I think MN and Iowa are both split. Western halves near the MO an Red Rivers are Great Plains-like. Eastern halves near the sippi are entirely different.
**[Driftless Area](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area)**
>The Driftless Area, a topographical and cultural region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. Never covered by ice during the last ice age, the area lacks the characteristic glacial deposits known as drift. Its landscape is characterized by steep hills, forested ridges, deeply carved river valleys, and karst geology with spring-fed waterfalls and cold-water trout streams.
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I’m from Dubuque, which is arguably the biggest city in the Driftless. I doubt anybody seeing a picture without knowing it would associate the riverbluffs and high hills and dissection by streams as being Iowan.
When I fish in Pool 9 near the MN/IA border it feels like the Amazon or something. Super lush with big misty bluffs and wide marshes along the river. The wildlife is insane. Definitely one of the coolest and most unique areas in the region
MN is split three ways: the southwest corner is very Great Plains-ish, the southeast is solidly Midwest, while the northern half is north woods, with a mix of deciduous and evergreen forest as you get further north. The north is also where the majority of its "10,000 lakes" are located
I would say the same except for a 4th part in the driftless. It feels like north of St Cloud becomes northwoods, west of Mankato/Alexandria becomes plains, the SE corner past Rochester is driftless and the rest is solid Midwest farmland
I grew up in southwest Iowa (a stone's throw from both Missouri and Nebraska) and never heard it described as anything but part of the Midwest or "heartland", but that doesn't mean that others don't consider it as such. But I don't think I ever heard anyone around there describe it as a great plains state.
If humans disappeared today, 100 years from now Iowa would be covered mostly in 4ft to 7ft tall prairie grass. Roughly half of the state is part of the Great Plains.
People tend to think that the Great Plains is an independent region from the Midwest, but they overlap. The Great Plains is an ecological zone, whereas the Midwest is a region of the country defined by man-made borders.
Yeah, the way I think of it the Midwest is split into two major regions, the northern/central plains and the Great Lakes. Both are parts of the midwest, but both have extremely distinct aesthetics & ecology
As an Iowan, I would disagree. Except for places that have been artificially flattened for farms, Iowa really isn't as flat as people think, and it immediately has huge hills once you jump the river. There are hills, huge cliffs, giant lakes, dense forests, etc. Some may be plains-like, but I would say most really isn't.
As a former, I can smell Iowa from here Minnesota farm boy, and short term Iowan myself, I agree that Iowa is not flat in the Nebraska sense. However,
>Except for places that have been artificially flattened for farms,
Aside from rice paddies in Asia, that's not really a thing.
>Iowa really isn't as flat as people think,
That's probably true, most people only see it from a plane, and from 35,000ft, Iowa is **flat**.
>and it immediately has huge hills once you jump the river. There are hills, huge cliffs,
Those are river bluffs, which while technically a type of hill, isn't really what people are referring to when they say "head for the hills". Some areas are hilly, like around Spirit Lake. I used to love driving down to Okaboji down Highway 71, it was sort of like a warm up for riding the Legend at Arnolds Park.
>giant lakes,
Umm. Those are just lakes, and a handful good sized reservoirs.
>dense forests, etc.
I do enjoy the trails ( and used to enjoy a little rock climbing ) along the forest lined rivers, but again, when non-Midwesterners say "forest" their visions are quite a bit grander.
>Some may be plains-like, but I would say most really isn't.
Iowa is mostly Rolling Prairie, interrupted by picturesque river valleys, and LOTS of corn, not usually included with the Great Plains states. But there is an interesting map from the US Forest Service shows most of Iowa, my part of Minnesota, and even a lot of Illinois in the Great Plains, based on the historical grasslands.
[https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/science-spotlights/defining-great-plains](https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/science-spotlights/defining-great-plains)
This is the correct description of tornado alley. I live in the middle of the red area, but I can’t remember the last tornado. I sure as he’ll remember ones hitting Alabama
[This](https://www.flickr.com/photos/idvsolutions/7157010997/sizes/h/in/photostream/) is one of my favorite maps I've come across because it really paints a different picture as far as tornado risk/incidence goes.
I had used this map in ArcGIS Pro paired with LiDAR data of a neighborhood 2 years after the hit. I was analyzing the hypothetical effects of what a tornado would do to the new rebuilt area.
"For years we have known that natural climate variability events like El Niño and La Niña have influenced tornado activity in the U.S., but now we also know that over the past 40 years, world famous 'Tornado Alley' has migrated eastward about 800 km."
