I totally misread this poll as what states do other people think Midwest states are.. derp.
Yea idaho people, wtf
Is Iowa the most "Midwest" of all the Midwest states?
- Thread starter torbee
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Yea idaho people, wtf
So we’ve got corn people and wheat people, what the hell do we do with the sunflower people in Kansas?
I would say Interstate 70 north, from KC to Pittsburgh, and everything north of that, including all of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and the northern half of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. West border is KC and east border is Pittsburgh. South of I-70 really borders on the south culturally in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
Having lived in small-town Montana just east of the Rockies, I agree about the people. The cowboy culture is certainly different and populations are sparser, but the sense of community is very similar between a town of 1000 in Montana and a town of 1000 in Iowa.
On their way from renting out an air mattress to building a $60 billion-plus community-upending, rent-scrambling juggernaut, Airbnb’s founders presumably devoted zero effort to drawing the ultimate map of American culture.
But they did it. Purely as a byproduct of their venture-backed ambition.
The magic comes not from the properties themselves but in the hosts’ descriptions of their rentals. In them, hundreds of thousands of Americans carefully describe their home and culture for an outside audience. Even better, each of those descriptions has approximate geographic coordinates.
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We here at the Department of Data are dedicated to exploring the weird and wondrous power of the data that defines our world. Read more.
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We first noted this found-data tour de force when looking for a cheap room on our way to the life-changing Ashfall Fossil Beds in eastern Nebraska. It felt like every other result on Airbnb said something like “a good-natured Midwestern welcome” or “loaded with Midwestern charm.”
Nothing makes a data journalist’s heart skip a beat quite like the word “Midwest.” Outlining the precise boundaries of America’s vaguest region has long been a rite of passage for our kind, from Soo Oh at Vox to David Montgomery at CityLab to Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight.
You can see why: It’s a concrete geographic construct linked to an ephemeral cultural one.
In Airbnb, we’d stumbled on an ideal data set for drawing that elusive line between culture and geography. More importantly, once we’d looked at more than half a million Airbnb listings and built a database powerful enough to answer “Where is the Midwest?” we could use it to answer a much more difficult follow-up: “What is the Midwest?” What cultural touchstones make it different from the rest of the country? And why is the foremost of those touchstones a toothy, googly-eyed game fish?
First, we had to — once and for all — define the Midwest.
Airbnb makes this easy. There are 12 states with listings that mention “Midwest” to an unusual degree. They trace the outline of a relatively expansive region running from the foothills of the Appalachians to the fertile central Great Plains.
By this measure, Iowa is the most Midwestern state in the union, followed by Indiana and Wisconsin. Rural folks tended to be more likely to describe themselves as Midwestern than did their city-dwelling cousins, so states with large urban populations, such as Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, slipped farther down the rankings. (Most mentions of Midwest outside the 12 core states are to the effect of “I’m originally from the Midwest” or in reference to a local street or landmark with Midwest in the name.)
Detailed maps hint that folks in the hilly Appalachian strip of southeastern Ohio and the arid western steppe of Nebraska and the Dakotas might not consider themselves as Midwestern as their friends in the Corn Belt, but Airbnb does not have enough data to categorically exclude them. Of all the non-Midwestern states, Oklahoma comes closest to making the cut (even when we exclude mentions of Midwest City, an Oklahoma City suburb). But it’s only half as Midwestern as Ohio or South Dakota, and less than a fifth as Midwestern as Iowa.
With the outline of the Midwest firmly drawn, we can calculate the most Midwestern cultural artifacts. To meet our criteria, a word had to be mentioned in at least 300 listings. We counted each word only once per listing, grouped different word forms together, and removed place names and brand names (sorry Hy-Vee, you would have topped the list!). We axed anything that got more than a third of its listings nationwide from a single state, since those are local touchstones, not regional ones.
By this measure, the most Midwestern thing on Earth is the walleye, a drab but delicious freshwater fish whose primeval bulging eyes and snaggled teeth would look at home in one of those Nebraska fossil beds. It’s the state fish of both South Dakota and Minnesota, and at least six Midwestern towns have claimed to be the walleye capital of the world.
