At noon Wednesday, April 7, Central Wyoming College professor Todd Guenther will discuss the emigrant history of the Red Desert and the significance of the Great Migration. A major volcanic eruption at Mount Mazama around 4860 BC formed Crater Lake. The following table shows the breakdown of party affiliation of governors, attorneys general, state legislative houses, and U.S. congressional delegation for the outlying areas of the Western United States, as of 2020[update]. Following World War II, the West's cities experienced an economic and population boom. American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are also considered part of the western U.S. by the U.S. National Park Service,[9] the Federal Reserve Bank system,[10] FEMA,[11] and the USGS. The Wyoming Basin borders the Continental Divide between the eastern and western mountains and comprises of smaller mountains and relatively flat basins. This page was last updated on February 25, 2021, All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions © 2021 worldatlas.com, Andrew Jackson – the 7th President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt – 26th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan - 40th President Of The United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower – the 34th President of the United States. The West contains several major biomes, including arid and semi-arid plateaus and plains, particularly in the American Southwest; forested mountains, including two major ranges, the American Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains; the long coastal shoreline of the American Pacific Coast; and the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. The prevalence of libertarian political attitudes is widespread. The population growth, mostly in the Southwest states of New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada, has strained water and power resources, with water diverted from agricultural uses to major population centers, such as the Las Vegas Valley and Los Angeles. In recent years, some local residents who earn their livelihoods on federal land have come into conflict with the land's managers, who are required to keep land use within environmentally acceptable limits. Because the tide of development had not yet reached most of the West when conservation became a national issue, agencies of the federal government own and manage vast areas of land. The state of Arizona has been won by the Republican presidential candidate in every election except three times since 1948, but in 2020 Arizona voted Democratic. eastern pennsylvania. The largest concentrations for African Americans in the West can be found in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, and Colorado Springs. [27], The history of the American West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries has acquired a cultural mythos in the literature and cinema of the United States. Pre-Columbian trade routes to kingdoms and empires such as the Mound Builders existed in places such as Yellowstone National Park since around 1000 AD. The Great Plains consists of rolling hills, wide river valleys, and acres of prairie grassland covering the landscape. western pennsylvania. Also, in 2018 and 2020, the GOP lost both Arizona Senate seats to the Democrats. "Big books wanted: women and western American literature in the twenty-first century.". The Colorado River is a major source of water in the Southwest and many dams, such as the Hoover Dam, form reservoirs along it. The West has several long rivers that empty into the Pacific Ocean, while the eastern rivers run into the Gulf of Mexico. Fueled by the growth of Los Angeles, as well as the San Francisco Bay area, including Silicon Valley, the center of America's high tech industry, California has become the most populous of all the 50 states. ", Lamont, Victoria. Milner II, Clyde A; O'Connor, Carol A.; Sandweiss, Martha A. Phillips, Charles; Axlerod, Alan; editor. "New Frontiers for Post-Western Cinema: Frozen River, Sin Nombre, Winter's Bone. The Wyoming Basin borders the Continental Divide between the eastern and western mountains and comprises of smaller mountains and relatively flat basins. Massive late 19th–20th century population and settlement booms created two megalopolis areas of the Greater Los Angeles/Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area/Northern California regions, one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas and in the top 25 largest urban areas in the world. Sensing a possible shift in the popular understanding of the West as a region in the early 1990s, historian Walter Nugent conducted a survey of three groups of professionals with ties to the region: a large group of Western historians (187 respondents), and two smaller groups, 25 journalists and publishers and 39 Western authors. The three inhabited Pacific U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) are sometimes considered part of the Western United States. Wyoming information resource links to state homepage, symbols, flags, maps, constitutions, representitives, ... Eastern Great Plains rise to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains; Continental