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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]good roundup here: https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/Blog/Posts/106/Illinois-History/2021/2/What-is-the-Midwest/blog-post/

i'm a gen xer who grew up in illinois. back when i was growing up, conversationally we considered the midwest to be illinois, indiana, ohio, michigan, wisconsin. the rest we considered to be the great plains.  this is the map we "lived" by:

[img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Midwestern_United_States_subdivisions.svg[/img]

i've also lived in Pittsburgh and by god, NO, that is NOT the midwest.[/quote]
I grew up in Indiana. The Midwest is the Orange area of the map which was the Northwest Territory, established in 1787, and consisting of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin (parts of MN too). The midwest has a lot of common cultural background with significant German settlement in the early 1800s for farming after access expanded with the opening of the Erie canal. There is also a lot of common geography due to glaciation, ancient mountains, and the great lakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territory

Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri can be considered midwestern in character because a lot of settlement from the Midwest shifted over the Mississippi river and there is still a lot of common geographical and cultural commonality.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas are not midwestern at all. They are plains states. Very different geography, settlement patterns, and cultural background. It doesn't matter what the census bureau currently defines it to be. The idea of the "middle" of the country kept changing as borders moved westward. Midwest isn't a current geographical description, it's a historical and cultural region. 
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