando or Las Vegas as to Chicago, and they supposedly are more fun. Honolulu would be even more attractive, but it's really quite expensive in terms of airfare and travel time.  Standard time zones didn't matter too much when you just had the Eastern and Central, but when you added in Mountain and West, and took notice of Alaska as well as Greenwich/London, a system suitable to the clockwork accuracy of timetables was needed. Rjensen (talk) 10:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, speaking of Heyday this book goes on at length about the importance of the growth of railroads in the US Midwest, and how that impacted the world - after all, they were in Chicago and the Midwest because that is where the roads met and all lead - they still do, of course - so again the making of the Midwest. Sure, it's not the same in the 1800s, as today, for the Midwest or the rest of the world -- say, Britain, for example -- that does not mean it's not relevant history. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Prehistoric
The Late Archaic period featured the development of focal subsistence economies and regionalization of cultures. Regional cultures in Ohio include the Maple Creek Culture(Excavations) of southwestern Ohio, the Glacial Kame Culture of western Ohio (especially northwestern Ohio), and the Red Ochre and Old Copper cultures across much of northern Ohio. Flint Ridge, located in present-day Licking County, provided flint, an extremely important raw material and trade good. Objects made from Flint Ridge flint have been found as far east as the Atlantic coast, as far west as Kansas City, and as far south as Louisiana, demonstrating the wide network of prehistoric trading cultures.

About 800 BC, Late Archaic cultures were supplanted by the Adena culture. The Adenas were mound builders who were centered in the state of Ohio. Many of their thousands of burial mounds in Ohio have survived. They also came to domesticate the Sunflower and Goosefoot (a local species of Quinoa) plants as food crops. Following the Adena culture was the Hopewell culture (c. 100 to c. 400 C.E.), which built even more sophisticated mounds and earthworks, some of which survive at Hopewell and Newark Earthworks. Their biggest achievement was a massive complex of stargazing temple and effigy burial mounds around the southern part of the Ohio-Indiana border, which was uninhabited and only used for religious purposes. They used their constructions as astronomical observatories and places of ritual celebration. The Hopewell culture also expanded throughout the entire Ohio River Valley, north into Canada and east into Pennsylvania.

Researchers first considered the Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio to be an Adena mound. It is the largest effigy mound in the United States and one of Ohio's best-known landmarks. In Southern Ohio alone, archaeologists have pinpointed 10,000 mounds used as burial sites and have excavated another 1,000 earth-walled enclosures, including one enormous fortification with a circumference of about 3.5 miles, enclosing about 100 acres. We now know from a great variety of items found in the mound tombs – large ceremonial blades chipped from obsidian rock formations in Yellowstone National Park; embossed breast-plates, ornaments and weapons fashioned from copper nuggets from the Great Lakes region; decorative objects cut from sheets of mica from the southern Appalachians; conch shells from the Atlantic seaboard; and ornaments made from shark and alligator teeth and shells from the Gulf of Mexico – that the Mound Builders participated in a vast trading network that linked together hundreds of Native Americans across the continent. The Serpent Mound was used throughout the Hopewell era and other mounds were constructed nearby into the later Fort Ancient period.

After the Hopewell culture experienced a collapse between 400-500 AD, it appears that the Hopewells evolved into the modern Siouan speaking peoples. The Saponi-Tutelo from Virginia and the Dhegihan Sioux (Quapaw, Osage, Omaha, Kaw, Ponca) from the Ozarks both claim the Ohio River Valley as an ancestral homeland. Iroquoian oral history written about in Horatio Hale's The Iroquois Book of Rites appears to corroborate the oral history of the Saponi-Tutelo peoples, although it does not name them directly. Many Algonquian peoples of the Great Lakes region also claim such stories in their oral histories. The Menominee people of Wisconsin claim that their southern Siouan neighbors, the Ho-Chunk, came from the other side of Lake Michigan and the Illinois people always called the Ohio River the Akansa (ah-kaw-suh), coming from Kansa, their cover-all nickname for all Siouan speaking peoples. The exact manner in which the various Siouan peoples migrated throughout the Continental U.S. is still a matter of debate. It was also claimed that the Muskogean peoples of the American southeast came from Ohio, however this was a misconception based on the claims of the "Iroquois Book of Rites" concerning a Mound Building culture in northern Ohio.

