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Great Plains States and Provinces on a Map

Name the U.S. States and Canadian Provinces which form the "Great Plains" of North America.
Source: Great Plains
Quiz by Stewart
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Last updated: January 20, 2020
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First submittedOctober 23, 2019
Times taken34,076
Average score84.6%
Rating4.95
1:30
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States
Colorado
Kansas
Montana
Nebraska
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Texas
Wyoming
Provinces
Alberta
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
44 Comments
+19
Level 64
Oct 25, 2019
I didn't realize New Mexico had part of the Great Plains in it
+11
Level 75
Jan 20, 2020
250th feature! Congratulations!
+6
Level 68
Jan 20, 2020
Thanks! Didn't even know this was featured till you mentioned it :P
+12
Level 76
Jan 21, 2020
Just a note: the Canadian portion of this region is never called "the Great Plains" in Canada. It's always referred to as "the Prairies". It's kind of like saying that the Serengeti extends into Kenya - in lots of ways it would be correct, but once capitalized names are used, it doesn't quite work.
+1
Level 53
Sep 16, 2020
Must be nice not realizing when you get a featured quiz.
+5
Level 68
Sep 16, 2020
@duckling there's a delay between featuring the quiz and QM emailing about it, Hines was just insanely quick in spotting this one, so I didn't see it at first.
+8
Level 86
Jan 20, 2020
The landscape of eastern Kansas is indistinguishable from that of western Missouri. Drawing the boundary of the Great Plains along man-made state lines is lazy geography.
+22
Level 92
Jan 20, 2020
I think that's unfair to Stewart, his map seems to closely correspond to the one on Wikipedia's page about the region. The only places I see it really following State borders are where those borders follow rivers, which are hardly man-made.
+17
Level 68
Jan 20, 2020
I didn't actually use Wikipedia's map, since it didn't have state borders on it (making it more difficult to work out what's going on). I used this image as reference, which I believe to be very close / identical to the Wikipedia one. (It's uploaded on Wikimedia itself anyway).

But thank you for your support plattitude! :) (Although I don't think cpg aimed his comment at me, but at the Great Plains themselves)

