| Travel
& Geography > The Regions of the United States |
| New
England | The Mid-Atlantic | The
South | The Midwest | The
Southwest | The West |
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| Americans often speak of their country
as one of several large regions. These regions are cultural units rather
than governmental units -- formed by history and geography and shaped
by the economics, literature and folkways that all the parts of a region share.
What makes one region different from another? A region's multicultural heritage
as well as distinct demographic characteristics like age and occupation make
regions different and special. Within several regions, language is used differently
and there are strong dialects. There are also differences in outlook and attitude
based on geography. |
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New England
Connecticut | Maine
| Massachusetts | New
Hampshire
| Rhode Island
| Vermont
New England has played a dominant role in American history. Until well into
the 19th century, New England was the country's cultural and economic center.
The earliest European settlers of New England were English Protestants who
came in search of religious liberty. They gave the region its distinctive
political format -- town meetings (an outgrowth of meetings held by
church elders) in which citizens gathered to discuss issues of the day. Town
meetings still function in many New England communities today and have been
revived as a form of dialogue in the national political arena. New England
is also important for the cultural contribution it has made to the nation.
The critic Van Wyck Brooks called the creation of a distinctive American literature,
in the first half of the 19th century, "the flowering of New England."
Education is another of the region's strongest legacies. The cluster of top-ranking
universities and colleges in New England - including Harvard, Yale,
Brown, Dartmouth, Wellesley, Smith, Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan - is unequaled
by any other region. America's first college, Harvard, was founded at Cambridge,
Massachusetts in 1636. Without, however, large expanses of rich farmland or
a mild climate, generations of exasperated New England farmers declared that
the chief product of their land was stones. By 1750, many settlers had
turned from farming to other pursuits. In their business dealings, New
Englanders gained a reputation for hard work, shrewdness, thrift, and ingenuity.
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Mid-Atlantic
Delaware | Maryland
| New Jersey | New York
| Pennsylvania | Washington
D.C.
If New England provided the brains and dollars for 19th-century American expansion,
the Mid-Atlantic states provided the muscle. The region's largest states,
New York and Pennsylvania, became centers of heavy industry (iron, glass,
and steel). The Mid-Atlantic region was settled by a wider range of people
than New England. Into this area of industry, came millions of Europeans who
made of it what became known as the "melting pot." As
heavy industry spread throughout the region, rivers such as the Hudson and
Delaware were transformed into vital shipping lanes. Cities on waterways --
New York on the Hudson, Philadelphia on the Delaware, Baltimore on Chesapeake
Bay -- grew dramatically. New York is still the nation's largest city, its
financial hub, and its cultural center. But even today, the visitor who expects
only factories and crowded cities is surprised. In the Mid-Atlantic, there
are more wooded hills than factory chimneys, more fields than concrete roads,
and more farmhouses than office buildings.
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The South
Alabama
| Arkansas | Florida
| Georgia
| Kentucky |
Louisiana
| Mississippi
| North
Carolina | South
Carolina | Tennessee
| Virginia
| West Virginia
The South is perhaps the most distinctive region of the United States region.
The American Civil War (1861-65) devastated the Old South socially and economically.
Slavery was the issue that divided North and South. To northerners, it was
immoral; to southerners, it was integral to their way of life and their
plantation system of agriculture. The scars left by the war took decades
to heal. The abolition of slavery failed to provide African Americans with
political or economic equality; and it took a long, concerted effort to
end segregation. The "New South" has evolved into a manufacturing
region and high-rise buildings crowd the skylines of such cities as Atlanta
and Little Rock. The region however still has many landscapes to delight
the human sense of poetry and wonder. The region is blessed with plentiful
rainfall and a mild climate. Crops grow easily in its soil and can
be grown without frost for at least six months of the year. Owing
to its mild weather, the South has become a mecca for retirees from other
regions.
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Midwest
Illinois
| Indiana
|Iowa
| Kansas
| Michigan
| Minnesota
| Missouri
| Nebraska
| North
Dakota | Ohio
| South
Dakota | Wisconsin
The Midwest is known as the nation's "breadbasket." The fertile
soil of the region makes it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests
of cereal crops such as wheat, oats, and corn. Corn is the most important
of all American crops, as basic to American agriculture as iron is to American
industry. The annual crop is greater than the nation's yield of wheat,
rice and other grains combined. On hot, still midsummer nights
in the Corn Belt, farmers insist they can hear the corn growing.
Farms are normally located separate
from each other, close to the fields, and often beyond the sight of its
neighbors. The village or town is principally a place where the farm
family travels to buy supplies, to attend church and to go for entertainment
or political, social or business meetings. Midwesterners are praised
as being open, friendly, and straightforward. Their politics tend to be
cautious, but the caution is sometimes peppered with protest.
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The Southwest
Arizona | New Mexico
| Oklahoma | Texas
The Southwest is drier than the adjoining Midwest in weather. The population
is less dense and, with strong Spanish-American and Native-American components,
more ethnically varied than neighboring areas. Outside the cities, the region
is a land of open spaces, much of which is desert. The magnificent Grand
Canyon is located in this region, as is Monument Valley, the starkly beautiful
backdrop for many western movies. Monument Valley is within the Navajo Reservation,
home of the most populous American Indian tribe. To the south and east,
lie dozens of other Indian reservations, including those of the Hopi, Zuni,
and Apache tribes. Parts of the Southwest once belonged to Mexico. The United
States obtained this land following the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.
The population in the region is growing rapidly. Arizona, for example, now
rivals the southern states as a destination for retired Americans in search
of a warm climate. Since the last third of the 19th century, the immense
stretch of barren American desert has been growing smaller. In the
1860s, the wasteland extended from the Mississippi Valley almost to the
Pacific Coast. But settlers learned that the prairies could grow corn
and that the grasslands could feed cattle and sheep or yield wheat.
As they continued to cultivate the desert, its size decreased.
Dams on the Colorado and other rivers and aqueducts have brought water to
the once small towns of Las Vegas, Nevada, Phoenix, Arizona, and Albuquerque,
New Mexico, allowing them to become metropolises.
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The
West
Alaska
| Colorado
| California
| Hawaii
| Idaho
| Montana
| Nevada
| Oregon
| Utah
| Washington
| Wyoming
Americans have long regarded the
West as the last frontier. Yet California has a history of European settlement
older than that of most midwestern states. Spanish priests founded missions
along the California coast a few years before the outbreak of the American
Revolution. In the 19th century, California and Oregon entered the Union
ahead of many states to the east.
The West is a region of scenic beauty on a grand scale. In much of the West,
the population is sparse and the federal government owns and manages millions
of hectares of undeveloped land. Americans use these areas for recreational
and commercial activities, such as fishing, camping, hiking, boating, grazing,
lumbering, and mining. In recent years, some local residents who earn their
livelihoods on federal property have come into conflict with the government
agencies, which are charged with keeping land use within environmentally
acceptable limits.
Hawaii is the only state in the union
in which Asian Americans are the largest ethnic group. Beginning in the
1980s, large numbers of Asians have also settled in California. Los Angeles
- and Southern California as a whole - bears the stamp of its large Mexican-American
population. Now the second largest city in the nation, Los Angeles is best
known as the home of the Hollywood film industry. Fueled by the growth of
Los Angeles and the "Silicon Valley" area near San Jose, California
has become the most populous of all the states. Perhaps because so
many westerners have moved there from other regions to make a new start,
Western cities are known for their tolerance and a very strong "live-and-let-live"
attitude.
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