Where is Appalachia?

by: Clem Guttata

Fri Nov 07, 2008 at 04:31:20 AM EST

There's a lot of bunk being thrown this week about Obama under-performing in the Appalachian Region. Unfortunately, the Reality-Based community is missing one important piece of reality: the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas are not part of Appalachia.

As a public service, I do hereby provide (as we have posted before on this blog), the generally accepted definition of Appalchia:

The Federal Government defines the Appalachian Region as "a 200,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia."

Update: By way of comparison... here's the NYTimes map.