Divide crosses the state from north-west to the south-east. northern west virginia. The western margins of the Great Plains are marked by several mountain ranges. Major settlement of the western territories developed rapidly in the 1840s, largely through the Oregon Trail and the California Gold Rush of 1849. Most of them have highly individualistic cultures, and have worked to balance the interests of urban development, recreation, and the environment. According to the United States Coast Guard, "The Western Rivers System consists of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Cumberland, Arkansas, and White Rivers and their tributaries, and certain other rivers that flow towards the Gulf of Mexico. American Samoa is in Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean, while Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are in the Mariana Islands in the western North Pacific Ocean. Website Design By: Sagebrush Marketing, LLC and Hosted at Wyoming Websites by Jub Jub. The following table shows the breakdown of party affiliation of governors, attorneys general, state legislative houses, and U.S. congressional delegation for the Western states, as of 2019[update]. While the mountains in the southwest receive generally large amounts of snow. American FactFinder. Los Angeles has the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico, while San Francisco has the largest Chinese community in North America and also has a large LGBT community, and Oakland, California has a large percentage of residents being African-American, as well as Long Beach, California which also has a significant Black community. One of the largest migrations in American history occurred in the 1840s as the Latter Day Saints left the Midwest to build a theocracy in Utah. [22], The climate of the West is semi-arid, yet parts of the region get high amounts of rain or snow. [41][42][43], The Western United States consistently ranks well in health measures. As the fastest-growing demographic group, after Asians, Latinos are hotly contested by both parties. Go-Wyoming.com is your Wyoming travel and vacation guide with over 5,000 pages of info on hotels, hiking, biking, whitewater rafting, camping, national parks, etc. Mount St. Helens, a volcano in the Cascades erupted explosively in 1980. Irrigation in the Southwest allows the growth of great quantities of fruits, nuts, and vegetables as well as grain, hay, and flowers. As observed on the map, the state of Wyoming, like most of the western U.S. States, also displays a broad-range of striking geographical landforms. Violent thunderstorms occur east of the Rockies. 2010 U.S. Census. Earthquakes cause damage every few to several years in California. [28], Writers as diverse as Bret Harte and Zane Grey celebrated or derided cowboy culture, while artists such as Frederic Remington created western art as a method of recording the expansion into the west. Backlash against undocumented immigrants led to the passage of California Proposition 187 in 1994, a ballot initiative which would have denied many public services to them. northern alabama (and georgia) the rust belt - coal's destination One of the Democratic leaders of the Congress is from the region: Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi of California. The state’s lowest point is located in the extreme northeastern corner along the Belle Fourche River, at an elevation of 3,099ft. eastern tennessee. The landlocked state of Wyoming is bordered by the states of Utah in the southwest, by Idaho in the west; by Colorado in the south, by South Dakota and Nebraska in the east; and by Montana in the north and northwest. Association of this proposal with California Republicans, especially incumbent governor Pete Wilson, drove many Hispanic voters to the Democrats.[40]. Tourism, government services, transportation and manufacturing industries are the main drivers of the city’s economy. Discover the true spirit of skiing and riding on quality snow and terrain at 50+ uncrowded, welcoming, and affordable ski resorts across the US and Canada. [32][33], Since the mid-1970s, historians of the West have emphasized the World War II years as a major watershed, as a region experienced enormous social and economic change, and became the pacesetter for societal evolution. The State of Wyoming is divided into 23 counties. Alaska—the northernmost state in the Union—is a vast land of few people, many of them native, and of great stretches of wilderness, protected in national parks and wildlife refuges. Both Omaha, Nebraska and St. Louis, Missouri laid claim to the title, "Gateway to the West" during this period. The tallest peaks of the Rockies, 54 of which are over 14,000 feet (4,300 m), are found in central and western Colorado. In the Pacific states, the wide areas filled with small towns, farms, and forests are supplemented by a few big port cities which have evolved into world centers for the media and technology industries. Texas is a major cattle and sheep raising area, as well as the nation's largest producer of cotton. Other West Coast cities include San Diego, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma, Anchorage, and