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Midwestern United States
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The Midwestern United States (or Midwest or Middle West or The Heartland) is an informal name for a group of north-central states of the United States of America, usually including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. A 2006 Census Bureau estimate put the population at 66,217,736. Both the geographic center of the contiguous U.S. and the population center of the U.S. are in the Midwest. The United States Census Bureau divides this region into the East North Central States (essentially the Great Lakes States); and the West North Central States.
Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Detroit, Indianapolis, and Columbus.
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1951 The Great Flood of 1951 reaches its highest point in Northeast Kansas, culminating in the greatest flood damage to date in the Midwestern United States.
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Encyclopedia
The Midwestern United States (or Midwest or Middle West or The Heartland) is an informal name for a group of north-central states of the United States of America, usually including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. A 2006 Census Bureau estimate put the population at 66,217,736. Both the geographic center of the contiguous U.S. and the population center of the U.S. are in the Midwest. The United States Census Bureau divides this region into the East North Central States (essentially the Great Lakes States); and the West North Central States.
Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Detroit, Indianapolis, and Columbus. Other cities in the region include Bismarck, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Des Moines, Fargo, Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Lincoln, Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Omaha, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, St. Louis, St. Paul, Toledo and Wichita.
Sault Ste. Marie is the oldest city in the region having been founded in 1668--more than 30 years before Detroit, over 120 years prior to Cleveland, and more than 160 years prior to Chicago.
The term Midwest has been in common use for over 100 years. Other designations for the region have fallen into disuse, such as the "Northwest" or "Old Northwest" (from Northwest Territory), "Mid-America," or "Heartland". Since the book Middletown appeared in 1929, sociologists have often used Midwestern cities, and the Midwest generally, as "typical" of the entire nation. The Midwest region of the United States has a higher employment to population ratio (the percentage of employed people at least 16 years old) than the Northeast, the West, the South, or the Sun Belt states.
Definition]
Traditional definitions of the Midwest include the Northwest Ordinance "Old Northwest" states and many states that were part of the Louisiana Purchase. The states of the Old Northwest are also known as "Great Lakes states". Many of the Louisiana Purchase states are also known as Great Plains states.
The North Central Region, is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as these 12 states:
- Illinois: Old Northwest, Ohio River, and Great Lakes state.
- Indiana: Old Northwest, Ohio River, and Great Lakes state.
- Iowa: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state.
- Kansas: Louisiana Purchase, Border state, Great Plains state.
- Michigan: Old Northwest and Great Lakes state.
- Minnesota: Old Northwest and Great Lakes state; western part Louisiana Purchase.
- Missouri: Louisiana Purchase, Border state, Great Plains state.
- Nebraska: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state.
- North Dakota: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state .
- Ohio: Old Northwest (Historic Connecticut Western Reserve), Ohio River, and Great Lakes state. Also a Northeastern Appalachian state in the southeast.
- South Dakota: Louisiana Purchase, Great Plains state.
- Wisconsin: Old Northwest and Great Lakes state.
Physical geographyThese states are generally perceived as being relatively flat. That is true of several areas, but there is a measure of geographical variation. In particular, the eastern Midwest lying near the foothills of the Appalachians, the Great Lakes Basin, and northern parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa demonstrate a high degree of topographical variety. Prairies cover most of the states west of the Mississippi River with the exception of eastern Minnesota and the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri. Illinois lies within an area called the "prairie peninsula," an eastward extension of prairies that borders deciduous forests to the north, east, and south. Rainfall decreases from east to west, resulting in different types of prairies, with the tallgrass prairie in the wetter eastern region, mixed-grass prairie in the central Great Plains, and shortgrass prairie towards the rain shadow of the Rockies. Today, these three prairie types largely correspond to the corn/soybean area, the wheat belt, and the western rangelands, respectively. Hardwood forests in this area were logged to extinction in the late 1800s. The majority of the Midwest can now be categorized as urbanized areas or pastoral agricultural areas. Areas in northern Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, such as the Porcupine Mountains.
Residents of the wheat belt, which consists of the westernmost states of the Midwest, generally consider themselves part of the Midwest, while residents of the remaining rangeland areas usually do not. Of course, exact boundaries are nebulous and shifting.
