West Virginia

[Frodo]

Poll has been edited to include the Northeast. 

As before, pick the one option that you think best describes the state. 

[Deus Naturae]

Southern

[ElectionsGuy]

Southern

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

My grandmother (who was born and raised in West Virginia) says southern, but my Uncle (born in New Jersey, lived in West Virginia from the age of 12 to 25) says northern. I agree with both. It has (or had) a midwestern economy, with a southern culture.

[muon2]

WV is the only state that is entirely in the Appalachian region as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission established by Congress. In 2009 the ARC divided the Appalachians into five subregions based on current economic and transportation data. That placed most of WV in the North Central subregion with southern OH and the northern panhandle with PA in the North region. Only a few counties in the southern end are placed in a subregion with KY.



Other analyses put the line further north with Morgantown, Parkersburg and Wheeling in the industrial north and Charleston to the south. In 1982 Joel Garreau couldn't really classify southern WV as being in one region, and he characterized it as being like the North when times are good and like the South when times are bad.

In my visits I find most of the population is more like western PA than anywhere else. I can't count that as Midwestern or Southern.

[free my dawg]

How would WV be Midwestern?

[DINGO Joe]

How would WV be Midwestern?

If you think Ohio or Pittsburgh are Midwestern. 

[DINGO Joe]

There are two parts to WV, the two far eastern counties in the panhandle that have tripled in population since 1960 and are part of metro DC/Boston to Atlanta-opolis, and the rest of the state that has lost 10% of it's population and just marinates in it's past.  Never been in the southern part of the state, but the north part seems more West PA or Youngstown OH (Pittsburgh has reinvented itself, so it's not a good match). 

[TDAS04]

Southern

[DemPGH]

With firsthand knowledge. . . Northern WV is very similar to western PA, although the people in northern WV are probably a bit friendlier. Otherwise, it is identical.

However, the more you drive down I-79 the more WV becomes distinctly southern (I knew a girl once from around or below Charleston - she was a southern belle, let me tell you). It's not midwestern, neither in region nor in how the people are. To a degree, Appalachian is its own thing, but overall WV is more southern than anything else.

Western Ohio becomes clearly midwestern in culture, attitudes, region, etc.

[TNF]

Midwestern.

[Gass3268]

I would call it Northeastern before calling it Midwestern.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Option 3 fits the least poorly.

[muon2]

Another way of viewing the area is to consider that both NY and PA have large population centers on the eastern seaboard and then a third to half the population of their states in the Appalachians or beyond. Together MD and WV would fit that same pattern as NY and PA, but historically VA expanded west, cutting off MD. If MD/WV had been the destiny of MD following the Potomac into the Appalachians then passing over to the Ohio Valley, a capital near Frederick would parallel the geographic location of Albany and Harrisburg at the eastern edge of the Appalachians.

Today MD and WV continue to sit at the border of the south and the north, with the northern influence growing stronger over time.

[Donerail]

Voted Southern, but then again my family's only from (and I've only visited) the part lumped in with Kentucky in the map.

[PJ]

Identifies the best with the Upper South.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Southern is the best fit for it. It's too conservative for the other two.

[Beet]

From my vantage point, north is northeast, south is south, and west is midwest. And since West Virginia is to the west, it's midwest.

[Flake]

It's midwestern.

[morgieb]

All are dodgy fits. For those voting South, it ain't Baptist and it isn't a slave state.

It's in its own hyperspace pretty much. Upper South/Appalachia is the best way of describing it.

[Donerail]

All are dodgy fits. For those voting South, it ain't Baptist and it isn't a slave state.

Though dominated by small, unaffiliated churches, the plurality denomination appears to be Baptist, and it was a slave state (as part of Virginia), though you're correct that slavery wasn't as important (though not entirely irrelevant either - there were several major plantations).

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

All are dodgy fits. For those voting South, it ain't Baptist and it isn't a slave state.

Maryland was a slave state, yet it's rarely considered South.

[politicallefty]

I think it's Southern with a good amount of Midwestern mixed in. I have a hard time calling it Southern or Midwestern though (and it's definitely not Northeastern). It really seems to be an amalgamation of the states it borders.

[DINGO Joe]

All are dodgy fits. For those voting South, it ain't Baptist and it isn't a slave state.

It's in its own hyperspace pretty much. Upper South/Appalachia is the best way of describing it.

West Virginia was a slave state, and their first petition for statehood was rejected because it didn't provide any means for emancipation, and in fact the state constitution that was deemed acceptable wouldn't have freed any slave until 1867 or any slave over 21. 

[Del Tachi]

I voted Northeastern.  Its a difficult fit for sure, but may be the best.

West Virginia is basically a cultural extension of Western Pennsylvania and Appalachian New York that never commercialized or urbanized like those two places did in the 1930s-1950s.

So, going to West Virginia today is basically taking a time machine back to Johnstown, PA circa 1925.