Is Missouri Southern or Midwestern?

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Is Missouri Southern or Midwestern?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes.  The urban areas are midwestern, while the rural areas are southern.

[freepcrusher]

basically, I see the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th CDs as more midwestern. I see the 4th, 7th, and 8th as more southern.

[Suburbia]

Missouri is Midwestern. The Bootheel might be more Southern based, but it;s Midwestern. That's why Gephardt's 2004 Iowa strategy almost worked until the 4th place finish.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It is much more rural than southern in which the confederacy flourished. The same can be said about IN,OH, and KY and MN and IA. You have southern accents but Dixiecrats winning. That's why OH is so critical.

[CatoMinor]

Both. Just Like Texas is Southern and South Western.

[muon2]

St Louis is a Midwestern city similar to many in the Great Lakes states. Kansas City mirrors other Plains cities of the Midwest. Together their metros make up over half the state's population. Add the population north of the Missouri River which is generally Midwestern in outlook as Little Dixie has faded in influence and one has over two thirds of the population. That leaves only the Bootheel and the Ozarks with a southern tinge. Many states have areas that don't fit the region, but one should classify them on the basis of the majority of the population today, not the perception from 150 years ago.

[pbrower2a]

Think of Greater Kansas City and St. Louis as opposite ends of barbells, and US 50 (south of I-70) as the rod. The weights and the rod, and everything north of them are Midwestern. To the south of the barbells, everything is Southern -- mostly Mountain South (it bears an uncanny resemblance to West Virginia) except for the extreme southeast, which is an extension of the Deep South.   

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Geographically, it's Midwestern.  Culturally, it's more Southern, especially the rural areas.

[7,052,770]

As of July 1, 2012, Southern. Missouri made its choice.

[jimrtex]

As of July 1, 2012, Southern. Missouri made its choice.

Are New Jersey and Maryland midwestern?  Or Nebraska eastern?

[Mr. Illini]

We in Chicago consider it southern, but we obviously have a unique perspective on it.

[ElectionsGuy]

Only about 1/3 of Missouri's population is actually southern.

[muon2]

Only about 1/3 of Missouri's population is actually southern.

I posted a map with a split of MO showing the greatest extent of the "southern" population. It is 3/8 of the population in that map.

[jimrtex]

This state has all four major regions of our country in a way. Northern Missouri is clearly midwestern while southern Missouri can be argued to be southern. However, there's alot of the northeast culture in the urban areas of the state such as unions and factories on a historical level. It's also the gateway to the west.

That is not the hoop you have go through to get to the East?

[eric82oslo]

Culturally and religiously, definitely southern, as almost the entire population are baptists. Or to be more precise; they make up the plurality in almost every single county of the state.

[Adam Griffin]

We were having a discussion in chat on this some months ago, and I (rather loosely) threw together a map of "the levels of Southron" according to my own worldview, being from one of the few states that is indisputably Southern. I'll acknowledge that in some areas it needs to be tweaked due to it being compiled quickly, but I stand by the general indicators on the map regarding MO. On balance/as a whole, I don't consider FL, MD, WV, KY, MO, OK or TX to be "Southern" (and lol DE).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Maryland?

[Adam Griffin]

Maryland?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Mason-Dixon line has no relevance whatsoever in modern days. Maryland is most definitely northeastern. Hell, even NoVa is essentially northwestern at this point.

[eric82oslo]

Here is Wikipedia's take on the three layers of southerness (from it's Dixie article):



Missouri, alongside West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware belongs to the weakest layer.

1st & deepest layer: 8 states
2nd layer: 5 states
3rd & weakest layer: 4 states

[Adam Griffin]

The Mason-Dixon line has no relevance whatsoever in modern days. Maryland is most definitely northeastern.

Yet no Southern state has fundamentally transformed to the point where its entire culture has been purged. Obviously a more modern consideration has to be made, but M-D is still something that should be considered with what I did, which is why it's "token" (as in, vestigial). I know some will disagree based on the same thing you are, and that anywhere around DC should be considered Southern at all, but my main concerns with accuracy for this fall more along the gradients much farther south and out west.

[muon2]

We were having a discussion in chat on this some months ago, and I (rather loosely) threw together a map of "the levels of Southron" according to my own worldview, being from one of the few states that is indisputably Southern. I'll acknowledge that in some areas it needs to be tweaked due to it being compiled quickly, but I stand by the general indicators on the map regarding MO. On balance/as a whole, I don't consider FL, MD, WV, KY, MO, OK or TX to be "Southern" (and lol DE).

Here's my map of Dixie divided into regions that I posted last year. I completely leave MD out except for the southern end of DelMarVa, and NoVa is out as well. OTOH I do put a lot of the area of MO in Dixie; in particular the Ozarks and the Little Dixie region north of the Missouri river. However, that is only about 3/8 of the state's population, which is why MO stays Midwestern over all.



To be clear on the map, the green of south FL is not part of Dixie (which is why it's green) and the central FL region from Jacksonville to Tampa is a border zone. The Houston metro is a border zone, too, but with its large Mexican population I put it on my map with the other regions that share that demographic.

[Sol]

The Mason-Dixon line has no relevance whatsoever in modern days. Maryland is most definitely northeastern. Hell, even NoVa is essentially northwestern at this point.

It should be noted that is not true of the entire state though.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Here's my map:

I included AL, GA, LA, MS, and SC as the "Deep South," all the other former Confederate states as the "Outer South", and DE, KY, MD, MO, OK, and WV as the "Border States."