Ten largest Midwestern U.S. cities
Cities | Rank | City | State | Population
(2000 census) |
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| 1 | Chicago | IL | 2,896,016 | | 2 | Detroit | MI | 951,270 | | 3 | Indianapolis | IN | 791,926 | | 4 | Columbus | OH | 711,470 | | 5 | Milwaukee | WI | 596,974 | | 6 | Cleveland | OH | 478,403 | | 7 | Kansas City | MO | 441,545 | | 8 | Omaha | NE | 390,007 | | 9 | Minneapolis | MN | 382,618 | | 10 | St. Louis | MO | 348,189 |
Urban Areas | Rank | Urban area | State(s) | Population
(2000 census) |
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| 1 | Chicago | IL-IN | 8,307,904 | | 2 | Detroit | MI | 3,903,377 | | 3 | Minneapolis-Saint Paul | MN | 2,388,593 | | 4 | St. Louis | MO-IL | 2,077,662 | | 5 | Cleveland | OH | 1,786,647 | | 6 | Cincinnati | OH-KY-IN | 1,503,262 | | 7 | Kansas City | MO-KS | 1,361,744 | | 8 | Milwaukee | WI | 1,308,913 | | 9 | Indianapolis | IN | 1,218,919 | | 10 | Columbus | OH | 1,133,193 |
Metro Areas | Rank | Metro area | State(s) | Population
(2000 census) |
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| 1 | Chicago | IL-IN-WI | 9,098,316 | | 2 | Detroit | MI | 4,452,557 | | 3 | Minneapolis-Saint Paul | MN-WI | 2,968,806 | | 4 | St. Louis | MO-IL | 2,698,687 | | 5 | Cleveland | OH | 2,148,143 | | 6 | Cincinnati | OH-KY-IN | 2,009,632 | | 7 | Kansas City | MO-KS | 1,836,038 | | 8 | Columbus | OH | 1,612,694 | | 9 | Indianapolis | IN | 1,525,104 | | 10 | Milwaukee | WI | 1,500,741 |
History
Exploration and early settlementEuropean settlement of the area began in the 17th century following French exploration of the region. The French established a network of fur trading posts and Jesuit missions along the Mississippi River system and the upper Great Lakes. French control over the area ended in 1763 with the conclusion of the French and Indian War. British colonists began to expand into the Ohio Country during the 1750s. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 temporarily restrained expansion west of the Appalachian Mountains, but did not stop it completely.
Early settlement began either via routes over the Appalachian Mountains, such as Braddock Road; or through the waterways of the Great Lakes. Fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh, at the source of the Ohio River, was an early outpost of the overland routes. The first settlements in the Midwest via the waterways of the Great Lakes were centered around military forts and trading posts such as Green Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Detroit. The first inland settlements via the overland routes were in southern Ohio or northern Kentucky, on either side of the Ohio River, and early such pioneers were Daniel Boone and Spencer Records.
Following the American Revolutionary War, the rate of settlers coming from the eastern states increased rapidly. In the 1790s, American Revolutionary War veterans and settlers from the original states moved there in response to Federal government of the United States land grants. The Ulster-Scots Presbyterians of Pennsylvania (often through Virginia) and the Dutch Reformed, Quaker, and Congregationalists of Connecticut were among the earliest pioneers to Ohio and the Midwest.
The region's fertile soil made it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests of cereal crops such as corn, oats, and, most importantly, wheat. In the early days, the region was soon known as the nation's "breadbasket".
Development of transportationTwo waterways have been important to the Midwest's development. The first and foremost was the Ohio River which flowed into the Mississippi River. Spanish control of the southern part of the Mississippi, and refusal to allow the shipment of American crops down the river and into the Atlantic Ocean, halted the development of the region until 1795.
The river inspired two classic American books written by a native Missourian, Samuel Clemens, who took the pseudonym Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Today, Twain's stories have become staples of Midwestern lore. Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri is a tourist attraction in the area offering a glimpse into the Midwest of his time.
The second waterway is the network of routes within the Great Lakes. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 completed an all-water shipping route, more direct than the Mississippi, to New York and the seaport of New York City. Lakeport cities grew up to handle this new shipping route. During the Industrial Revolution, the lakes became a conduit for iron ore from the Mesabi Range of Minnesota to steel mills in the Mid-Atlantic States. The Saint Lawrence Seaway later opened the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean.
Inland canals in Ohio and Indiana constituted another great waterway, which connected into the Great Lakes and Ohio River traffic.
