Good rule of thumb: if your state fought for the Confederacy you are not part of the Midwest.
Looking at you Tennessee and Arkansas.
If you're a bloody traitor to your country, you aren't Midwest.
Missouri feels like a southern state, but St Louis feels like a midwestern town
I-70 roughly divides the state north and south. So north of it, it tends to feel more Midwest. Very much like Iowa. But south of it, it definitely starts feeling more Southern.
But both KC and STL are solidly Midwestern. It actually makes more sense to look at them from another dimension: east-west. St. Louis is the western-most "Eastern" city, while Kansas city is the eastern-most "Western" city.
As a non-American I always assumed "midwest" meant between the northwest and southwest. So like, California and the state to the east of it (Nevada?). Are the highlighted states not more "north middle"?
You have to keep in mind that the US started on the east coast and then expanded west. A lot of the terminology we use goes back to those days, where everything west of the original colonies was "The West".
Ah, it does make sense when you put it that way.
Similar to how the “Middle East” and “Far East” are from a European-centric persecutive.
Kinda? Chicago just doesn't feel very "Midwestern" to me, but I did grow up in Sioux Falls, which is definitely the Midwest.
Chicago is on the eastern edge of what I'd consider the Midwest, but it's not really any further east than Milwaukee, which is definitely Midwestern. I'm not sure if the dissonance is just due to Chicago being a World City, if that cosmopolitan vibe is interfering with a Midwestern baseline or vice-versa.
You've gotta include Minnesota. They're some of the most Midwestern people I've ever met. I think we might get a lot of it from Canada
Absolutely! Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wisconsin...
Michigan is soundly Midwestern lol you definitely cannot call Ohio and Michigan part of the East Coast, and both of those are East of Chicago. Chicago is in the heart of the Midwest.
Not East Coast but certainly Rust Belt or Great Lakes region. Nothing in Eastern Time is in the Midwest. It's the East. That's why they called it "Eastern Time".
Why would the name of the time zone matter? Also the upper peninsula of Michigan extends west of Chicago, can half the state be Midwestern?
Sure, but just the UP, everyone knows it should have been Wisconsin from the beginning anyway. /s
We’ll have to disagree here. Part of Michigan is in CST, and living here my entire life everyone knows we’re Midwestern. Weird way for a Chicagoan to try to distance themselves from us when we’re next door neighbors.
By that logic, 87% of Indiana is not in the Midwest.
I'll go further and assert that none of Indiana is in the Midwest.
Michigan was in central time until the 70s. They only changed to Eastern to be more in line with the financial/political hubs of the country
I'm from Wisconsin, family from Michigan as well and traveled there a lot. Went to college in Iowa and dated girls in college who all were from Illinois. Now i live in Minnesota.
One thing i find odd is that Minnesotans don't do a lot of the Midwest stuff. No midwest goodbyes, no chatting up strangers as if they were your BFF, doing all the obligation events we never want to do but say "o yah we should get together", etc. The whole Minnesota Nice, aka being passive aggressive, isn't really that Midwest. Of all the Midwest I've lived in, the highest ranking one is definitely the least Midwest in my eyes.
MNs seem like they have a Canadian influence. Based on a week I spent in Rochester and the movie Fargo, lol.
If I read it right, those were pole results from people in those states. Have to go read it again/
A place to ask questions to the midwest.social community
