IV State Regions

According to their climate, geography, traditions, and history, the 50 states of the United States are divided into six regions as shown in the following table.

New England

New England is the smallest of all six regions. Yet it played a dominant role in American development. From the 17th century until well into the 19th, New England was the country's cultural and economic center.

The earliest European settlers of New England were English. They found it difficult to farm the land in large lots, as was common in the South. By 1750, many settlers had turned to other pursuits. The mainstays（支柱）of the region became shipbuilding, fishing, and trade.

New Englanders gained a reputation for hard work, shrewdness, thrift, and ingenuity. These traits came in handy as the Industrial Revolution reached America in the first half of the 19th century and new factories sprang up in this region. Boston had become the financial heart of the nation.

New England also supported a vibrant（充满活力的）cultural life. Education is the region's strongest legacies. There are such top-ranking universities and colleges as Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan, unequaled by any other region. In the 20th century, most of New England's traditional industries have relocated（重新部署）to states or foreign countries where goods can be made more cheaply. The gap has been partly filled by the microelectronics and computer industry.

The Middle Atlantic States

If New England provided the brains and dollars for 19th century American expansion, the Middle Atlantic States provided the muscle. The region's largest states, New York and Pennsylvania, became centers of heavy industry（iron, glass, and steel）.

The Middle Atlantic region was settled by a wider range of people than New England. Early settlers were mostly farmers and traders, and the region served as a bridge between North and South. Philadelphia was home to the Continental Congress that organized the American Revolution and the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the US Constitution in 1787.

As heavy industry spread throughout the region, rivers such as the Hudson and Delaware were transformed into vital shipping lanes. Cities on waterways—New York on the Hudson, Philadelphia on the Delaware, Baltimore on Chesapeake Bay—grew dramatically. Now New York is the nation's largest city, its financial hub and cultural center. Like New England, the Middle Atlantic region has seen much of its heavy industry relocate elsewhere. Other industries, such as drug manufacturing and communications, have taken up the slack.

The South

The South is perhaps the most distinctive and colorful American region. The American Civil War（1861—1865）devastated the Southsocially and economically. Nevertheless, it retained its unmistakable identity.

Southern settlers grew wealthy by raising and selling cotton and tobacco on plantations, which required the work of many laborers. To supply this need, plantation owners relied on slaves brought from Africa, and slavery spread throughout the South. As slavery was disapproved by the Northerners in 1860, 11 southern states left the Union intending to form a separate nation, the Confederate States of America. This rupture（决裂）led to the Civil War, the Confederacy's defeat and the end of slavery.

The scars left by the war took decades to heal. However, a new regional pride expressed itself under the banner of “the New South.” Today the South has evolved into a manufacturing region, and high-rise buildings crowd the skylines of such cities as Atlanta and Little Rock, Arkansas. Owing to its mild weather, the South has become very popular with retirees from other US regions and from Canada.

The Midwest

The Midwestern United States（or Midwest or Middle West）is an informal name for a group of north-central states of the United States of America, usually including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. A 2006 Census Bureau estimate put the population at 66,217,736. Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Detroit and Indianapolis. The region's fertile soil made it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests of cereal crops such as wheat, oats, and corn.The region was soon known as the nation's“breadbasket.”

Most of the Midwest is flat. The Mississippi River has acted as a regional lifeline, moving settlers to new homes and foodstuffs to market. The river inspired two classic American books, both written by a native Missourian, Mark Twain:Life on the Mississippi and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Midwesterners are praised as being open, friendly, and straightforward. The Midwest gave birth to one of America's two major political parties, the Republican Party, which was formed in the 1850s to oppose the spread of slavery into new states. Perhaps because of their geographic location, many mid-westerners have been strong adherents of isolationism, the belief that Americans should not concern them selves with foreign wars and problems.

The Southwest

The Southwestern United States is a region of the western United States, and home to over 50 million residents. The United States Geological Survey（USGS）does not define regions, so regional definitions vary from source to source. The Southwest always includes New Mexico and Arizona, but often takes in western Texas. Parts of the Southwest once belonged to Mexico. The United States obtained this land following the Mexican-American War of 1846—1848. Its Mexican heritage continues to exert a strong influence on the region.

The population density of the region is less than three people per square mile. The Southwest is also more ethnically varied than neighboring regions, with significant European American, Mexican American, and American Indian populations. The Southwest contains many large cities and metropolitan areas of the country, despite the low population density of the region as a whole. Phoenix, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Antonio, San Diego and Houston all rank among the top ten most populous cities in the country. Many of the states in this region, such as Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona, have witnessed some of the highest population growth in the United States, with Arizona in particular as a destination for retired Americans in search of a warm climate. Urban areas in this region, like Albuquerque（阿尔伯克基：新墨西哥州中部格兰德河上游的一个城市）and Phoenix, are some of the fastest growing cities in the country. Las Vegas is renowned as one of the world's centers for gambling. Outside the cities, the region is a land of open spaces, much of which is desert. The magnificent Grand Canyon is located in this region, as is Monument Valley, home of the most populous American Indian tribe. Compared with the adjoining Midwest, the Southwest is drier in weather, less densely populated, and has strong Spanish-American and Native-American components.

The West

The Western United States—commonly referred to as the American West or simply The West—traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the United States expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time. The Mississippi River is often referenced as the easternmost possible boundary of the West. As defined by the Census Bureau, the western United States includes 13 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

The“West”had played an important part in American history. The Old West is embedded in America's folklore.The West is a region of scenic beauty on a grand scale. All of its states are partly mountainous, and the ranges are the sources of startling contrasts. To the west of the peaks, winds from the Pacific Ocean carry enough moisture to keep the land well-watered. To the east, however, the land is very dry. Parts of western Washington State, for example, receive 20 times the amount of rain that falls on the eastern side of the state's Cascade Range.

In much of the West the population is sparse, and the federal government owns and manages millions of hectares of undeveloped land. Americans use these areas for recreational and commercial activities, such as fishing, camping, hiking, boating, grazing, lumbering, and mining.

Alaska, the northernmost state in the Union, is a vast land of few people and great stretches of wilderness, protected in national parks and wildlife refuges. Hawaii is the only state in the union in which Asian Americans outnumber residents of European stock