Two of the best known cultures who evolved during this time were the Fort Ancient culture and Monongahela culture. The Fort Ancients lived throughout southern Ohio, eastern Kentucky and West Virginia from 1000 AD until approximately 1700. The Monongahela lived northeast of them in the states of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania for approximately the same time frame. It is all but confirmed that the Fort Ancients were a Siouan people and the Monongahela likely were as well. Corn also made it to the Ohio Valley, replacing Goosefoot as a primary food crop.

Archaeology and the oral histories of Iroquoian, Siouan and Algonquian peoples show that during the 12th and 13th centuries, Iroquoian people in the St. Lawrence River Valley, then divided themselves into three separate groups—a Huron ancestral group who migrated north of the Great Lakes, an Iroquois group who went south of the Great Lakes and a third Tuscarora-related group straight down the east coast. It then elaborates that the Iroquoian ancestors of the Erie conquered the region of northern Ohio from a people they called the Talligewi, or Alligewi, which translated as "Mound Builders. In Cayuga and Onondaga, this might be the same as Adegowe (Ah-deh-goh-way), or, literally, "[Unspecified pronoun here] piled it/ those." Alligewi is also said to be the origin of the word Alleghany. It is important to note that Hale based his Iroquois Book of Rites on earlier works by Iroquois natives who knew English as a second language.

Ohio natives in the 17th century
As of the year 1600, the known Ohio tribes were the Mosopelea, Erie, Miami and Mascouten.

Among the first French explorers was a cartographer, Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin, who met with a small, Siouan speaking people living amongst other, unrelated tribes in what is now Arkansas who called themselves the Mosopelea. They were later also known as the Ofo, Ofogoula and Houspe. They claimed that they had recently come from the Ohio River Valley, but had been driven out due to war and on his later map, he placed them approximately in southeastern Ohio- directly in the middle of Fort Ancient territory. It also suggests that they called this region Masopeleakicipi and the Ohio River the Oligin (Oh-ree-ghih). A single remaining work in their language-- a small word list in A Dictionary of Biloxi & Ofo-- seems to show that they constituted an otherwise completely unknown family of Siouan language. The Dictionary of Biloxi & Ofo also notes that, for a while, French Missionaries in the region seemed to think that the Houspe and Ofo were two separate peoples. Most historians seem to think this was a mistake. Either way, there is later one tribe referred to with both names. Many early explorers also note that the Ohio River Valley was littered with the remains of abandoned and destroyed villages, which they approximated with that of the Siouan stock.

Baptiste's map also names another group, known as the Casa, living north of the Mosopelea. The word is not French, but seems to closely resemble "Kansa," the Algonquian word for all Siouan-speaking peoples, and the origins of the names of Kansas, Arkansas and the Kaw/ Kansa tribe. The Monongahela Culture are also known to have once held land in that general area. Some early maps seem to label the Ohio region with the name "Caligua" and it's easy to mistake this for the Fort Ancients/ Monongahela. This name actually derives from the records of De Soto's 1520s expedition and is placed in our region primarily due to people at the time being confused as to where exactly he went. Today, most people believe that the Caligua were actually met in what is now southern Missouri.

There was also the Iroquoian Erie, whose autonym was Riquechronon, or Long Tail People. Their territory seems to have started at modern day Sandusky, Ohio, and went east, at least as far as the Cuyahoga River. A petroglyph site at Kelley's Island, just north of Sandusky and within Lake Erie, has been approximately dated between 1200 and 1600 AD, and is most likely theirs. Linguistic analysis of known village names and a direct reference in the Iroquois Book of Rites shows that they descended directly from the Seneca people. The Ojibwe, an Algonquian nation from Michigan's northern peninsula, claim in their oral histories wars against the Cat— another nickname for the Erie— coming from Lake Huron, but there are scant details concerning this or what it means. They possibly may have held lands in either Michigan or Canada at one time.

The Petun, another Iroquoian-speaking people who were originally believed to have only been focused in the area between Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls, possibly had a much larger territory than previously believed, which could have stretched into northeast Ohio. This seems to be corroborated between two regional maps from 1641 (in which experts seem to associate the name Khionontateronon with the Petun) and 1684 (in which Franquelin labels the Kentatetonga as having existed north of the Allegheny River. ). That being said, the exact borders between then the Erie are unknown. At the very least, the Erie once did own all of the land attributed to the Petun at some point prior to European Contact.