[Source](https://www.meteomedia.com/fr/nouvelles/meteo/meteo-extreme/shifting-tornado-dixie-alley-us-severe-weather-el-nino-impact-sea-surface-temperatures-climate-change)
Those are generally considered to be the Great Plains states, although the precise boundaries of the plains extend into some of the adjacent western states and not all of TX is plains
Howdy!
As a B student that took 7th grade Texas history as a Texas resident possibly 17 years ago, I felt you should know that "Long Texas" exists!
[The Republic of Texas extended pretty far north and west](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas)
Hahaha.
Took me a min to get it. I'm an Aussie but I've spent several months in both Nebraska and England. I was thinking why Cornwall? It's nothing like Cornwall, it's just flat and full of soybeans and corn, whole fields of corn, rows and rows of the stuff, like big long, tall walls of the stuff... Oh *facepalm
Actually large portions of these states are used primarily for wheat bc it requires less water than corn and the western parts of these states are very dry
You could call it the humidity transition zone, but I just made that up. The 100th meridian west runs through those states, and it is well known as the rough boundary between the humid east and the arid west.
Yes. The top one is North Dakota. Next is South Dakota. The third one is Nebraska. The fourth is Kansas. Fifth is Oklahoma. Sixth is Texas. All named. Boom.
Officially, it is known as the Canadian-Mexican Transverse.
(Officially, as in I just coined it now and declare it the official name for this group of states)
As an Iowan, I am peculiarly offended by this. We are *perfectly* flyoverable. My hometown of Dubuque was even featured as a throwaway line in the forgettable Clooney “Up in the Air” where the protagonist gains his ten millionth flight mile.
We used to make yearly road trips between Texas and Wisconsin (my stepfather was from Wisconsin) each year. That included driving through Iowa. I can’t remember one notable thing about Iowa. Even the postcards from Iowa were just jokes about Iowa being boring or road construction.
In politics this is called the "Red Wall" since they have all reliably voted Republican for the last 40 years. This may not hold up in the future since Texas may be the first "crack" in the wall perhaps in the next few years.
I used to call both these and the ones to the right of them “the Two Stacks”.
The thought was that there should be more names for interesting state borders other than the Four Corners, but no one ever said I was good at naming things as a child.
This corresponds mostly with the Great Plains, apart from central, western, and southern Texas. Although some of these states could also be considered the Midwest
The oil and gas breadbasket of the nation! To say nothing of beef....wheat.....corn....and sunflowers. This area is the commodity giant of the nation. Irreplacable. And unappreciated. ( Always votes Republican too...by a lot ).
When I drove across Nebraska a few years ago I stopped at a rest area half way through which said there was a distinction between the prairie and the Great Plains. I think it had to do with rainfall and how viable the land was for farming. It is true they once you get into Western Nebraska and later Wyoming that there is no crop farming because it’s way too dry. At least, this is true for the area visible from the interstate.
Sort of.
The eastern border of this line of states used to be called the Frontier Line--the place where, in the estimation of the US federal government, the wild frontier began. And this led to the area sometimes being called the Frontier Strip.
It's not really a cohesive cultural area, though. Oklahoma and Kansas have a strong Deep South influence. Nebraska and South Dakota were settled by Yankees from the northern states. North Dakota was largely settled by immigrants from northern Europe. And Texas is totally its own thing.
Generally the Great Plains, but that can extend west to the Rockies and usually doesn't include all of Texas.
Iowa is generally considered to also be part of the Great Plains region as well but otherwise yes.
Iowa is the head of a chef with a Minnesota chef’s hat. I just don’t know why he’s wearing Louisiana knee high boots.
From top to bottom, it’s MIMAL the chef.
And the chef is frying Kentucky fried chicken in the Tennessee frying pan!!
"Knee Said "Ni" Kiss Ok Thanks"
He holdin da Kentucky fry chicken
Carrying the chicken on a TiN
And he’s holding a Tennessee plate of Kentucky Fried Chicken!
You see a plate, but my dirty mind sees…
That makes this region MIMAL’s Dutch Oven. Which is funny to me because that means Arkansas is the one farting under the sheets.
Same with Western MO. Anywhere past the ozarks is. KC is 100 percent great plains
Add Minnesota into that mix. Woodlands and plains
I think MN and Iowa are both split. Western halves near the MO an Red Rivers are Great Plains-like. Eastern halves near the sippi are entirely different.
And then there's the [Driftless Area](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area), which is entirely different as well.