Portland. In the 1950s, representatives from all the western states built the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center to showcase western culture and greet travelers from the East. The term West Coast is commonly used to refer to just California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, whereas Hawaii is more geographically isolated from the continental U.S. and do not necessarily fit in any of these subregions. The wheat belt extends from Texas through The Dakotas, producing most of the wheat and soybeans in the U.S. and exporting more to the rest of the world. For the similarly named airline, see, "Western territories" redirects here. southern west virginia. The above outline map represents the State of Wyoming, located in the west-central (Mountain States area) region of the United States. Immigration is an important political issue for this group. [12], The population distribution by race in the Western United States (2010):[17], As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Western region of the United States includes 13 states[1] with a total 2013 estimated population of 74,254,423.[18]. western maryland. Oil boom towns in Texas and Oklahoma rivaled the old mining camps for their rawness and wealth. In the north, they run almost immediately east of the Cascade Range, so that the desert region is only a few miles wide by the time one reaches the Canada–US border. The entire Western region has also been strongly influenced by European, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Native Americans; it contains the largest number of minorities in the U.S. A powerful late winter snowstorm intensified over the central Rocky Mountains on Sunday with heavy snow and wind leading to airport and road closures, power outages and avalanche warnings in … Salt flats and salt lakes reveal a time when the great inland seas covered much of what is now the West. The mountains dominating Wyoming’s horizon were formed during a period of mountain-building activity known as the Laramide orogeny, which affected the region from about 70 million to 40 million years ago. Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah have been some of the country's most Republican states. The significant rivers of Wyoming include the Belle Fourche, Bighorn, Green, North Platte, Powder, Snake, Sweetwater, and Yellowstone rivers. (30/km2), Washington with 86.0 inhabitants/sq mi. With an area of 253,600 sq.km, Wyoming is the 10th largest and the least populous state in the USA. [6] A majority of the historian respondents placed the eastern boundary of the West east of the Census definition out on the eastern edge of the Great Plains or on the Mississippi River. East of the Rocky Mountains is the Great Plains, the western portions (for example, the eastern half of Colorado) of which are generally considered to be part of the western United States. Wyoming’s topography is dominated by several large basins and the ranges of the Rocky Mountains that border them. [citation needed] Many varieties of chile peppers are grown in the valleys of New Mexico.[24][25]. The state also has numerous man-made reservoirs, with the largest ones located on the North Platte River, to the south of Casper, and the northeast of Riverton on the Bighorn River. eastern ohio. (The most important among these are the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management within the Interior Department, and the U.S. Forest Service within the Agriculture Department.) They collect a large part of the airborne moisture moving in from the ocean. The American cinema, in particular, created the genre of the western movie, which, in many cases, use the West as a metaphor for the virtue of self-reliance and an American ethos. The Continental Divide is an imaginary line that indicates the absolute highest points of land, where on either side, some of the rivers will flow downhill or in east or west. Between 1830 and 1912, an estimated 500,000 people traversed South Pass on their migration westward, using the network of the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails. The border states—California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas—and other southwestern states such as Colorado, Utah, and Nevada all have large Hispanic populations, and the many Spanish place names attest to their history as former Spanish and Mexican territories. Drought is much more common in the West than the rest of the United States. The region had always been more democratic with greater racial and gender equality, and continued as a national pacesetter in modernization. The Dust Bowl forced children of the original homesteaders even further west. Land Relief. The western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. California and Arizona are major producers of citrus crops, although growing metropolitan sprawl is absorbing much of this land. The Mississippi River forms the easternmost possible boundary for the West today. Tornadoes occur every spring on the southern plains, with the most common and most destructive centered on Tornado Alley, which covers eastern portions of the West, (Texas to North Dakota), and