• AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          5 months ago

          When early settlers traveled west they hit the Rockies and decided that was as far as they felt like going in horse and buggy, so they called it “the West” even though it was fully within the east half of the continent.

          Believe me, you are not the first person to be bothered by the fact that, from east to west, the four regions of the US are “east coast”, “Midwest”, “central”, and “west”

        • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          5 months ago

          The new world is sometimes referred to as the west and that is the middle of the continent so I guess by that logic No Mexico would be the Mid-West

            • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              5 months ago

              the actual actual answer is that people east of the mississippi river haven’t looked at a map since 1803.

      • jqubed@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        5 months ago

        It’s interesting to see some out of Pennsylvania identifying themselves as Midwest, but having driven up I-79 there’s definitely a portion of northwest Pennsylvania that geographically feels “Midwest” to me. In fact I think I could argue (and anger many people in the process) that Buffalo, NY is a Midwest city geographically based on its proximity to Lake Erie. I’d never considered it before, but it feels like regions of US states touching a Great Lake automatically makes them part of the Midwest, except for Lake Ontario for some reason. Maybe it’s the proximity of the mountains in New York.

        • Ech@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          5 months ago

          Pittsburgh is an amalgamation of East Coast and Midwest.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        So then what are Idaho and Montana (and Utah)? Great Basin is the closest I can think of and I’m pretty sure Montana isn’t totally in it.

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      5 months ago

      It’s the middle of the west, so basically Nevada, Idaho and Utah.

      I’ve always hated this term not making any sense (and fuck “it [the east] was west like 3 trillion years ago when nobody could walk west because of an invisible wall”) so you can’t change my mind.