John Cletheroe's
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Regions Of The USA - Some Brief Mentions
Allegheny Mountains, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia
The Allegheny Mountains, also called the Alleghenies, are part of the Appalachian chain. The Alleghenies run roughly north-north-east to south-south-west, parallel to and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Pennsylvania, western Maryland and western Virginia.
Baja California or Lower California
Baja (pronounced baa-haa) California, also known as Lower California, isn't in California, or indeed even in the United States at all.
Baja California (or Lower California) is the long, thin peninsula which runs south for about 760 miles from southwestern California and is part of Mexico. It is almost completely separated from the main part of Mexico by the Gulf of California.
Baja is Spanish for drop or fall.
Beringia
A name occasionally used to refer to the historical Bering Land Bridge (also sometimes called the Siberian Land Bridge) between Alaska and the northeastern tip of Siberia which existed at various times during the most recent ice age and which is now submerged under the Bering Strait, and the land immediately adjacent to it. According to a widely held theory, people migrated from Asia into North America via this land bridge and their descendants became Native Americans. I don't know if the similarity of name with Tolkien's land of Beleriand, part of Middle-Earth which was drowned at the end of the First Age, is purely coincidence or not.
Berkshire Hills
The Berkshire Hills, often just called the Berkshires, are in western Massachusetts. They are a southern extension of Vermont's Green Mountains. Their name is pronounced burke-sheer, unlike the English county for which they are named which is pronounced bark-sheer. The highest point in the Berkshires is Mount Greylock at 3491 ft. The town of Stockbridge is located in the area of the Berkshires.
"The first of December was covered with snow,
and so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston.
The Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting,
with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go."
- James Taylor: Sweet Baby James
The town of Stockbridge was also the location of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant", but that's another story.
Bible Belt
An informal name for the rural South and Midwest, especially prior to the Second World War, where religious belief and fundamentalism were widespread.
Big Apple
Nickname for New York City, New York State. Idiom Site offers an explanation of how the term came to be used (external link verified Dec-02).
Big Easy
Nickname for the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Black Belt
A crescent shaped prairie region, about 5000 square miles in all, along the valley of the Alabama River in Alabama and northeastern Mississippi. The name comes from the region's highly fertile black soil. Historically the region was a highly productive cotton-producing area.
Carolina
North Carolina and South Carolina are two separate states.
Cascadia
A name occasionally used to refer to the Cascade Mountains and the surrounding area. I'm not sure if the name is taken to include the northernmost section of the Cascades which extends into southern British Columbia. I think use of the name Cascadia may imply a desire for this area to be made a separate homogenous region, possibly even a separate country.
City Of Brotherly Love
Nickname for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is Greek for "brotherly love".
Comstock Lode
The gold and silver bearing vein of rock on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Nevada, in the region of Virginia City roughly east of Lake Tahoe, south of Reno/Sparks and not far from Carson City. It was named after prospector Henry Comstock, the first to lay a claim in the area. It was the site of a gold rush from 1859, yielding over $300 million of gold and silver over the next twenty years. By 1900 the mines had been largely exhausted, the lode virtually abandoned and Virginia City reduced from a boom town to very nearly a ghost town.
See also Mother Lode.
Confederate States
See The South on this page.
Contiguous or Conterminous States
The contiguous states, also sometimes called the conterminous states or the lower forty-eight states, are the forty-eight states which comprise the main part of the USA and which have borders with each other. In other words, they are the USA excluding the states of Alaska and Hawaii.
The word contiguous means connected together. The word conterminous means adjacent, or meeting along a common border.
Dakota
North Dakota and South Dakota are two separate states.
Desert Southwest
The name is self-explanatory.
Dixie
See The South on this page.
Driftless Region
Northwestern Illinois, northeastern Iowa, southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin. This area was not subject to glaciation in the most recent ice age and is therefore relatively hilly. When the ice sheets which covered adjacent areas melted they left a deposit of rock and soil called glacier drift; the Driftless Region derives its name from its lack of this drift.
Forty-Ninth Parallel
The line of latitude, part of which forms a long section of the border between the USA and Canada in the west.
Great North Woods
The Great North Woods are the forested regions of northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. See also North Woods.
Great Plains
The Plains States are those states located in the Great Plains region, between the Mississippi and the Rockies.