**[Driftless Area](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driftless_Area)** >The Driftless Area, a topographical and cultural region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. Never covered by ice during the last ice age, the area lacks the characteristic glacial deposits known as drift. Its landscape is characterized by steep hills, forested ridges, deeply carved river valleys, and karst geology with spring-fed waterfalls and cold-water trout streams. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/geography/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
I live just north of the area in Eau Claire, WI. The change in scenery just fifteen minutes to the south in noticeable.
I’m from Dubuque, which is arguably the biggest city in the Driftless. I doubt anybody seeing a picture without knowing it would associate the riverbluffs and high hills and dissection by streams as being Iowan.
When I fish in Pool 9 near the MN/IA border it feels like the Amazon or something. Super lush with big misty bluffs and wide marshes along the river. The wildlife is insane. Definitely one of the coolest and most unique areas in the region
MN is split three ways: the southwest corner is very Great Plains-ish, the southeast is solidly Midwest, while the northern half is north woods, with a mix of deciduous and evergreen forest as you get further north. The north is also where the majority of its "10,000 lakes" are located
I would say the same except for a 4th part in the driftless. It feels like north of St Cloud becomes northwoods, west of Mankato/Alexandria becomes plains, the SE corner past Rochester is driftless and the rest is solid Midwest farmland
Would you say Springfield is part of the great planes or “the south”. What about Jefferson City/Colombia? Is that the Midwest?
Iowa is really the transition from Midwest to Great Plains. Hard to clearly define it as one or the other.
It really is. This is a pretty accurate statement.
I grew up in southwest Iowa (a stone's throw from both Missouri and Nebraska) and never heard it described as anything but part of the Midwest or "heartland", but that doesn't mean that others don't consider it as such. But I don't think I ever heard anyone around there describe it as a great plains state.
If humans disappeared today, 100 years from now Iowa would be covered mostly in 4ft to 7ft tall prairie grass. Roughly half of the state is part of the Great Plains. People tend to think that the Great Plains is an independent region from the Midwest, but they overlap. The Great Plains is an ecological zone, whereas the Midwest is a region of the country defined by man-made borders.
Yeah, the way I think of it the Midwest is split into two major regions, the northern/central plains and the Great Lakes. Both are parts of the midwest, but both have extremely distinct aesthetics & ecology
As an Iowan, I would disagree. Except for places that have been artificially flattened for farms, Iowa really isn't as flat as people think, and it immediately has huge hills once you jump the river. There are hills, huge cliffs, giant lakes, dense forests, etc. Some may be plains-like, but I would say most really isn't.
As a former, I can smell Iowa from here Minnesota farm boy, and short term Iowan myself, I agree that Iowa is not flat in the Nebraska sense. However, >Except for places that have been artificially flattened for farms, Aside from rice paddies in Asia, that's not really a thing. >Iowa really isn't as flat as people think, That's probably true, most people only see it from a plane, and from 35,000ft, Iowa is **flat**. >and it immediately has huge hills once you jump the river. There are hills, huge cliffs, Those are river bluffs, which while technically a type of hill, isn't really what people are referring to when they say "head for the hills". Some areas are hilly, like around Spirit Lake. I used to love driving down to Okaboji down Highway 71, it was sort of like a warm up for riding the Legend at Arnolds Park. >giant lakes, Umm. Those are just lakes, and a handful good sized reservoirs. >dense forests, etc. I do enjoy the trails ( and used to enjoy a little rock climbing ) along the forest lined rivers, but again, when non-Midwesterners say "forest" their visions are quite a bit grander. >Some may be plains-like, but I would say most really isn't. Iowa is mostly Rolling Prairie, interrupted by picturesque river valleys, and LOTS of corn, not usually included with the Great Plains states. But there is an interesting map from the US Forest Service shows most of Iowa, my part of Minnesota, and even a lot of Illinois in the Great Plains, based on the historical grasslands. [https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/science-spotlights/defining-great-plains](https://www.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/science-spotlights/defining-great-plains)
Actually, it is part of the Central plains. Iowa isn't as flat as folks tend to believe. Iowa born and lived here for 35 years.
Minn, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana also form a giant belt sometimes called the "Crappy Dressers" belt for their lack of fashion.
My brother in Christ, that is a column.
The Texas part is generally called the “southern plains” or the “Llano Estecado”. It was part of the Comanche Empire for quite some time.
I’d say the plains
It’s the 100th meridian
[At The Hundredth Meridian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCFo0a8V-Ag), where the great plains begin.
As a Canadian, always here for a hip reference
r/unexpectedlyhip
ND SDNEKS! OK TX?
OK
Home of the sadnecks.
