How do you define the Midwest?

[kphoger]

Honestly, the terrain of Illinois surprised me.  I wasn't expecting so many farms that far east.

Coming back to this thought...  When I think of "Illinois countryside", this is what comes to mind first.  And, when I think of boring ol' I-55, this is what comes to mind.  Then there's stuff like this and this.  Eventually, I also think of more wooded areas, but that's not what comes to mind first.

[Scott5114]

National Geographic shaped my sense of United States regions as we had a set of paper maps that divided Great Plains from the Midwest.  So as NatGeo wrote, so as NatGeo does...

I think that largely influences how I divide the Midwest as well, lol.

Of course, they only divided it there because they had to print their maps on paper with edges.

I think another thing that might have shaped my perception is the old "Midwest/Great Lakes" board on the forum, since the rest of it is "Central States".  Even now, my brain still uses the old name for the board, despite Kentucky being merged in to make it "Great Lakes and Ohio Valley".

I recently stumbled across a draft map I made when we were trying to decide how to split things up originally. I think it underscores that any sort of understanding of the world based on those splits is folly.