all states in between and to the east. While most of the studies of racial dynamics in America such as riots in Los Angeles have been written about European and African Americans, in many cities in the West and California, Whites and Blacks together are less than half the population because of the preference for the region by Hispanics and Asians. Other parts are true desert which receive less than 5 inches (130 mm) of rain per year. Given this expansive and diverse geography it is no wonder the region is difficult to specifically define. Now the second largest city in the nation, Los Angeles is best known as the home of the Hollywood film industry; the area around Los Angeles also was a major center for the aerospace industry by World War II, though Boeing, located in Washington state would lead the aerospace industry. East of the Rocky Mountains is the Great Plains, the western portions (for example, the eastern half of Colorado) of which are generally considered to be part of the western United States. Over a dozen mountain ranges of the Rocky Mountains cover the western part of the state, including the snow-capped Absaroka, Grand Tetons, and Wind River mountains. Beyond the valleys lie the Sierra Nevada in the south and the Cascade Range in the north. Prominent cities in the Mountain States include Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boise, El Paso, and Billings. Located in the southeastern corner of the state on Crow Creek is, Cheyenne – the capital, the largest and the most populous city of Wyoming. This map reflects the Western United States as defined by the. [citation needed] Historically, the West was the first region to see widespread women's suffrage, with women casting votes in Utah and Wyoming as early as 1870, five decades before the 19th Amendment was ratified by the nation. California experienced such a rapid growth in a few short months that it was admitted to statehood in 1850 without the normal transitory phase of becoming an official territory.[26]. As the snow continued its heavy, wet descent in the Denver area Sunday, treacherous weather conditions forced multiple closures of Interstates 70 and 25 near Denver, on the Eastern … Public lands account for 25 to 75 percent of the total land area in these states. Meanwhile, the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington can be considered part of the Northwest or Pacific Northwest. After the war millions more migrated using the GI Bill to buy suburban homes, many of them recalling rewarding wartime experience in military training facilities. The north-central part of the state is dominated by the Big Horn Mountains, while the rugged Laramie Mountains cover the southern and southeastern landscapes. The arid regions generally support only livestock grazing, chiefly beef cattle. So much water is drawn for drinking water throughout the West and irrigation in California that in most years, water from the Colorado River no longer reaches the Gulf of California. For example, the majority of Western states have legalized medicinal marijuana (all but Utah and Wyoming) and some forms of gambling (except Utah); Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Montana have legalized physician-assisted suicide; most rural counties in Nevada allow licensed brothels, and voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington have legalized recreational use of marijuana.[39]. The climate is unstable, as areas that are normally wet can be very dry for years and vice versa. The Rockies are hundreds of miles (kilometers) wide, and run uninterrupted from New Mexico to Alaska. The survey respondents as a whole showed just how little agreement there was on the boundaries of the West. Annual rainfall is greater in the eastern portions, gradually tapering off until reaching the Pacific Coast where it increases again. While the Pacific states are the most volcanically active areas, extinct volcanoes and lava flows are found throughout most of the West. [45], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}40°N 113°W / 40°N 113°W / 40; -113, One of the four census regions of the United States of America, "American West" redirects here. It also contains the majority of the desert areas located in the United States. The Western United States has been populated by Native Americans since at least 11,000 years ago, when the first Paleo-Indians arrived. Cheyenne is also one of the country’s least centrally located state capitals. These dry areas encompass much of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. Wyoming is the 10th most extensive, but the least populous and the 2nd least densely populated of the 50 United States. In alphabetical order, these counties are: Albany, Big Horn, Campbell, Carbon, Converse, Crook, Fremont, Goshen, Hot Springs, Johnson, Laramie, Lincoln, Natrona, Niobrara, Park, Platte, Sheridan, Sublette, Sweetwater, Teton, Uinta, Washakie, and Weston. California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Hawaii and New Mexico lean toward the Democratic Party. The biggest – Great Divide Basin is located to the south of the Sweetwater River. The image of the cowboy, the homesteader, and westward expansion