America’s Cultural Regions, From SoCal to the Texas Heartland, Visualized in One Map (2024)

FAQs

What are the cultural regions in the US? ›

For example, five major cultural regions—New England, the Midland, the South, the Middle West, and the West—have been identified (Zelinsky, 1973) based on a synthesis of regional patterns in a wide range of cultural factors, including ethnicity, religion, economics, and settlement history.

A region's multicultural heritage as well as distinct demographic characteristics like age and occupation make regions different and special. Within several regions, language is used differently and there are strong dialects. There are also differences in outlook and attitude based on geography.

In South America, five main cultural regions indicate the majority ethnic groups and the main economic activities: Tropical Plantation Region, Rural Amerindian Region, Amazon Basin, Mixed Mestizo Region, and European Commercial Region (Southern Cone).

There are three types of cultural regions: formal, functional, or vernacular. A formal cultural region has well-defined boundaries, such as political borders.

Geographers recognize several major cultural regions in the world today, including the Middle East, Latin America, North America, Europe, Russia, Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Japan, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Language, government, or religion can define a region, as can forests, wildlife, or climate. A common way of referring to regions in the United States is grouping them into 5 regions according to their geographic position on the continent: the Northeast, Southwest, West, Southeast, and Midwest.

American culture examples of these communities include African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, and more.

The United States can be divided into several regions, or areas of land. The United States Census Bureau, for example, divides the United States into four regions: the Northeast, the Midwest, the South, and the West.