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Comment by cratermoon | Hacker News Reader

> the west's bumblee population isn't listed as being in trouble

What do you call Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon?

North Dakota is generally considered the mid-west, no? I suppose mid-west is a sort of west, but I tend to think "the west" starts when the Rocky Mountains start; about half-way through Montana.

by this definition still 3 of the 4 states listed are in the West

One common definition is west of the 100th meridian, or about halfway through North Dakota. Montana is firmly in the west, as are the other 3 states mentioned, plus Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Washington.

Do you have a source pointing at that common definition? I lived a majority of my life in the West US (ID, MT, WA), and have never heard North Dakota referred to as the West.

Maybe it's a Canadian thing? -100W is the border of Manitoba and Alberta?

https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...

North Dakotan, can confirm, never heard that.

I've heard it used for bird ecology for sure. The 100th meridian is the general cutoff between eastern bird species and western bird species. I think it holds true in other areas of biology.

I've driven back and forth across it a lot. Obviously it's a gradient and not some magic barrier the great-tailed grackles cannot cross. And we do get western kingbirds a couple hundred miles east as well as western meadowlarks. It's still a handy boundary so that you know more or less what to expect in a given area ecologically.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-merid...

https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-04-12-100t...

Lifelong North Dakotan, never heard of or thought of ND being a western state.

Where in N. Dakota? I can see that being so for east of Missouri River to the border with Minnesota, but towards the border with Montana the state is decidedly Western in culture and climate.

So New Mexico is not part of the West?

There's a definition based on climate that's used widely https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-merid...

> > North Dakota is generally considered the mid-west, no? […]

> So New Mexico is not part of the West?

Mid-west ≠ West:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_United_States

“The West” means “California” to many.

Well, that's incorrect :).

Well, at one point, "West" meant Ohio.

Also Illinois. Why else would northwestern university be in Chicago and not Seattle?

i actually was just thinking of the west cost. i'm a los angeles native, guess that shows. sorry.

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