Which Southern states are most "culturally Southern?"

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

IN, IA, OH ARE PART OF RED WALL

Remove IA, add MD and DE. Otherwise good map.

[RINO Tom]

...

From an outside perspective (though I did live in Ohio for one year!), Sol's comment about Georgia tracks with how I feel about Illinois when it comes to this. By virtue of being the de facto capital region, Chicago feels deeply Midwestern, but being the capital also ends up making it so different that it doesn't feel like the quintessential Midwestern city. And by virtue of Chicagoland dominating Illinois so much, it makes it hard for me to consider Illinois to be the quintessential Midwestern state.

I lean towards Wisconsin because it feels like it has everything - it has the lake, it has a lot of agriculture, it has the postindustrial city, it has the classic Big Ten school, the progressive and consevative traditions seem equally matched, etc.

I don't think there's a strong enough Northeastern regional identity for there to be one quintessential state - all the NE corridor metro areas feel way too antagonistic towards each other. New York comes closest to fitting the bill because it has a bit of everything, but it also falls into the Georgia/Illinois problem of being too dominated by the 'capital' but even more so since NYC is NYC.

I guess my bias as an Illinoisan shows here, but I always thought of Iowa, Illinois and (to a lesser extent) as more default "Lower Midwestern," while Wisconsin and Minnesota have a more distinct "Upper Midwestern" feel to them that is unique among all Midwest states.  That is the only reason I don't think of them as the ultimate stereotype.

However, I will say this ... if you were a part of the original Big Ten states (IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, OH, WI), you are 110% Midwestern in my book.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

If you go to S Illinois, Carbondale, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio they all have a Southern accent

[TDAS04]

The Midwest:

Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are the states that are most unequivocally Midwestern. The only good counterargument I can think of would be something along the lines of "Minnesota is too Canadian," or something like that.

[RINO Tom]

The Midwest:

Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are the states that are most unequivocally Midwestern. The only good counterargument I can think of would be something along the lines of "Minnesota is too Canadian," or something like that.

I guess I understand the Chicago angle, but man I just find leaving Illinois out difficult.  When I imagine the most quintessentially Midwestern area in the whole region - for better and for worse! - I imagine the Quad Cities in its entirety across both Iowa and Illinois.

[TDAS04]

I guess I understand the Chicago angle, but man I just find leaving Illinois out difficult.  When I imagine the most quintessentially Midwestern area in the whole region - for better and for worse! - I imagine the Quad Cities in its entirety across both Iowa and Illinois.

Chicago is obviously Midwestern. The only reason my map shows Illinois just slightly less Midwestern than IA/MN/WI is southern Illinois.