took real events and transmuted them into a myth of the west which has shaped much of American popular culture since the late 19th century. The states of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming have been won by the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1964. Situated in the extreme northwestern part of the state is the country’s oldest and largest national park – the Yellowstone National Park. For the part of Poland, see, Regional definitions vary from source to source. The above map can be downloaded, printed and used for geography education purposes like map-pointing and coloring activities. Mexican-Americans have also had a growing population in Northwestern states of Oregon and Washington, as well as the southern states of Texas and Oklahoma. The State of Wyoming is located in the west-central (Mountain States area) region of the United States. The region's distance from historical centers of power in the East, and the celebrated "frontier spirit" of its settlers offer two clichés for explaining the region's independent, heterogeneous politics. The contrast between the romanticism of culture about the West and the actuality of the history of the westward expansion has been a theme of late 20th and early 21st century scholarship about the West. National parks are reserved for recreational activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and boating, but other government lands also allow commercial activities like ranching, logging, and mining. The Rocky Mountains expose igneous and metamorphic rock both from the Precambrian and from the Phanerozoic eon. The Mojave Desert and Sonoran Desert along with other deserts are found here. The Western U.S. is the largest region of the country, covering more than half the land area of the contiguous United States. New Mexico too is considered a bellwether, having voted for the popular vote winner in every presidential election since statehood, except in 1976. [44] While the proportion of maternal or neonatal hospital stays was higher in the Western United States relative to other regions, the proportion of medical stays in hospitals was lower than in other regions in 2012. Mount Rainier, a volcano in Washington, is also over 14,000 feet (4,300 m). (30/km2). "[20] The Ohio River portion of the system includes parts of several Atlantic coastal states, from Georgia to New York. (82/km2) exceed the national average of 77.98 inhabitants/sq mi. The seasonal temperatures vary greatly throughout the West. eastern kentucky. During the latter half of the 20th century, several transcontinental interstate highways crossed the West bringing more trade and tourists from the East. Cowboy culture has become embedded in the American experience as a common cultural touchstone, and modern forms as diverse as country and western music have celebrated the sense of isolation and independence of spirit inspired by the frontiersmen on "virgin land". The Great Plains of North America slope east from the Rocky Mountains, covering the eastern parts of Wyoming. Along the Pacific Ocean coast lie the Coast Ranges, which, while not approaching the scale of the Rocky Mountains, are formidable nevertheless. Weber, David J. “The Spanish Borderlands, Historiography Redux.”, This page was last edited on 8 April 2021, at 13:35. The Cascades are also volcanic. The Rocky Mountain Region is the highest overall area of the United States, with an average elevation of above 4,000 feet (1,200 m). [citation needed]. Asians from many countries have settled in California and other coastal states in several waves of immigration since the 19th century, contributing to the Gold rush, the building of the transcontinental railroad, agriculture, and more recently, high technology. Low elevations on the West Coast have warm summers and mild winters with little to no snow. California birthed both the property rights and conservation movements, and spawned such phenomena as the Taxpayer Revolt and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Oregon and Washington have also seen rapid growth with the rise of Boeing and Microsoft along with agriculture and resource based industries. Agriculture varies depending on rainfall, irrigation, soil, elevation, and temperature extremes. [8] (See District Court of Guam and District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands). Starting in 1902, Congress passed a series of acts authorizing the establishment of the United States Bureau of Reclamation to oversee water development projects in seventeen western states. The rate of potentially preventable hospitalizations in the Western United States was consistently lower than other regions from 2005 to 2011. In recent times, as seen in the 2020 United States presidential election, Arizona & Nevada are also beginning to lean towards the Democratic Party as well. The Laramie Mountains are a range of moderately high peaks on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S states of Wyoming and Colorado.The range is the northernmost extension of the line of the ranges along the eastern side of the Rockies, and in particular of the higher peaks of the Front Range directly to the south.