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allybra t1_jazlttj wrote

Reply to comment by Karuna56 in I’m very fascinated by the geographic diversity of WA alone by Starfox_2020

Ok, question for you then. Where is eastern Wa? ID border to cascades or ID border to Ritzville? For real, not messing with you. It bothers me that people don’t account for central Wa , which looks like Amarillo Tx, and say everything beyond cascades is eastern wa

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brobinson206 t1_jb04v61 wrote

Having grown up here, collectively we call anything east of the cascades “eastern Washington” because the cascades provide such a clear cultural and climatological divide. I see Central WA as a subregion of eastern WA, and I genuinely don’t know anybody who really uses the term central WA (unlike in Oregon where Central Oregon is used frequently). That said, where central WA ends and you just have the rest of eastern WA, I’m not sure. I see Highway 97 being the spine of central WA. Ritzville is a likely dividing line between central and eastern, but I could also see that at Moses lake too.

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lampstore t1_jb1l05r wrote

Yeah, I’ve lived in Western, Central, and Eastern WA. Only people from Central WA refer to it as Central, and even then often use “east of the mountains” since usually we’re talking about traveling back and forth to western WA. Everyone else uses Eastern and Western exclusively.

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impulsiveclick t1_jb1m7cz wrote

Ooo we should dignify central then. SW Washington feels itself different than everywhere and often feel more like we are in a weird relationship with Oregon… but then again I’m in Vancouver so… we’re pretty much just Portland suburbs. But you know even people in Skamania county work in Portland

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freckledtabby t1_jb29a7n wrote

I grew up in King County. I only know three zones, Eastern, Western, and the Olympic Peninsula AKA "the coast".

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_jb21twt wrote

Only time I hear it is Central Washington state fair, which is held in Yakima.

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Hfpros t1_jb3f2b5 wrote

Cle elum or ellensburg is more like the line. Ask anyone there and they'll say they live in Eastern WA. Don't ask my source :z

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TheFairAmerican t1_jb0jrkp wrote

I always consider Eastern WA to be from the Columbia river gorge east. Central is this real narrow band, once you hit the basalt flats you’re there?

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TheGruntingGoat t1_jb1p903 wrote

As someone who lives outside of Vancouver, WA, this confused me for a minute unit I figures out which Columbia river gorge you were talking about. I’m used to thinking if the one that forms the Oregon border.

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pablopolitics t1_jb0s1wh wrote

Funny, like Spokane being all woods I see your point. That said if you drew a line down the cascades which most people mentally do, 80% of the eastern side is like shrubland

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waltc97 t1_jb04bze wrote

Opinion of a geographer: if you make two divisions, the cascade crest should be the division between east and west, but I like the concept of an eastern, central, and west Washington. I can't help but wonder, if you're going to make the divisions though, could that third division be better used to highlight another part of the state with more distinction from the rest than the difference the near east side of the Cascades had from the rest of the eastern state. Eg: east and west and Spokane region is third division? East and West but Seattle metro and the islands get the third division?

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Ecofre-33919 t1_jb1zk25 wrote

This bugs me too. But i’m used to it. I grew up in a part massachusetts near new york state. But in MA - everything outside of the boston suburbs is western ma. So cities like springfied and worchester - really more central mass - were all considered western ma. I live in yakima now and have lived in seattle. I really think i’m in central wa now, not eastern.

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leftwingninja t1_jb2tmbg wrote

I moved from Lubbock, TX to north of Spokane 20 years ago. The first time I drove across the state, I thought I had been transported back to the Texas Panhandle when I got past Ritzville.

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bigmik450 t1_jb0zpyj wrote

I’m from Amarillo and when I try to describe it to people. I tell them take Spokane and drop it an hour west around Ritzville and you have Amarillo.

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OceanPoet87 t1_jb2q70t wrote

I lived 5 and a half years in North SnoCo/Island Co in Western WA and currently live almost as far east as you can get before going into Idaho. I moved here almost three years ago.

In both places: Western WA = West of the Cascade Crest / any of the counties west of the Cascades. Eastern WA = All of the remaining counties east of the Cascades.

A subregion of Western WA could be the Puget Sound Region or another example, SW Washington which aligns more with Portland. See Clark County as an example.

Central WA = Central Washington University in Ellensburg - nice little town. The Central WA area is more like a subset or subregion of Eastern Washington as a whole. If you really want to know what counties would consider themselves central, here is a map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Washington#/media/File:Central_Washington.svg

For the counties that are light pink in that link... I don't really consider Kicklitat (despite being in the center of the state), Benton / Franklin (Tri Cities), or Adams (the county that looks like a backwards Idaho or Utah) to be Central WA.

The main difference is Eastern Washingtonians call it the "East Side" whereas in Western WA, the East Side refers to the eastern Suburbs of King County.

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