Map – Western Perceptions

The first thing to notice about this map is that western respondents have identified more of the state with greater frequency than eastern respondents (by comparison to the Map of eastern respondents). This is indicated by the fact that nearly the entire state contained areas of overlap that were identified by at least 31% of the western respondents. Secondly, it appears that western respondents find a large portion of the very eastern region of WA as different since at least 46% of those respondents identified that area.  By comparison to the eastern respondents, the western respondents seem to have identified areas in eastern WA more than the eastern respondents did.

There are lots of reasons why eastern WA might be perceived as different.  There is a perceived cultural divide that separates the eastern and western parts of the state along the geographic divide of the Cascade mountain range, often called the “cascade curtain”. The cascade curtain represents a geographic and political divide between ‘westside liberals’ and ‘eastside Republicans’ resulting from the differing population distribution and topography in the two ‘sides’ of the state. The eastern region encompasses counties that have a history of agriculture and they are the top producers of crop and livestock products which may lead eastern WA to be associated with rural, agricultural and ‘cowboy’ culture. This notion is supported by the fact that eastern WA was frequently labeled as “country” or “hick” and, in fact, this notion comprised the largest category of labels given by the respondents.