Marianne Huskey Fechter is one of the most accomplished women in pro fishing history, with an angler of the year award and a major tournament win under her belt. She built it all on long hours on the water — and boatloads of walleye, which she describes as a “beautiful fish.”
“They’re just amazing,” Fechter said. Though amazing can also mean amazingly reluctant to bite.
“That’s why those of us that do it love it so much,” she said. “It’s one of those things that you’re always trying to figure it out and, you know, in the back of your mind, you’re never going to. It’s an endless challenge.”
Fechter talks of the fish in almost mystical terms, describing the “nostalgia of the walleye” that has hooked generations of Midwesterners. “Once you catch your first walleye,” she said, “you’ll understand.”
“The story of my life is just chasing after walleye,” said Minnesota guide, tournament angler and walleye whisperer Tony Roach. “I grew up in a fishing family. I mean, I was literally bottle-fed in a boat while my dad was walleye fishing.”
“It’s really threaded into the fiber of a lot of people in the Midwest,” Roach said.
Throughout much of the region, the fish is a constant presence. Walleye lurk in tens of thousands of Midwestern lakes, and unlike warm-water fish such as bass, they can be readily caught even in the depths of a Midwestern winter.
Anyone can catch a walleye with a few bucks’ worth of basic gear, some practice and a little luck, Roach said, though that doesn’t stop some Midwesterners from dropping the equivalent of several years’ salary on boats, McMansion-grade ice-fishing trailers and sophisticated electronics designed to better target the finicky fish.
“It’s a big part of the economy,” Roach said.
Two of the next three most-Midwestern words, “Heartland” and “Lutheran,” seem like gimmes. One’s a synonym for Midwestern, and — in the minds of many — the other might as well be. “Conservatory” and “orchestra” seem odd, but Google Trends confirms that both are unusually popular in Midwestern states. If you think you know why, let us know!
But they did it. Purely as a byproduct of their venture-backed ambition.
The magic comes not from the properties themselves but in the hosts’ descriptions of their rentals. In them, hundreds of thousands of Americans carefully describe their home and culture for an outside audience. Even better, each of those descriptions has approximate geographic coordinates.
Skip to end of carousel
Department of Data
We here at the Department of Data are dedicated to exploring the weird and wondrous power of the data that defines our world. Read more.
End of carousel
We first noted this found-data tour de force when looking for a cheap room on our way to the life-changing Ashfall Fossil Beds in eastern Nebraska. It felt like every other result on Airbnb said something like “a good-natured Midwestern welcome” or “loaded with Midwestern charm.”
Nothing makes a data journalist’s heart skip a beat quite like the word “Midwest.” Outlining the precise boundaries of America’s vaguest region has long been a rite of passage for our kind, from Soo Oh at Vox to David Montgomery at CityLab to Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight.
You can see why: It’s a concrete geographic construct linked to an ephemeral cultural one.
In Airbnb, we’d stumbled on an ideal data set for drawing that elusive line between culture and geography. More importantly, once we’d looked at more than half a million Airbnb listings and built a database powerful enough to answer “Where is the Midwest?” we could use it to answer a much more difficult follow-up: “What is the Midwest?” What cultural touchstones make it different from the rest of the country? And why is the foremost of those touchstones a toothy, googly-eyed game fish?
First, we had to — once and for all — define the Midwest.
Airbnb makes this easy. There are 12 states with listings that mention “Midwest” to an unusual degree. They trace the outline of a relatively expansive region running from the foothills of the Appalachians to the fertile central Great Plains.
By this measure, Iowa is the most Midwestern state in the union, followed by Indiana and Wisconsin. Rural folks tended to be more likely to describe themselves as Midwestern than did their city-dwelling cousins, so states with large urban populations, such as Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, slipped farther down the rankings. (Most mentions of Midwest outside the 12 core states are to the effect of “I’m originally from the Midwest” or in reference to a local street or landmark with Midwest in the name.)
