Upper Midwest
U.S. region consisting of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota
The Upper Midwest is a northern subregion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon, the region is usually defined to include the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota; some definitions include parts of Nebraska and Illinois.
Definitions
The National Centers for Environmental Information considers the Upper Midwest climate region to include Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
The United States Geological Survey uses two different Upper Midwest regions:
The USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center considers it to be the six states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, which comprise the watersheds of the Upper Mississippi River and upper Great Lakes.
The USGS Mineral Resources Program considers the area to contain Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The Association for Institutional Research in the Upper Midwest includes the states of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan in the region. According to the Library of Congress, the Upper Midwest includes the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Climate
The region has dramatic variations between summer and winter temperatures: summers are hot, and winters are very cold. For example, Sioux Falls averages 25 days each year with temperatures above 90 °F (32 °C) and 45 days each year with temperatures below 5 °F (−15 °C). Mitchell, South Dakota has a record high of 116 °F (47 °C) and a record low of −39 °F (−39 °C).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Upper Midwest” is u.S. region consisting of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Upper, Midwest and region, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “u.S. region consisting of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2984465. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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This entry incorporates text from “Upper Midwest” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.