Great Plains

The Great Plains are a vast, mostly treeless grassland region extending from central Canada through the central United States. They lie east of the Rocky Mountains and are shaped by continental climate, grassland ecosystems, and extensive agriculture.

North American Interior Plains: A broad physiographic region of relatively low-relief land between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. The Great Plains form the western part of this larger continental landform.
Chinook wind: A warm, dry downslope wind that descends the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. Chinooks can rapidly raise winter temperatures along the western Plains.
Plains Indians: Indigenous peoples whose diverse homelands and lifeways developed across the North American Plains. Their nations shaped the region’s history, economies, and cultural landscapes.
Dryland farming: Crop production in regions with limited rainfall, relying primarily on stored soil moisture rather than irrigation. It enabled cultivation across the drier parts of the Great Plains.
American bison: A large North American mammal that once formed enormous herds across the continent’s grasslands. Commercial slaughter sharply reduced bison and disrupted Plains Indigenous societies.
Shortgrass prairie: A dry grassland dominated by short grasses, especially in the western Great Plains. It marks the region’s drier western grassland zone.
Grassland fire: A fire that burns grasses and other vegetation in an open grassland ecosystem. Periodic fire suppresses many woody plants and helps maintain prairie.
Comanche: A Native American people whose historical homeland centered on the southern Great Plains. Comanche power and mobility shaped the region’s horse-based economies and conflicts.
Wheat belt: A major wheat-producing region of the central United States, including much of the Great Plains. Wheat became a defining crop of the region’s agricultural economy.
Great Sioux War of 1876: A conflict between the United States and Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples in the northern Plains. The war followed disputes over Indigenous land and settler expansion.

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