The Eastern United States or the American East, is today defined by some as the states east of the Mississippi River., and is traditionally divided by the Ohio River and Appalachian Mountains into the South, the Old Northwest and the East. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be amalgamated with states of the Old Northwest into what the Census Beaureau defines as the Midwestern United States. It has been considered part of the Eastern United States in regional models that exclude a Central region.
As of 2011, the estimated population of the 26 states east of the Mississippi (not including the small portions of Minnesota and Louisiana that are east of the river) plus the District of Columbia totals 179,948,346 out of 308,745,358 in the whole nation (excluding the territory of Puerto Rico), or 58.28% of the U.S. population.
The Eastern United States is home to several airlines, including Delta Air Lines in Atlanta, Georgia, US Airways in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, AirTran Airways in Orlando, Florida, United Airlines in Chicago, Illinois, Spirit Airlines in Miami, Florida, and JetBlue Airways in New York City. Major airports in the Eastern U.S. include Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Logan International Airport in Boston, Miami International Airport in Miami, Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh International Airport in Pittsburgh, Washington-Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. The Eastern U.S. is also home to Amtrak, an intercity passenger train service provider. The East did not represent a unified culture, due to its initial settlement by disparate European cultures and the vast number of immigrants who flooded the region from the mid-19th century to the present day.
Read more about Eastern United States: The South, New England, The Midwest, Major Population Centers
Famous quotes containing the words united states, eastern, united and/or states:
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which was several miles distant.... It was a very inspiriting sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)