is South Dakota a Midwestern state

[Samof94]

Would you consider this "zero state tax" state with a very hard R governor to be part of the Midwest??? It hasn't gone Dem since 1964 and is rather lightly populated.

[wnwnwn]

Basically: Do you thing the Great Plains quartet states are midwestern or not?
To me, they are more western than midwestern.

[cg41386]

Of course.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The red counties and Campbell County, Roberts County, Sully County, and Brule County are.

[TDAS04]

Yes. If we’re dividing the United States into four regions and each state must belong to one region in its entirety, then South Dakota is a Midwestern state. If we can ignore state boundaries, then I’d personally refer to West River as “Western.”

Even though West River is slightly larger in land area than East River, South Dakota is Midwestern state on balance because most of the state’s population resides east of the Missouri River. The east generally dominates the state culturally.

[Orser67]

Agreed with a few others in this thread that it's best to consider SD collectively with ND, NE, and KS, or at the very least with ND. Growing up in the Northeast, to me it always seemed like these low-population red states always belonged more in the West than in the Midwest.

But now I tend to think they belong in the Midwest because I see the 100th meridian as the best line to divide the U.S. into eastern and western halves, and most of the population of these states lives east of the 100th meridian. You can kind of see the dividing line in the 2020 presidential election county map; the western halves of the states are a mix of dark red rural areas and blue Indian reservations, while the eastern halves have slightly less dark-red rural areas combined with pink and some blue counties in metro areas.

[MarkD]

Well don't think it's a Southern state just because it says "South" in its name.

[TDAS04]

Not that Ohio isn’t also a Midwestern state, this would be a better question if asked about the Buckeye State. Ohio’s Eastern tendencies are clear. That state is more similar to Pennsylvania—and, dear I say it, even New Jersey—than it is to Iowa or Illinois. Cleveland is very much an Eastern city.