+1
Level 59
Oct 30, 2020
I don't know whose map that is, but as a native of Iowa, I can firmly say nearly the whole state is quite flat, was once prairie, and is nearly all farmland currently. There's really no difference between Iowa and Nebraska. Western Missouri above the Ozarks is also quite flat, and southwestern Minnesota at least as well.
+3
Level 83
Jan 20, 2020
Stewart was just going off of the source material. Take it up with Wikipedia. I'd agree that parts of MN, IA, and other states would be effectively part of the great plains.
+2
Level 45
May 26, 2020
All of Iowa is. As a native, almost everything was once prairie, never was much forest in our state.
+3
Level 61
Jul 3, 2020
Actually it is not part of the Great Plains, Iowa, Minnesota Illinois etc are part of the Central Plains. Even the far eastern parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas are part of the central plains, the Great Plains historically is not the Missouri River but the 100 degree meridian. The Great Plains has one key distinction the Central Plains do not have which is less than 20 inches of rain a year. The Great Plains are far more arid than the Central Plains. The Central Plains were name long before the Great Plains because until the Louisiana Purchase, the Great Plains were not owned by the US yet. Technically cities like Souix Falls, Omaha, Lincoln, Wichita, Ft. Worth, Kansas City and Dallas are part of the Central Plains not the Great Plains because they lie east of the 100 meridian and have more than 20 inches of rain a year.
+1
Level 59
Oct 30, 2020
I can take 5 minutes to find a precipitation map off of google, and everything I'm seeing shows up to 50 inches of rain within the area on this map. That, and a meridian is an arbitrary line for an ecosystem. Also, looking at maps detailing the Great Plains: They either 1. Combine both the Central and Great Plains, with some maps stretching as far as the Mississippi (Which is going too far, since the eastern part of Iowa gets hilly and wooded), or 2. The Great Plains is separate, but further west and more irregularly shaped.
+1
Level 66
Dec 30, 2021
Wikipedia is a weird one. The map on the Great Plains article is identical to the one in the quiz as far as I can tell, but the second paragraph of that same article mentions Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri as Great Plains states.
+5
Level 76
Jan 20, 2020
That map took a bit to decipher. Yes, it's the great plains, but not used to seeing just a piece of map like that.
+11
Level 68
Jan 20, 2020
All part of the fun challenge!
+1
Level 74
Jan 21, 2020
I was surprised to see that a map was included. I would also have enjoyed the challenge of doing the quiz without a map. I probably wouldn't have gotten New Mexico without a map. After doing some research I learned that prairies and plains aren't exactly the same. It seems that all prairies are plains, but not all plains are prairies, and so some prairie states are not included in the "Great Plains" of the US. Many of those are considered by some to be part of the central grasslands rather than great plains, while other sites listed them as northern plains. A couple of sites included small portions of them as part of the Great Plains. It's all clear as mud. (Still enjoyed the quiz, however. Any quiz which promotes a stroll through the internet is a good one.)
+2
Level 59
Jan 21, 2020
Good Quiz!
+15
Level 64
Jan 21, 2020
Still can't spell Saskasjdnlfkhaslkjcmhdkfa
+3
Level 69
Jan 21, 2020
As a Canadian, nor can I so don't feel too bad.
+4
Level 45
May 26, 2020
Try Sas, then catch with a k, then ewan.
+1
Level 15
May 1, 2022
Sascatchaone
+1
Level 49
Jul 28, 2022
@qcumber It really helped me on how to spell it, thanks!
+9
Level 79
Jan 21, 2020
I'm pretty sure you just named a city in Iceland.
+4
Level 85
Jan 22, 2020
No, I think it's a small village in Wales! ;-)
+2
Level 20
May 1, 2022
nor can I, the mnemoic 'sam and sally kissed at the church hill every wednesday after noon' saves me very time
+2
Level 91
Jan 21, 2020
Great quiz. It might have been more challenging if you imposed the highlighted area over a map of North America and had to guess the states and provinces without the state/national borders. I certainly wouldn't have gotten the correct 13 without an incorrect guess or three.
+2
Level 56
Jan 21, 2020
100% first try. Thanks for the interesting quizzes Stewart <3
+1
Level 68
Jan 21, 2020
Thanks <3
+2
Level 55
Jan 21, 2020
While pretty accurate for the most part I also feel the map is pretty rough. Definitely feel like western Iowa, the Northwestern corner of Missouri, and southwestern corner of Minnesota could also very easily be included in and classified as the Great Plains as well.
+3
Level 61
Jul 3, 2020
Actually no, even parts of Eastern Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas are part of the Central Plains and not the Great Plains. The Great Plains actually start at the 100 degree meridian not the Missouri River. The distinction difference you can make easily between the Great Plains and the Central Plains is the historic yearly rainfall amounts the two plains have. The Great Plains are more arid and have historic less than 20 inches of rain. The Central Plains include cities like Omaha, Lincoln, Souix Falls, Kansas City, Wichita, Ft Worth and Dallas to name a few even though the wiki map says they are part of the Great Plains. But each of those cities are east of the 100 meridian and part of the Central Plains. The Central Plains were named long before the Great Plains because until the Louisiana Purchase, the Great Plains were not US territory yet. So Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois are part of the Central Plains not the Great Plains.
+1
Level 62
Dec 30, 2021
wow you know what your talking about... you don't simply use intuition like the rest of us
+2
Level 49
Jan 23, 2020
So sad that the Great Plains are pretty much gone now
+1
Level 45
May 26, 2020
I think you mean the prairie is gone. The flat landscape itself is still here!
+5
Level 78
Feb 13, 2020
I live in Boulder, Colorado, and it is cool looking one way and seeing mountains and then looking the other way and seeing super flat plains.
+2
Level 55
Mar 24, 2020
Am I the only one who always forgets Nebraska in any quiz?
+1
Level 76
Aug 16, 2020
More time so I can figure out how to spell sascatchiwan?
+2
Level 78
Dec 30, 2021
You can learn it! Canadian first-graders have to, after all.
+1
Level 65
May 9, 2021
Easy!
+1
Level 69
Dec 30, 2021
50 seconds, interesting to see the map like that with states and provinces together
+1
Level 70
Jan 4, 2022
It took me 49 seconds lol
+1
Level 70
Jan 4, 2022
In Wikipedia it states that "Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota" are part of the great plains.
+1
Level 28
Sep 30, 2024
Love that dropoff between states and provinces.