It is also believed that the Mascouten—an Algonquian people closely related to the Miami and Anishinaabe—controlled northwest Ohio, north of the Maumee River. It is difficult to surmise from the poorly made maps of the region exactly where the borders of their nation had been, but they probably once controlled all of the southern Peninsula of Michigan. They were represented as the Gen D'Feu (also simply Du Feu, or 'Assistaeronon' from the Huron language.) on several early French maps dating to the 1640s–1650s. The earliest known is from 1641, approximately five years after the first explorations in the region. According to a reference from a people called the Neutral Nation (Iroquoian people from north of Lake Erie), the Mascouten once lived immediately west of them and were larger than both the Neutrals and Hurons combined.

The Miami, also known as the Kickapoo (pronounced Kee-gah-boo), controlled territory in Ohio which started between the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers, angling southwest. This being said, they are first labelled as the Ontarraronon, or Lake People (from the Huron language), on the oldest regional maps. Given that Lake Michigan could not be meant and there seems to be an empty spot in northwest Ohio, they most likely controlled the Lake Erie shoreline between the Maumee and Sandusky Rivers prior to the Beaver Wars. This also means that the fact that they are the Ontarraronon and Lake Ontario bears a similar name is purely coincidental.

Other tribes arrived in our state at an unknown point after European Contact. The 1641 map also appears to show the Sauk living along the west shores of Lake Erie. Another map shows the Fauk there and the Sauk further north, around Saginaw Bay. Both are believed to have migrated into the region from eastern Canada due to some sort of conflict. They could only have come from one of two places- either they broke away from the Anishinaabeg during the Beaver Wars, or they descended from the Ottawa River tribes who lived northeast of the Hurons. The Neutrals were also apparently recorded in Ohio by the French. As far as can be assumed, tribes such as the Neutral Nation, Sauk and Fauk, crossed the Detroit River into Michigan and attacked the Mascouten and Miami. The Mascouten and the Miami were driven southwest. Some of the first known maps from the region appear in the 1640s. It is clearly seen that names associated with the Neutrals appear both along the northern shore of Lake Erie and beyond the Ohio River. If true, this would mean that the Neutrals were the ones who pushed the Mosopelea west to Arkansas.

Ohio natives in the 18th century
While they arrived shortly beforehand, the Lenape, also known as the Delaware, were undoubtedly the largest group of Natives in Ohio during the 18th century. Originally from Lenapehoking (modern day New Jersey), they were slowly forced out by the sons of William Penn, who had a distinctly different idea of them then their father had. In an event known as the Walking Purchase, Penn's sons purchased large amounts of Lenape land, possibly from village appointed spokespersons who didn't really have much of a right to do so. A later court hearing upheld the invalid contract and many natives were sent west. Soon after they were followed by Dutch settlers of the Moravian Church, who also felt persecuted by the cultural shift towards English and they appear to have been given legal jurisdiction over the Lenape at this point. While first spreading south to the south, the Lenape soon began a long, slow migration across the state. By the American Revolution, they were noted as existing in the general area between the Scioto and Sandusky Rivers. During this time, unable to fully back a single side, many Algonquin natives of the Ohio region were deemed traitors by English and Patriot alike. See further information below.

Around 1750, many members of the Iroquois Confederacy—particularly those affiliated with the Seneca and Cayuga branches—left New York and moved into the Ohio River valley, becoming known primarily as the Mingo Nation. The Mingo did side with the English during the Revolution, but their chief, Gayentwahga (Cornplanter), was able to negotiate for his people to remain in Ohio. They tried to stick to the Ohio River as others affiliated with the Wyandot followed the Lenape west. According to Mingo Oral Traditions, the Little Mingo (Guyandotte, Tiontatecaga) then "crossed the river and joined them." The arrival of this tribe split the Shawnee in half, but a newly formed Kentucky tribe made up of Yuchi, Cherokee and Illinois-- the Kispoko-- joined the confederacy and solidified control of the Ohio River.

