Great Plains

American  

noun

1. a semiarid region E of the Rocky Mountains, in the U.S. and Canada.

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Great Plains British  

plural noun

1. a vast region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, extending from the lowlands of the Mackenzie River (Canada), south to the Big Bend of the Rio Grande

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Great Plains Cultural  

1. Grassland prairie region of North America, extending from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, in Canada, south through the west-central United States into Texas.

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In the 1930s, areas of the Great Plains were known collectively as the Dust Bowl. Poor agricultural practices led to depletion of topsoil, which was blown away in huge dust storms. The area was called the Great American Desert well into the nineteenth century.

Now characterized by huge ranches and farms, the Great Plains were long inhabited by Native Americans.

Example Sentences

Great Plains states saw some of the highest rates of outbound moves, though the leader in outbound moves was Louisiana.

From The Wall Street Journal

So, in 1934, as Depression-era dust storms darkened the skies over the Great Plains, worsened by overgrazing that denuded grasslands, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Taylor Grazing Act, named for the lawmaker.

From Salon

Obedience doesn’t come easily to the freethinking and endearingly eccentric title character in this beautifully observed novel set within linked Anabaptist communities around the Great Plains.

From The Wall Street Journal

Its relentless march across America’s Great Plains would have been far less efficient without the region’s endless, powerful, omnipresent curtain of wind.

From The Wall Street Journal

In response, American farmers shifted millions of acres away from crops such as wheat, especially in the Great Plains.

From The Wall Street Journal