Thats a weird one because Texans get oissed when you say they are Southern. Seems like a California transplant because to them there is west coast, New York, and everything in between is the Midwest
I giggled at the bulk of this, but actually laughed out loud when I got to "cold Midwest".
As a midwesterner, we're happy to share the term. We like to include people. And to feed people. And to make sure they have a place to stay tonight that isn't too far away to drive safely, there's a pull out couch, I can put a fresh sheet on it, it's no trouble.
This has legitimately always pissed me off. The mid(dle) west is not in the eastern portion of the country. The first thing I'd do as supreme leader of the united furry states of america is put everyone that says things like "Ohio is in the midwest" onto a boat headed to the Bermuda Triangle. Then sink it when it approaches, just to be sure.
I've heard arguments "but in 1612 we didn't know that if we kept walking we would find more land" or "the population density is what matters". You know what I say? On the boat.
I remember being very confused about Ohio being part of the Midwest when I was learning geography in school. It's literally one state away from the east coast.
Of course, the concept of "Midwest" as a whole is pretty confusing. I get that it's meant to be about halfway to the western part of the US, since we started on the east coast, but it's a bit of an antiquated term at this point.
If anything, we should call it the Middle-North or Midnorth for short, since that's a more objective description of it's placement in the country, without the old east-coast-centric viewpoint featured in "Midwest."
I'd say it's all mid, along with Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and uhhhh I'm too tired to look at the picture again to see if I'm missing any other worthy candidates (brace for ninja edit)
Ok yeah Louisiana too. Fuck it the whole US is mid Mexicanadian
The crux of it is that the name developed along with the expansion of the US, ie from the east coast. From that reference point, everything else was "The West", just with varying degrees of distance.
It's from an east coast mentality. If you're sitting in New York City, everything else is west. You have middle way west (Midwest), the West, and the West Coast.
Same goes for Europe. You sit in London and you have the middle east, the east, and the far east.
I’m open to being corrected, but my guess would be the long time gap between the original colonization of the east coast and the spread west of there. In 1776 US borders extended to Pennsylvania, so when settlers started moving to Ohio and beyond I imagine they would have called it “The West” until they realized how much west there really was.