The Wyandot did not move far. Their center only shifted from Cleveland, Ohio, to Sandusky, Ohio. There, the Episcopal Church set up a fairly successful mission for them. Upon conflicts with neighboring tribes around 1718, the Miami relocated deeper into Indiana to be closer to the Wea. When English influence began seeping into the region between 1730-1750, the Miami and Wea dealt with them more and more as they were forced continuously west. Losing power and fearing the Miami had switched sides, the French attacked the Miami and Wea around 1752, causing them to switch over to the English and aid in the eventual destruction of what was left of the Illinois Colony.

After the Revolution, Native peoples decided to wait and see how things would turn out under American rule. Two years later, not pleased, a ten year long struggle began which would be collectively referred to as the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795). This can be generally divided into two conflicts in particular—the Chickamauga War period (mainly occurring in Tennessee) and the Little Turtle's War period (in Ohio). It was also known as the Ohio War. As more and more Americans began to violate native land rights, the Chickamauga, a western offshoot of the Cherokee people who often acted almost as their own entity during this time period, began attacking anyone who moved into the Tennessee River Valley, spurning American military response. The Chickamauga were able to get full support from the English, but only if they agreed to swear fealty to the crown once more, should their war prove successful. Knowing they could not do it alone, they tried to convince other tribes to join in, and it wasn't hard. Eventually, the Wyandot, Shawnee, Odawa, Ojibwe, Potowatomi, Lenape, Miami, Illinois, and Wea were also involved. Unfortunately, the British withdrew their support around 1788. The French Revolution had begun and they were worried that French Canadians would get swept up with a sense of patriotism and start their own, so they focused all military attention to safeguarding their holdings there.

After things in Tennessee died down somewhat, Washington began massing troops near Cincinnati, Ohio to begin an assault on the other Indians, who had thrown their hats in under the Miami Chief Michikinikwa (Little Turtle). Considered one of the brightest military minds in American history, Little Turtle was able to defeat the American repeatedly, even against forces larger than his own. Washington's response was to simple keep sending in larger, better armed, better funded contingents of troops under new generals with authority to try out their own unique battle plans. Eventually, the seemingly endless grind got to Little Turtle and he went before his war councils and asked for the right to surrender. Many refused and were so offended by the suggestion that they removed him from office and replaced him with a new leader, the Ottawa chief Turkey Foot. Turkey Foot was shortly thereafter killed on the battlefield, his forces were routed, and the war came to an end. In a settlement a year later Little Turtle and other chiefs agreed to exchange much of their land for lands further west.

Ohio natives in the 19th century
When the United States set up its government, it chose to claim lands already owned by various Native American tribes—including those still in Ohio at the time—yet continued to treat them as if they were sovereign nations in asylum. These included the Catawba, Mohican, Schaghticoke, Lenape, Seneca, Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot, Odawa, and Iron Confederacy. In this agreement, they vowed to allow for the continued advancement and preservation of native culture, set up bureaus to see to their welfare and security, secured their borders, and created job and trading opportunities for their people. However, some among the American public seemed to continually violate native peoples. Con men sold lands within native territories they did not own, smugglers and criminal organizations used native lands for cover and recruiting, and others used political and legal maneuvering to strip natives of valuable assets. The United States chose early in the 19th century to begin convincing tribes to migrate to other lands west, for their safety and welfare. There appears to have been a great deal of debate at the time as to whether this would ensure their survival, or hasten their destruction, but it eventually culminated in the passing of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which was initially meant to quell disagreements that could have led to further war between the Cherokee and the state of Georgia; however, it was quickly used to move all natives in the eastern United States west. As soon as it started, it created a landslide effect, with many representatives of the government among various Indian tribes desperate to convince them to settle and move west before they began to see the new act as a threat and become hostile. This is one of several primary reasons as to why native culture faded away in the eastern U.S.

Starting in 1811 after a tense relationship of rebellion as far back as 1809, the Shawnee entered war with the United States over land rights, under the famous Tecumseh. During this time, they were steadily pushed west, down the Ohio, then the Mississippi, into the Ozarks. There, Tecumseh and other leaders were killed and the Shawnee settled in what is now Oklahoma. Some Shawnee remained in Ohio. Under Chief Wapakoneta, they chose to cede their lands to the U.S. in 1831, shortly after the passing of the Indian Removal Act, and moved west to reunite with the other Shawnee. Also, in 1813, a group of Shawnee sympathizers known as the Red Sticks brought the Creek Confederacy into war with the United States. Although the war primarily took place in the south, it began with a handful of violent attacks in Ohio. This war known as the Creek War, or Red Stick War.

