2 West Regions (extracts)
The West can be divided into 6 regions : the Plains, the North/Central mountain region, the Great Basin, the Southwest, the Northwest and the California.
The North/Central mountain region term has been adopted in the manual as it is not part of any other regions.
The term “Great Plains” has NOT been adopted in the manual because it was not a term used by settlers. They simply refered to "the Plains". The West was also often called "the Frontier".
The 6 regions are mainly differentiated by a complex mix of four factors: their geography, their climate, their resources and the way of life of the Indian tribes that were living there. Each of the first three factors must be qualified and taken in a broad sense as the boundaries of these regions are obviously an arbitrary view.
2.1.The Plains
Present day: Montana (except west) - Wyoming (est) - North Dakota - South Dakota - Nebraska - Colorado (est) - Kansas – Oklahoma (indian territory) – Texas (except southwest and south)
The Plains bordered with the forests of Canada to the north, the Pecos River to the southwest, the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Est borders of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Indian territory and Texas in the est.
The term "Plains" mainly includes what is today called the "Great Plains" and the "Texas plains".
Plains occur as lowlands along valleys, as plateaus or uplands along Rocky mountains and as coastal plains in the south. They are composed of tall grass prairie along the Est, mixed prairies in the Northern, Central and Southern plains, shortgrass steppe in the high plains and gulf coast prairies along the Gulf of Mexico.
Their altitude is between 500 and 1,500 feet at their eastern boundary and increase up to 5,000 feet at the base of the Rocky mountains.
It covers 1800 miles extending from North to South and over 500 miles from East to West.
The Great American Desert describes the western part of the Plains from about the 100th meridian to the east of the Rocky Mountains that cut in two the Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas states. The Great American Desert's relative lack of water and wood affected the development of the plains. Settlers heading westwards often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible.
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