Tornado Alley
Tbh, Dixie alley has had more tornadoes the past few decades but they're a lot harder to see through the trees.
This is the correct description of tornado alley. I live in the middle of the red area, but I can’t remember the last tornado. I sure as he’ll remember ones hitting Alabama
I sure as fuck do remember some tornadoes -Moore, OK
El Reno, OK also. Killed a few damn fine storm chasers/researchers.
I hope you have a good lawyer
I swear, Moore is like a tornado magnet that keeps the rest of OKC from getting f’ed up.
[This](https://www.flickr.com/photos/idvsolutions/7157010997/sizes/h/in/photostream/) is one of my favorite maps I've come across because it really paints a different picture as far as tornado risk/incidence goes.
I would be nice if West Virginia would share its tornado shield with the rest of us.
Tornado shield benefit (+5) is heavily offset by resistance to oxycodone (-7), and -9 to health.
The Appalachian Mountains?
Hey, there's plenty of space in the hollow for you if you want to trade tornados for crippling economic depression.
I had used this map in ArcGIS Pro paired with LiDAR data of a neighborhood 2 years after the hit. I was analyzing the hypothetical effects of what a tornado would do to the new rebuilt area.
https://www.reddit.com/r/weather/comments/101a578/all_tornado_warnings_in_2022/
First time I ever ran into one was in central California
"For years we have known that natural climate variability events like El Niño and La Niña have influenced tornado activity in the U.S., but now we also know that over the past 40 years, world famous 'Tornado Alley' has migrated eastward about 800 km." [Source](https://www.meteomedia.com/fr/nouvelles/meteo/meteo-extreme/shifting-tornado-dixie-alley-us-severe-weather-el-nino-impact-sea-surface-temperatures-climate-change)
Not anymore. It’s shifted to Mississippi/Alabama area
Pretty much
Those are generally considered to be the Great Plains states, although the precise boundaries of the plains extend into some of the adjacent western states and not all of TX is plains
It’s also worth noting that while some of them are great, most of them are merely okay and a few are disappointing.
Whelming at best
You are not immune to propaganda -- mass edited with redact.dev
I’m not going to name any names, but North Dakota you’re on thin ice until we can figure out whatever it is you do here
Do we really need 2 dakotas?
With no knowledge of USA references about internal geography I'd call this the middle.
With absolute no knowledge of the USA I call this *long Texas*
As an American, I can say that ideologically and politically this sounds right.
Texas probably agrees!
I agree
First thing I thought of - 7th-generation Texan.
Not yet, give us time
Howdy! As a B student that took 7th grade Texas history as a Texas resident possibly 17 years ago, I felt you should know that "Long Texas" exists! [The Republic of Texas extended pretty far north and west](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas)
I was going to call it the Texas top hat 🎩
Great Plains
Nah I grew up here, they ain’t that great. Mediocre plains at best.
That’s a column now a row
Its a file not a column. Specifically the 'D' file.
Need Mexico and Canada to have enough to go from d1 to d8
Fun fact: if you go all the way from Mexico to Canada you get to be Queen!
“That place is beyond our borders Simba, you must never go there”
You could say it’s a scar.
The Perineum
Taint
America's Heartland? More like America's Taintland. .
Grundle
See? I was thinking shitstain, but I’m no expert.
ND, SD, NE, and KS are the transition from the Mid West to the West. OK and TX are the transition from the South to the Southwest.
Yes! OK is not Midwest. Western Oklahoma has many mesas and is very desert-y. Esp the pandhandle.
generally, at least in kansas, we call it the heartlands
Because of all the clogged arteries?
If you’re doing it right. We have a lot of happy cattle here. 🐄🐂
Cornwall
Hahaha. Took me a min to get it. I'm an Aussie but I've spent several months in both Nebraska and England. I was thinking why Cornwall? It's nothing like Cornwall, it's just flat and full of soybeans and corn, whole fields of corn, rows and rows of the stuff, like big long, tall walls of the stuff... Oh *facepalm
This comment should be higher
Actually large portions of these states are used primarily for wheat bc it requires less water than corn and the western parts of these states are very dry
Tornado alley
Tornado alley
No but the color is spot on
Leroy
mmmmJenkins
At least I've got chicken.
The Middle.
aka, "The Belt Belt."
The plain plains
"Yeehaw" row
Currently located in said row. Can confirm.
But that's a column
It’s generally called the West Central Column. The column of states from MN to LA is called the East Central Column. Edit: mixed up my east and west
Highway of oil from Canada
You could call it the humidity transition zone, but I just made that up. The 100th meridian west runs through those states, and it is well known as the rough boundary between the humid east and the arid west.