By the turn of the century, many of the Lenape peoples had been driven up along the Ohio-Indiana border. They were removed to the Missouri country through the Treaty of St. Mary's in 1818. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States took over an extremely convoluted relationship which had existed between the Spanish, French, and a native group, the Caddo, who lived throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas at the time. Within the first few decades, the Caddo were settling almost entirely in the U.S., though still held extensive lands in Texas. The Spanish, who had expended a great deal of time and effort to woo the Caddo, felt slighted and continuously negotiated for them to return to Texas, even going so far as to deed to them further lands in the region that they hadn't previously owned. This also created a border dispute that nearly caused Spain to declare war on the United States at the time and was resolved through treaties that allowed the odd circumstance to continue. By this, the United States convinced the collective Caddoan peoples to allow surplus natives who had been relocated to the Ozarks to settle upon their unused lands in Texas without much issue—including Lenape and, later, the Seneca. They would go on to blend their cultures with the burgeoning American and Mexican cowboy cultures. Unfortunately, in an apparent effort to draw Indians into the Texas Revolution without appearing to violate their treaties, several false-flag attacks began in Texas against Texans and American soldiers; these were blamed on the highly influential Caddo, who had been publicly warned to stay out of the conflict by the U.S.. While the United States was able to influence the new Texas government to later adopt a similar Indian strategy, relations between these peoples never really recovered and most of these Indians were slowly pushed north into Indian Territory—modern day Oklahoma.

Also, the Ottawa turned over the last of their land in Ohio and Michigan to the United States after the War of 1812 and these peoples either retreated back into Canada, or were sent to the plains. The Mingo Seneca were driven to Missouri, between 1832 and 1838. Many of those sent west then split, some moving to Texas, which was then still a part of Mexican territories.

The Wyandot were the final tribe to leave the state in 1843, having apparently waited until the resolution of the Texas Revolution. They moved to Missouri and largely began breaking down and merging with American society, although some did eventually end up in Indian Territory, and others were granted a permanent reservation in Missouri. Those who broke away attempted to aid in the founding of the Nebraska and Kansas Territories, hoping to create more havens for displaced Native peoples. While this was not successful, there are still many descendants of these peoples today.

'Jewish' included in discussion about immigration from countries. Suggestion
Shouldn't Jewish immigration be included in discussion of religions rather than dispersion of immigrants from individual countries? Thank you. Bobdog54 (talk) 01:55, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I disagree
Hello, You recently removed by edit to the Midwestern United States page for being "unconstructive". I do not think this is the case. At its current state the article makes it seem like all of Illinois is a Democrat state, while actually very few counties are Democrat. I just feel as an Illinoisian it is my duty to point out that there is more to my home state than just Chicago.

108.69.178.124 (talk) 22:39, 27 February 2020 (UTC) A concerned Illinoisian


 * [above moved here from my talk page]
 * Your duty can best be performed by citing a reliable secondary source that agrees with your belief. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:44, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Other States
This source considers the following states that are not included in the Census Bureau's definition to be Midwestern states: The Northeastern image includes Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia, which are not included in the Census Bureau's definition, in lighter shades. Should we add these states in lighter shades? GamerKiller2347 (talk) 02:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Colorado
 * Kentucky
 * Montana
 * Oklahoma
 * Pennsylvania
 * West Virginia
 * Wyoming


 * A SurveyMonkey poll is hardly a statistically reliable sampling. And even so, Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wyoming appear to have gotten only about 10% agreement to being in the Midwest, with Kentucky at about 20%. So I'd say that this source is not good enough to justify making a change. Indyguy (talk) 02:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Governor Map Error
The map provided of Gubernatorial party affiliation, unfortunately, is inaccurate; it shows Kansas as having a Republican governor but the current governor is a Democrat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.216.102.9 (talk) 19:23, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

"The Midwestern States (2nd way to split it)" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect The Midwestern States (2nd way to split it). The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 August 22 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Talk 05:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)