Detailed maps hint that folks in the hilly Appalachian strip of southeastern Ohio and the arid western steppe of Nebraska and the Dakotas might not consider themselves as Midwestern as their friends in the Corn Belt, but Airbnb does not have enough data to categorically exclude them. Of all the non-Midwestern states, Oklahoma comes closest to making the cut (even when we exclude mentions of Midwest City, an Oklahoma City suburb). But it’s only half as Midwestern as Ohio or South Dakota, and less than a fifth as Midwestern as Iowa.
With the outline of the Midwest firmly drawn, we can calculate the most Midwestern cultural artifacts. To meet our criteria, a word had to be mentioned in at least 300 listings. We counted each word only once per listing, grouped different word forms together, and removed place names and brand names (sorry Hy-Vee, you would have topped the list!). We axed anything that got more than a third of its listings nationwide from a single state, since those are local touchstones, not regional ones.
By this measure, the most Midwestern thing on Earth is the walleye, a drab but delicious freshwater fish whose primeval bulging eyes and snaggled teeth would look at home in one of those Nebraska fossil beds. It’s the state fish of both South Dakota and Minnesota, and at least six Midwestern towns have claimed to be the walleye capital of the world.
Marianne Huskey Fechter is one of the most accomplished women in pro fishing history, with an angler of the year award and a major tournament win under her belt. She built it all on long hours on the water — and boatloads of walleye, which she describes as a “beautiful fish.”
“They’re just amazing,” Fechter said. Though amazing can also mean amazingly reluctant to bite.
“That’s why those of us that do it love it so much,” she said. “It’s one of those things that you’re always trying to figure it out and, you know, in the back of your mind, you’re never going to. It’s an endless challenge.”
Fechter talks of the fish in almost mystical terms, describing the “nostalgia of the walleye” that has hooked generations of Midwesterners. “Once you catch your first walleye,” she said, “you’ll understand.”
“The story of my life is just chasing after walleye,” said Minnesota guide, tournament angler and walleye whisperer Tony Roach. “I grew up in a fishing family. I mean, I was literally bottle-fed in a boat while my dad was walleye fishing.”
“It’s really threaded into the fiber of a lot of people in the Midwest,” Roach said.
Throughout much of the region, the fish is a constant presence. Walleye lurk in tens of thousands of Midwestern lakes, and unlike warm-water fish such as bass, they can be readily caught even in the depths of a Midwestern winter.
Anyone can catch a walleye with a few bucks’ worth of basic gear, some practice and a little luck, Roach said, though that doesn’t stop some Midwesterners from dropping the equivalent of several years’ salary on boats, McMansion-grade ice-fishing trailers and sophisticated electronics designed to better target the finicky fish.
“It’s a big part of the economy,” Roach said.
Two of the next three most-Midwestern words, “Heartland” and “Lutheran,” seem like gimmes. One’s a synonym for Midwestern, and — in the minds of many — the other might as well be. “Conservatory” and “orchestra” seem odd, but Google Trends confirms that both are unusually popular in Midwestern states. If you think you know why, let us know!
To me the Midwest in terms of whole states is Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa
Now if you wanted to get down on the county level you could say parts of PA, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and North and South Dakota fit. But parts of PA are also east coast, parts of Missouri is southern, and parts of Nebraska, Kansas, North and South Dakota are great plains which IMO is different from the midwest. Quite frankly I would argue that most of those states is great plains.
Kentucky is southern, not midwest. Maybe Louisville is midwest but that's about it.
And how dare anyone in Arkansas, Colorado, West Virginia, Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho even think of their states as being part of the midwest. 0% of your state is midwest.
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One could also argue that far, far, far northern Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan are their own "North Woods" culture/region. It gets kinda Canadian-esque up there.
Scruddlebutt must be a Missourian. Do you people actually like that St. Louis style pizza or is that a joke?
Ohio is not in the Midwest and I'll die on that hill every time.
Depends on whether or not you like provel cheese for the most part. I'm a big fan myself, but I can understand why some don't like it.
