Hobbies And Interests
Regional Boundaries
A "region" may be defined in any number of ways in reference to the same swath of land. It might be a cultural region, which reflects prevailing ethnic histories and traditions of its demographic. The classification may be due to major industry -- a region historically reliant on timber and mining, for example. None of these need correspond strongly to state boundaries. Geological and ecological boundaries are some of the most striking on the landscape, and these rarely fit within artificial political geographies.
Geologic Provinces
Areas of unified geologic history and structure, as well as topographic character, may delineate as geologic or physiographic provinces. These can further subdivide based on increasingly subtle and specific variations in bedrock, soil and other characteristics. The state of Wisconsin lies within two broad provinces -- most of it in the Central Lowlands and a small portion of its upper rim in the Superior, or Laurentian, Upland. Both of these encompass much larger areas than is contained within the boundaries of the Badger State. It can further segregate into any number of other geologically related regions, such as the Driftless Area -- a portion of southwestern Wisconsin -- and smaller adjoining pieces of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois that escaped glaciation during the last Ice Age and has a distinct topographic profile compared with surrounding areas heavily impacted by the continental ice sheets. You could also delineate regions in Wisconsin by rock type alone, drawing boundaries of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic bedrock exposures.
Ecological Regions
Incorporating geological, climatic influences and ecological regions -- sometimes called ecoregions -- are mainly defined by their ecosystems: interactions of living organisms with their physical environment that create distinct communities bound by ecological systems. In Wisconsin, an example of an ecological region would be the Central Sand Plains, a tract defined by the state Department of Natural Resources that occupies the old lakebed and margins of Glacial Lake Wisconsin, a Pleistocene water body. Its boundaries describe this phantom landscape feature -- the sand and loess of its sedimentary deposits and the resulting vegetation communities -- from oak savannas and swamps to human-influenced agricultural acreage.
Boundaries in Agreement
Often, state boundaries seem laid down in meaningless fashion when considered in the context of sheer topography. The western edges of the Dakotas belong to the same Missouri Plateau province of the Great Plains as eastern Montana across the invisible jurisdictional frontier. But there are plenty of instances where natural terrain helped define a state line. The Mississippi River acts as border to numerous states in its southward passageway across the Central Lowlands into the broad lowlands of the Atlantic-Gulf Coastal Plain. Oregon's western border is the Pacific Ocean; much of its northern border with Washington lies along the Columbia River; and its northeastern rim is cleft from the western edge of Idaho by the dramatic chasm of Hells Canyon.