I’m all alone here, but for me if the state isn’t bordered by the Pacific Ocean, it’s not “West.” It’s somewhere else. I have a very expansive definition of “midwest.”
I might, might entertain an argument about Idaho, Arizona, or Nevada. Colorado is far, too far inland. Oklahoma isn’t even close (it takes less time to drive to the eastern ocean than the western from Oklahoma City.)
I’ve lived in the Los Angeles-ish area for 30 years, and people use “back east” for anything past Arizona or maybe New Mexico. You know, those American places that are over a day’s drive and you never really think about much. Like, you know, most of it.
And there’s your problem, highlighted in red. The Midwest is NOT the middle of the West. It’s in the middle between the East and the West.
It’s analogous to the Middle East, which (in global context) is not the middle of the East but rather in the middle between the West and the East.
If you think the term should be changed because it’s imperfect, well, get in line. There are a few thousand other terms in English that are imperfect – I’m sure they’ll change “midwest” as soon as the others are taken care of. 
The reason I showed the census bureau map is that I used to think the West start there, too. But when I saw the map, I realized I don’t consider Region 7 (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas) to be West. but South (but not deep South).
Then I looked at the states directly north of mine (Arkansas), and I realized I don’t really consider them West, either. Then when I thought about how similar that row of states to their west was to them, I realized that they must be in the same group, as well.
So it wasn’t that the I just agreed with the map, but that I realized it made more sense than my own interpretation.
West is a amalgamated concept with roots in both natural and human history. There are several zones the crossing of which (east to west) mark new stages of westerliness. The first major one* is the mountains of the Atlantic coast states (Appalachians excepting the easternmost slopes, Alleghenies). Pittsburgh is west of this first zone.
The Mississippi is another zone, not just a boundary of the river itself, but a region including both shores and some tributaries. And so on.
East Texas is still more eastern than West Texas by several measures beyond just longitude, but by the same token it’s more western than Pittsburgh.
- It’s all relative. For some folks, the most important boundary is the Chesapeake Bay. You have the Eastern Shore, and the Western Shore–the rest of North America.
I think 100 degrees west longitude was considered to be the limit for a family to survive by growing grain crops using traditional methods (without irrigation or special dry-farming practices). That seems like as good a cutoff as any. That means places like Amarillo, Dodge City, and Deadwood are in the west, which seems only right to me.
Um actually that is exactly what it meant when it was coined. The Near West was Appalachian and trans-Appalachian regions of New York and Pennsylvania. the Middle West (a term that has largely been displaced by the contraction Midwest) was the Ohio river valley. And the Far West was the rest of the Northwest territory. As time passed the Near West designation fell into disuse, the Far West continued to push west as the borders expanded west. And the Midwest grew to take over more of the old Far West area.
Likewise Middle East derives from British usage in the 19th century. The Far East was China, Japan and the like. The Near East was the Balkans, Arabia, and other Ottoman territories. The Middle East originally only referred to India and Persia. As time has gone on the Near East has lost the Balkans and the Middle East has grown to cover much more territory (and is never used for India but sometimes Pakistan). Today they are more or less synonyms. But originally the were distinct and separate regions.
Thank you for elaborating on that. You taught me more than I thought I was teaching you.
Ah, here’s a handy map. I was going to say everything west of the meridian going through the eastern border of Colorado, but a better criterion I think would be everything in the Mountain time zone and west of that.
I attended a conference in Fort Worth where the MC welcomed us to, “FORT WORTH! Where the WEST begins! and to Dallas, where the east sort of peters out.”
But I’ve always heard the 100th meridian definition and that’s fine by me.
You used to find the answer here in Out Where the West Begins, by Arthur Chapman, but not anymore. Too many bad Easterners have polluted the land, the sky, the air and their bad manners.
I remember reading of the climate changes at the 100th, and that made sense to me in technical terms.
Historically, tho, the Mississippi is very tempting. Just read a book on the transcontinental railroad and up until the 1860s all of Nebraska was pretty much no-man’s land. Made it sound as tho in terms of travel, trade, and communication, California was more distantly removed from the East coast than the American colonies had been from England!
Generally, I’d say the west begins at the Mississippi. But the line moves in the southern part. Louisiana is clearly part of the South not the West. And Arkansas and parts of Texas and Missouri are arguably more Southern than Western.
Count me as another vote for the 100th Meridian. I’m from Central Nebraska, about 40 miles east of there, and the culture and terrain change when you cross over is really remarkable. East of the 100th Meridian (Cozad, NE), the paper of record for most Nebraskans is the Omaha World-Herald. Values and lifestyles tend to be Midwestern with a southern twinge, and the flat, broadcast-friendly accent is the norm. West of Cozad, the paper of record is the Rocky Mountain News, the biggest event in any given town is the annual rodeo, and real frontier bravado kicks in. Kearney and North Platte (both Nebraska) are separated by less than 100 miles and are about the same size, but someone from Chicago or any major midwestern city could adjust to Kearney with minimal stress. The same person forced to move to North Platte would feel like they just stepped into a John Wayne movie.
Then again, when I moved from Omaha to central Illinois, a lot of the old-timers from the Kearney area whom I still knew teased me about heading “out east”, so maybe I’m giving my old stomping grounds too much Midwestern credit.
If we wanted to be precise about the quadrants of the “Lower 48” we might wish to use the Geographic Center of the Contiguous United States as the reference point from which those directions spread.
That would mean that North becomes South at LAT. 39°50’ and East becomes West at LONG. 98°35’ – if you want to use that particular version of the center point. There are others.
That would have the advantage of being a compromise between the 100th Meridian camp and the Mississippi River camp. Those wishing to move it further west would have to make the case for that shift away from center. Likewise for the ones preferring a more easterly variant.
I will admit to being Old School and simplistic with the Missiissippi River version, but could be persuaded to go with the center-point compromise.
I’m not really sure how we don’t make the line to be the Mississippi River. The St. Louis Arch is called “The Gateway to the West”, is on the National Historic Landmarks as such, is on the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial which commemorates the Louisiana Purchase, is near the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and also contains the Museum of Western Expansion.
Additionally, the US Government uses the Mississippi River to split the country - radio stations east of the Mississippi have call letters beginning with K, west of the Mississippi start with W.
All the geographical definitions don’t make complete sense, because why would you just use the Continental Divide? The reason is because we know there’s an historical component to “the West”. So it makes sense that you’d use either St. Louis or Independence, MO as the start of “the West”.
For those saying the Mississippi River, you realize that you’re putting Minneapolis, Iowa, and St. Louis in the west? Those places are geographically, culturally, and climatologically nothing like the real American West. You may as well say that Boston is in the West.
I’m surprised how many people seem really to think Iowa is western. I challenge anyone to go to, say, Davenport, IA, and tell me it’s more like Deadwood than A Prairie Home Companion (which itself takes place in the partially west-of-the-Mississippi state of Minnesota).
Go to 1820s St. Louis and tell me it is similar in any way, shape or form to 1820s Boston.