Here's a pet peeve:

Why, in the US, do we have an Eastern seaboard but not a Western one? Why an upper tier of states but not a lower? Why a Pacific Northwest (pleonasm aside) and not an Atlantic Northeast?

While there may be some inconsistency to these, the nomenclature that makes no sense geographically is Midwestern (divided into upper and lower) -- at the extreme we have Ohio and Indiana as Midwestern states. I suppose there is a historical explanation, but the map tells me they are "mideastern".

It may be that the Pacific Northwest is so named to prevent confusion with the Northwest Territories. As to the Western Seaboard, that would be California. :-)

Yep, the term "midwest" befuddles me, too. Ohio is due north of Georgia, where I live, and this is definitely East Coast. Perhaps "midwest" was coined by early cartographers, when wagon trains were still rolling westward, ho!

Would it really be that interesting if the US were named so symmetrically? The "Atlantic Northeast" is referred to as New England because it was heavily settled by people from England, and it was their new home so they called it, oh my gosh, New England. It's really no different than New Jersey, New Amsterdam/York, New Hampshire, or any "new" geographic names.

As for the Midwest, it was once called the Northwest because when the US was young and relatively small (pre Louisiana Purchase, 1803) Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were the northwest. Congressmen from these young wippersnapper states were called warhawks in the war of 1812 because they wanted to experience a war like their fathers got to in the Revolutionary war. Yes, these new western states were represented by young, immature politicians. But anyway, when the Louisiana Purchase was made, this area became known as the Old Northwest, because it was no longer the northwest. I would assume that when these states became the middle of the US, they wanted to retain the "west" so they took the moniker "Midwest".

I recall that in Alastair Cooke's BBC TV series "America", he was filmed in his library in front of a huge wall of books about America, and he told us that the books on each state were in approximately the same place on his wall as the states were on the map of America. As a former librarian, I wonder what his classification system was called?

not really u.s. geography, but i sometimes wonder about the old upside-down map thing. since maps are showing us what we can't see with our eyes, how do they affect our vision of where we see ourselves. the upside-down map shows australia on the top and europe on the bottom. this is a bit of fun for australians (reminds me of barnum barnum claiming england in 1988), but it makes me think further away into space and if we map space in the same way. growing up in the southern hemisphere is lonely. when we are taught about the northern hemisphere being the top of the world at least it feels that way. i want to ask if the nomenclature of the west in the u.s. has something to do with image and distance from "civilisation" rather than compass direction?