The Midwestern United States (or Midwest) refers to the north-central states of the United States of America, specifically 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. Both the geographic center of the contiguous U.S. and the population center of the U.S. are in the Midwest. The United States Census Bureau divides this region into the East North Central States (essentially the Great Lakes States); and the West North Central States.Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Detroit and Indianapolis. Other important cities in the region include: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Des Moines, Kansas City, Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Omaha, St. Louis, and Wichita.Sault Ste. Marie is the oldest city in the region having been founded in 1668--more than 30 years before Detroit, over 120 years prior to Cleveland, and more than 160 years prior to Chicago.The term Midwest has been in common use for over 100 years. Other designations for the region have fallen into disuse, such as the "Northwest" or "Old Northwest" (from Northwest Territory), "Mid-America," or "Heartland". Since the book Middletown appeared in 1929, sociologists have often used Midwestern cities, and the Midwest generally, as "typical" of the entire nation. The Midwest region of the United States has a higher employment to population ratio (the percentage of employed people at least 16 years old) than the Northeast, the West, the South, or the Sun Belt states.

A small Midwest University undertook an incredibly challenging piece of music that has garnered them worldwide attention. It's called “Music For 18 Musicians,” an experiment in musical minimalism composed by Steve Reich. Performed without a conductor, the artists are instead given recommendations as to how many times to repeat each theme...

It was hot. And dry. The wind blew up a dust storm. People finally just started calling it a dust bowl. The Midwest was overwhelmed with drought, the country overwhelmed with depression.

As they say in the Midwest - this is like "the pot calling the kettle black" - Moodys, S&P and other ratings services were the ones that rated the subprime securities at high ratings. They were obviously wrong in their ratings but 'oh well - sorry'. When are the ratings services going to get taken down when THEY make a mistake?

I was born and raised on a Midwest farm, went to school in a small town a few miles away and had what you could call a normal childhood except for one thing: even though as a small boy I received my share of toy guns, trains, G.I. Joe’s…etc; however ever since I can remember I was more attracted by and secretly played with my older sister’s dolls

Richard Schenk, chief executive officer of Community Bank of the Midwest, could not have chosen a better day for the groundbreaking of a new branch location on east Santa Fe boulevard in Ellinwood. With the temperature hovering around 50 degrees and a light breeze, the mild weather really helped the project get off to a good start. Plans call for t