Homestake Lode
The vein of gold-bearing rock in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Intermountain States
The Intermountain States are the states between the Rocky Mountains (to the east) and the Sierras (to the west in the south) and the Cascades (to the west in the north).
See also Great Basin, Great Basin Desert and Great Basin National Park, Nevada.
Little Egypt
Little Egypt is an informal name given to the southernmost part of Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The area bears a resemblance to the Nile delta. There is also a town called Cairo here.
Llano Estacado, New Mexico and Texas
Llano Estacado is an area covering eastern New Mexico and western Texas.
The name is Spanish, and means "staked plain". According to James Michener's "Centennial" the early Spanish explorers put stakes in the ground in order to find their way across the region.
Llano Estacado is a flat, semi-arid but fertile farming area with petroleum and natural gas deposits.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is not a state, but a large city in the state of California. This fact may seem obvious to American readers but is perhaps not quite so obvious to visitors from other countries.
Lower Forty-Eight States
See Contiguous States on this page.
Mid-Atlantic States
Those states in the middle part of the Eastern Seaboard, namely Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania and Virginia. My thanks to Daniel Darrell of Carpinteria, California for this definition.
Midwest
"The Midwest" is a vague informal term sometimes taken to refer roughly to the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rockies, although many people would exclude the westernmost plains states.
Mile High City
Nickname for the city of Denver, Colorado, due to it being at an altitude of one mile above sea level.
Motor City
Nickname for the city of Detroit, Michigan, due to being the centre of American car manufacturing.
New Mexico
New Mexico is a normal American state, not a separate country, nor part of the country of Mexico.
New York
To avoid confusion between the city and the state it's best to always say "New York City" or "New York State".
North Woods
The North Woods are the forested regions of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. See also Great North Woods.
Osage Plains
The Osage Plains cover western Missouri, eastern Kansas, the central part of Oklahoma and extend south into central Texas.
Pacific Northwest
Usually taken to mean Oregon and Washington State, plus perhaps Idaho and British Columbia.
Piedmont or Piedmont Plateau
The Piedmont, more correctly called the Piedmont Plateau, lies between the coastal plain and the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern USA, extending in an arc from Alabama through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
The fall line separates the Piedmont Plateau from the coastal plain.
San Andreas Fault, California
The San Andreas Fault in California is the line along which the North American and Pacific tectonic plates meet.
It runs from Point Arena (north of San Francisco, south of Fort Bragg) to Imperial Valley (southeast of Los Angeles).
The movement of the plates along the fault is the source of frequent minor and occasional major earthquakes.
San Francisco
San Francisco is not a state, but a large city in the state of California. This fact may seem obvious to American readers but is perhaps not quite so obvious to visitors from other countries.
South
"The South" refers to the southeast of the USA, i.e. the Confederate states, or "Dixie".
The eleven Confederate states were:
The question of Maryland's status during the American Civil War is discussed on the Mason-Dixon Line page.
The inhabitants of West Virginia, being loyal to the Union, formed a separate state after Virginia became part of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Virginia
Virginia and West Virginia are two separate states. They used to be one, but separated during the Civil War when the inhabitants of West Virginia, being loyal to the Union, formed a separate state after Virginia became part of the Confederacy.
To avoid ambiguity when referring to the western part of Virginia it is best to say "western Virginia", not "west Virginia".
Washington
Washington DC is the capital of the USA and is situated in the District of Columbia on the east coast. The area of the District of Columbia is 68 square miles, and its population density is 8,925 persons per square mile.
Washington State is a completely separate place on the opposite side of the country, in the extreme northwest of the main part of the USA. The area of Washington State is 71,303 square miles, and its population density is 68 persons per square mile.
To avoid any confusion, it's best to always say Washington DC or Washington State.
West
"The West" is a vague informal term whose meaning, as Alastair Cooke (of "Letter From America" fame) once said, depends largely on where you are standing at the time.
Common meanings include "west of the Appalachian Mountains", "west of the Mississippi", "west of the Missouri", "west of the Great Plains" (i.e. the Rockies and westward) and "west of the 100 degree west line of longitude".
Of course, everyone knows that the real west begins where the pickup trucks all have dogs riding in the back... :)
Photograph - a typical western landscape (29KB)
Windy City
Nickname for the city of Chicago, Illinois. Idiom Site offers some interesting theories on how the term may have come about (external link verified Dec-02).
Amusing, Interesting And Mysterious Place Names
Canada - General
Region Names
USA - General
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