The canals in Ohio and Indiana opened so much of Midwestern agriculture that it launched the world's greatest population and economic boom foreshadowing later "emerging markets". The commodities that the Midwest funneled into the Erie Canal down the Ohio River contributed to the wealth of New York City, which overtook Boston and Philadelphia. New York State would proudly boast of the Midwest as its "inland empire"; thus, New York would become known as the Empire State.
19th century sectional conflictBecause the Northwest Ordinance region, comprising the heart of the Midwest, was the first large region of the United States which prohibited slavery (the Northeastern United States emancipated slaves in the 1830s), the region remains culturally apart from the country and proud of its free pioneer heritage. The regional southern boundary was the Ohio River, the border of freedom and slavery in American history and literature (See: Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Beloved, by Toni Morrison). The Midwest, particularly Ohio, provided the primary routes for the "Underground Railroad", whereby Midwesterners assisted slaves to freedom from their crossing of the Ohio River through their departure on Lake Erie to Canada.
The region was shaped by the relative absence of slavery (except for Missouri), pioneer settlement, education in one-room free public schools, and democratic notions brought with American Revolutionary War veterans, Protestant faiths and experimentation, and agricultural wealth transported on the Ohio River riverboats, flatboats, canal boats, and railroads.
Industrialization and immigrationBy the time of the American Civil War, European immigrants bypassed the East Coast of the United States to settle directly in the interior: German immigrant Lutherans and Jews to Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, and eastern Missouri; Swedes and Norwegians to Wisconsin, Minnesota and northern Iowa. Poles, Hungarians, and German Catholics and Jews founded or settled in Midwestern cities. Many German Catholics also settled throughout the Ohio River valley and around the Great Lakes.
The Midwest was predominantly rural at the time of the Civil War, dotted with small farms across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa, but industrialization, immigration, and urbanization fed the Industrial Revolution, and the heart of industrial progress became the Great Lakes states of the Midwest. German, Scandinavian, Slavic and African American immigration into the Midwest continued to bolster the population there in the 19th and 20th centuries, though generally the Midwest remains a predominantly diverse, Protestant region. Large concentrations of Catholics are found in larger metropolitan areas because of German, Irish, Italian, and Polish immigration before 1915, and Mexican American migration since the 1950s. Famous Amish farm settlements are found in northern Ohio, northern Indiana and central Illinois and in various parts of Missouri and Iowa as well.
In the 20th century, African American migration from the Southern United States into the Midwestern states changed Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Gary, Detroit, Minneapolis, and many other cities in the Midwest dramatically, as factories and schools enticed families by the thousands to new opportunities.
History of the term "Midwest"The term "Middle West" originated in the 19th century, followed by "Midwest." The heart of the Midwest is bounded by the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, the "Old Northwest" (or the "West"), an area that comprised the original Northwest Territory. This area is now called the "East North Central States" by the United States Census Bureau and the "Great Lakes" region by its inhabitants.
The Northwest Territory was created out of the ceded English (formerly French and Native American) frontier lands under the Northwest Ordinance by the Continental Congress just before the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery and religious discrimination, and promoted public schools and private property, but did not apply after the territories became states. The Northwest Ordinance also specified that the land be surveyed and sold in the rectangular grids of the Public Land Survey System, which was first used in Ohio. The effect of this grid system can be seen throughout the Midwest in such things as county shapes and road networks.
In contrast, land in Kentucky and Tennessee was surveyed and sold using metes and bounds. As Revolutionary War soldiers were awarded lands in Ohio and migrated there and to other Midwestern states with other pioneers, the area became the first thoroughly "American" region. Frederick Jackson Turner celebrated its frontier for shaping the national character of individualism and democracy.
The Midwest region today sometimes refers not only to states created from the Northwest Ordinance, but also may include states between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains and north of the Ohio River. In all, 12 states are covered by The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia(2006).
The term "West" was applied to the region in the early years of the country. Later, the region west of the Appalachians was divided into the Far West (now just the West), and the Middle West. Some parts of the Midwest have also been referred to as Northwest for historical reasons (for instance, this explains the Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines as well as Northwestern University in Illinois), so the current Northwest region of the country is called the Pacific Northwest to make a clear distinction.
The boundaries of what is considered the Midwest today are somewhat ambiguous. People from across the region consider themselves to be from the Midwest for very different reasons and have varying definitions | |
