Talk:Western United States

please also see
Please also see Talk:American West for talk regarding the same subject matter on a former duplicate article's talk page, that was merged and redirected here.

Merge with American West at Western United States
This article needs to be merged with its duplicate article American West at Western United States, which is where the article should be located under WikiProject U.S. regions naming conventions. -JCarriker 20:59, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Since there seems to be no oppostion to 'this page being moved, I'll be moving it to Western United States momentarily. American West still needs to be merged with it. -JCarriker 04:10, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

American West vs. Western U.S.
66.167.139.50 05:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC): The current state of these two article is problematic. My suggestion, posted on WikiProject U.S. Regions/General and Talk:American West, is to post the cultural aspects of the American West and its changing boundaries as the frontier moved westward, in American West, whil have this article focus concretely on an enumerated list of states. American West should either have no color-coded maps or multiple maps, one for each period in American history.

Is the West a region?
I am curious as to whether or not participants here consider the West a true region...in the sense of a coherent cultural entity as is, say, The South or New England?

My own opinion is that it is basically a part of the country largely characterized by post-bellum settlement, open spaces and true mountains, sparcer population and drier climate, a certain individualistic spirt, etc. But othewise, those states considered "western" are not really bound by any historic and deep ties of blood and soil and folkways. It seems to me the West is a collection of individual regions. For instance, Texas and Kansas can both be called western. They certainly shared the cowboy and cattle drive of western history. Yet, they were settled by wholy different peoples in the pre and post-"Civil War" migration. Texas is Southern in history, culture and outlook, and Kansas is truly midwestern. In a state like Nevada, the differences get even broader.

I would say Texas (and Oklahoma south of Oklahoma City) is the Western South. Northern Oklahoma and Kansas thru the Dakotas are the Plains Midwest. New Mexico and Arizona (and trans-pecos Texas) is the TRUE SouthWest.

I am on shaky ground here, cos I know nothing about it...but my lady friend (a native Coloradoan) says Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona is the true West (New Mexico and Arizona seem to be a part of a two!). Anyway, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington are the "Northwest". And California is just California! LOL

Polygamy in Utah/Politics in West
This article states the following: "modern Utah tolerates polygamy and has a long history of polygamous territorial leaders." That is a grossly innacurate statement. It is true that the Utah territory was once led by practicing polygamists, but MODERN Utah in no way, shape or form tolerates this practice. The vast majority of Utahns reject any form of polygamy, and recent law enforcement efforts targeting polygamists have increased significantly. The sentence should be removed from this artcile.

This article also implies that Orange County is the only metropolitan area in the West that leans toward the Republican party: "With the notable exception of Orange County, California, major urban centers on the Pacific Coast and throughout the West lean toward the Democratic Party." That is a false statement. Maricopa County, AZ (Pheonix), Utah County, UT (Provo-Orem) and Ada County, ID (Boise) are just a few of the several Western metropolitan areas that usually lean Republican.

Revert
I tried to organize (creating new headings) the "Further Reading" page. The Materialscientist reverted my work. No explanation given. 134.124.26.221 (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree that doing reverts of non-vandalism edits without providing an edit summary is bad form (at least), but it wouldn't hurt if you were more explanatory at what you are trying to achieve, here and in your edit summaries. Simply saying you're moving something may not be seen as enough explanation. Stefen Towers among the rest!   Gab • Gruntwerk 22:47, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for responding. Much, much appreciated. I tried to explain each change in detail: I'm creating an "environment" heading. Now I'm now moving books on the environment from the surveys to the "environment" page and so on. If there is more I need to do, I'm happy to do it. Please advise. Sincerely. 134.124.26.221 (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Split proposed
Further reading suggests that the Further reading section should be limited in size. Wikipedia is not a catalogue of all existing works, which in the case of a historical topic like World War II would run into thousands of items. Furthermore, it opines:

I propose that this section be split off to Bibliography of the Western United States, using the Bibliography of California history, Bibliography of Oregon history, and Bibliography of the American frontier as models.

Alternately, it would need to be severely and judiciously trimmed to bring it to a reasonable size. Peaceray (talk) 22:14, 10 December 2023 (UTC)


 * My general preference is to split when a list of substantial works is long or going in that direction. Trimming to only notables might short-change the reader on such an expansive topic. So I'm fine with a split here. Stefen Towers among the rest!   Gab • Gruntwerk 22:30, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of splitting off this section into a separate bibliography. The Western United States is a vast region. Clio&#39;sMemory (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * OK I split it off (and added sections on culture) to Bibliography of the Western United States -- any comments?? Rjensen (talk) 05:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)