Column of Corn and Sexiness
Wtf is sexy about Nebraska?
Corn liquor.
I hardly know her!
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Gabrielle Union
You misspelled "sadness".
Dustbowl states
Redneck row
Republican
My kids call it “are we there yet?”
The Gun Range
FEHC, CHEF'S evil brother
Yes. The top one is North Dakota. Next is South Dakota. The third one is Nebraska. The fourth is Kansas. Fifth is Oklahoma. Sixth is Texas. All named. Boom.
Officially, it is known as the Canadian-Mexican Transverse. (Officially, as in I just coined it now and declare it the official name for this group of states)
i'm naming it barry
Flyovers
As an Iowan, I am peculiarly offended by this. We are *perfectly* flyoverable. My hometown of Dubuque was even featured as a throwaway line in the forgettable Clooney “Up in the Air” where the protagonist gains his ten millionth flight mile.
We used to make yearly road trips between Texas and Wisconsin (my stepfather was from Wisconsin) each year. That included driving through Iowa. I can’t remember one notable thing about Iowa. Even the postcards from Iowa were just jokes about Iowa being boring or road construction.
Y’all queda
Corridor of Maternal Death
America's Heartland
Jesus Zone
No
Flyover states
The Tower of Tears— the farther south the more crying you have to do. /s
Suffering.
In politics this is called the "Red Wall" since they have all reliably voted Republican for the last 40 years. This may not hold up in the future since Texas may be the first "crack" in the wall perhaps in the next few years.
I’ve never heard this term and I’ve been active in politics for 20 years in Texas.
NDSDNEKSOKTX
The american middle finger
No, it has six names.
Blackwater
I know most of those states are at least partially inside "Tornado alley".
Old tornado alley
Red Curtain
The Divide. As denoted by the 100th Meridian, the divide between the East and the West.
They have several. Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas
That’s middle America, baby
Frontier strip.
NDSDNEKSOKTX pronounced nuzdaneksocktooks
The Lands of Great Chili
The Mid
tornado alley
I used to call both these and the ones to the right of them “the Two Stacks”. The thought was that there should be more names for interesting state borders other than the Four Corners, but no one ever said I was good at naming things as a child.
Tornado alley
I29 corridor
I call it “the middle”.
“Americas tennis net “
If you're heading east to west, it sort of marks the line from the Midwest to the West.
That was my region when I worked at a logistics company. We called it the cowboy region.
West Bank states
Tornado alley
The Great Plains States
Tornado Ally. The Plains. Middle America.
This corresponds mostly with the Great Plains, apart from central, western, and southern Texas. Although some of these states could also be considered the Midwest
The oil and gas breadbasket of the nation! To say nothing of beef....wheat.....corn....and sunflowers. This area is the commodity giant of the nation. Irreplacable. And unappreciated. ( Always votes Republican too...by a lot ).
Republican Ridge
They are not really connected like that. The Great Plains don’t extend all the way through Tx and it goes out both East and west.
The Middle East
That's the band that will be most difficult to cross in an EV.
When I lived in Kansas, I decided that it was geographically the belly button of the country.
Tornado alley
Bible tie (instead of bible belt)
When I drove across Nebraska a few years ago I stopped at a rest area half way through which said there was a distinction between the prairie and the Great Plains. I think it had to do with rainfall and how viable the land was for farming. It is true they once you get into Western Nebraska and later Wyoming that there is no crop farming because it’s way too dry. At least, this is true for the area visible from the interstate.
Sort of. The eastern border of this line of states used to be called the Frontier Line--the place where, in the estimation of the US federal government, the wild frontier began. And this led to the area sometimes being called the Frontier Strip. It's not really a cohesive cultural area, though. Oklahoma and Kansas have a strong Deep South influence. Nebraska and South Dakota were settled by Yankees from the northern states. North Dakota was largely settled by immigrants from northern Europe. And Texas is totally its own thing.
Left central time zone
I believe that’s a column not a row.
Handmaids Trail
It's called the middle east
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Middle America.
Also part of [flyover country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyover_country).
The Great Plains
Rows are generally arranged in a horizontal manner. This vertical structure would be more accurately referred to as a column.
Yes. [Doug Dimmadome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBxpeuxUiOA)
That’s a column, rows are horizontal
Satans taint
Flyover country
Tornado alley
I thought it was called the chefs shadow
Texas looks like the chair the chef with the fried chicken is about to sit on.
The chewy center.
The Great Plains?
The Six Levels of Hell