I think "crotch of the rust belt" is the best description that exists for the state of Ohio myself
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You love being wrong Whiskey!
Here are some pics from the "non-Midwest" state of Ohio:
shut your whore mouth
Casey’s General Store is as Midwest as Grant Wood and Busch Light
Curious why you say that. There is very discernible difference between Iowa and about 70% of Ohio. NE is Lake Erie and SE is Appalachia, but western Ohio is all corn fields.
To be entirely fair I havn't been up there but I don't see the culture of Canada as being all that different from the midwest.
Honestly I've known people who where Canadian and had no idea they were Canadian for a very long time.
I had at least 2 college professors and one of the university pastors were Canadian and I didn't know until they mentioned it after I had known them for a while.
So after you discover their dirty little secret… Did you still communicate with them? Or did you cut them out of your life entirely?
Dayton to Columbus to Cleveland is 100% Midwest. Cincinnati area is culturally more southern and SE Ohio is Appalachia. Again, I-70 from Pittsburgh to KC and everything north of there is the Midwest.
Nah we were cool. But that's my point, it's hard to tell between Canada and midwest sometimes. Occasionally if they say certain words and you are listening close you can catch it.
Anyway that's why I think the upper Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan are still one of us.
This map sums it up pretty well, although I'd add the extreme southern portion of Illinois in the Southern category. I'd argue that there should be a added region of Pennsyltucky to include SW PA, North Kentucky and the bottom thirds of OH, IN,and IL. That region is a whole nother world unto itself.
While one could nitpick, hard to find much fault with this, generally speaking.This map sums it up pretty well, although I'd add the extreme southern portion of Illinois in the Southern category. I'd argue that there should be a added region of Pennsyltucky to include SW PA, North Kentucky and the bottom thirds of OH, IN,and IL. That region is a whole nother world unto itself.
This map sums it up pretty well, although I'd add the extreme southern portion of Illinois in the Southern category. I'd argue that there should be a added region of Pennsyltucky to include SW PA, North Kentucky and the bottom thirds of OH, IN,and IL. That region is a whole nother world unto itself.
So old industry isn't part of the midwest?
Do you know how many corn fields on have just on my road alone?
- Sep 13, 2002
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Yeah, that is the one sub-culture in that graphic that I think is pretty dumb. I mean, Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee are quintessential Midwestern cities.
This is the most old industry, Midwestern post you'll ever read.
You know what's dumb, how insulted I am by the insinuation that I'm not midwestern.
It's a meaningless not entirely well defined geographic label and yet I'll meet anyone who suggests I'm not part of that meaningless geographic label on the dueling grounds at dawn!
The Buffalo to Chicago region is da bears, oh jeez, dontcha know mashup of snowmobiling, pop drinking, ice fishing wypipos, not to be confused with their close relatives to the upper midwest. Their ancestors slaved away in factories instead of fields.
Yeah. There's harder urban edge up there or something. Even in small towns. 5k small town in Iowa or Nebraska seem a lot more similar culturally than 5k small town in Rustbelt.
I thought the map was good in general without nitpicking. If I'm going to nitpick, if you add Old Industry and Up North to the Midwest, it's basically the definition I gave the Midwest earlier. (North of I-70 between KC and Pittsburgh.) I'm not going to comment on anything in the West. I think you include Texas, but it goes up to Tulsa and OKC, and over to parts of Arkansas. I like the Gulf Coast, but probably stop around Gulf Shores. The Gulf Coast part of MS and NOLA are really "Cajun" I'd not have any category that is Florida. I'd have "Miami" in the south, and then the rest is just the South. I'd also have some different subcategories in the Down South area. I'd have the "Deep South" which is MS, AL, GA, and SC. Then I'd have the Mid-Atlantic which are those portions of NC and VA currently in the South. Then I'd have the "Mid South" Which is the South portions of TN, KY, OH, IN, northern Arkansas, Southern MO and Southern IL.
But in general, it's a decent enough map, that if you include Old Industry and Up North in the Midwest, has basically gotten it close to correct.
- Sep 13, 2002
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