{{Short description|Agricultural or cultural region of the Midwestern United States}} {{Redirect|Grain Belt|the beer of the same name|Grain Belt (beer)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}} {{Infobox settlement | name = Corn Belt | native_name = | native_name_lang = | settlement_type = Agricultural or cultural region of the United States | image_flag = | flag_alt = | image_seal = | seal_alt = | image_shield = | shield_alt = | nickname = | motto = | image_map = Corn harvested acres by county.webp | image_size = 270px | map_alt = | map_caption = 2022 production of corn in the United States | subdivision_type = Country | subdivision_name = | subdivision_type1 = Subregion | subdivision_type2 = Subregion | subdivision_type3 = | subdivision_name1 = | subdivision_type4 = Country | subdivision_name4 = {{flag|United States}} | subdivision_type5 = States | subdivision_name5 = {{flag|Illinois}}<br /> {{flag|Indiana}}<br /> {{flag|Iowa}}<br /> {{flag|Kansas}}<br /> {{flag|Kentucky}}<br /> {{flag|Michigan}}<br /> {{flag|Minnesota}}<br /> {{flag|Missouri}}<br /> {{flag|Nebraska}}<br /> {{flag|North Dakota}}<br /> {{flag|Ohio}}<br /> {{flag|South Dakota}}<br /> {{flag|Wisconsin}} }} [[File:Railroad grain shuttle loader facilities 02.webp|thumb|273px|Railroad grain elevator facilities (2014) <br> 14px 110 or greater grain car<br> 14px 100 to 109 <br> 14px Less than 99 <br> 17px Announced facility (2014) ]] thumb|Corn fields in the United States
The '''Corn Belt''' is a region of the Midwestern United States and part of the Southern United States that, since the 1850s, has dominated corn production in the United States. In North America, ''corn'' is the common word for maize. More generally, the concept of the Corn Belt connotes the area of the Midwest dominated by farming and agriculture, though it stretches down into the South as well reaching into Kentucky.<ref>John Mark Hansen, ''Gaining access: Congress and the farm lobby, 1919–1981'' (1991) p. 138</ref><ref>Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, ''North America: the historical geography of a changing continent'' (2001) p, 186</ref>
==Geography== There is lack of consensus regarding the constituents of the Corn Belt, although it often includes Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, southern Michigan, western Ohio, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, southern Minnesota, and parts of Missouri.<ref name="Hart 1986">Hart (1986)</ref> It also sometimes includes South Dakota, North Dakota, all of Ohio, Wisconsin, all of Michigan, and Kentucky.<ref name="agcensus">{{Cite web |url=http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Online_Highlights/Ag_Atlas_Maps/ |title=U.S. Department of Agriculture |access-date=June 1, 2010 |archive-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020110328/https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Online_Highlights/Ag_Atlas_Maps/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some people and industries break the Corn Belt down even further and refer to it as the Eastern Corn Belt and the Western Corn Belt.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://ashlandcommodities.com/eastern-corn-belt-vs-western-corn-belt/ | title=Eastern Corn Belt Vs Western Corn Belt | date=January 3, 2023 }}</ref>
The region is characterized by level land and deep fertile soils with high concentrations of organic material and nitrogen.<ref name="Britannica">{{Cite news |date=2024-05-01 |title=Corn Belt {{!}} region, United States |url=http://www.britannica.com:80/EBchecked/topic/137792/Corn-Belt |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20150503122409/http://www.britannica.com:80/EBchecked/topic/137792/Corn-Belt |archive-date=2015-05-03 |access-date=2025-12-22 |work=Encyclopedia Britannica |language=en}}</ref>
As of 2008, the top four corn-producing states were Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota, accounting for more than half of the corn growth in the U.S.<ref name="usda">[http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/state-fact-sheets USDA State Fact sheets]</ref>
More recently, the Corn Belt was mapped at the county level using the Land use and Agricultural Management Practices web-Service (LAMPS),<ref name="Kipka 2016">[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2015.08.005], Kipka et al. 2016, Development of the Land-use and Agricultural Management Practice web-Service (LAMPS) for generating crop rotations in space and time, Soil & Tillage Research, Vol 155, p, 233–249.</ref> along with animated maps of changes in time (2010–2016).<ref name="Green 2018">[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.325], Green et al. 2018, Where is the USA Corn Belt, and how is it changing? Sci. Total Environment, Vol. 618, p. 1613-1618.</ref>
==History==
William Scully (1821–1906), from a wealthy landowning Catholic family in West Tipperary, Ireland, immigrated to Chicago in 1851. He bought up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Corn Belt farmland in the Midwest, and rented it to tenants. By 1906 he owned 225,000 acres in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri, renting it out to 1200 tenants.<ref>Homer E. Socolofsky, "William Scully: Ireland and America, 1840-1900." ''Agricultural History'' 48.1 (1974): 155-175.</ref>
On account of new agricultural technology developments between 1860 and 1970, the Corn Belt went from producing mixed crops and livestock into becoming an area focused strictly on wheat-cash planting. After 1970, increased crop and meat production required an export outlet, but global recession and a strong dollar reduced exports and created serious problems even for the best farm managers.<ref name="Hart 1986"/>
In 1956, former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, a pioneer of hybrid seed, declared that the Corn Belt had developed the "most productive agricultural civilization the world has ever seen".<ref>Edward L. Schapsmeier and Frederick H. Schapsmeier, ''Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940–1965'' (1970) p, 234</ref>
Most corn grown today is fed to livestock, especially hogs and poultry.{{Citation needed|date=December 2025}} In recent decades, soybeans have grown in importance.
By 1950, 99% of corn has been grown from hybrids.
==EPA ecoregion== In 1997, the USEPA published its report on the United States' ecoregions, in part based on "land use". Its "Level III" region classification contains three contiguous "Corn Belt" regions, Western (47), Central (54), and Eastern (55), stretching from Indiana to eastern Nebraska.<ref name=CEC>{{cite web | publisher=Commission for Environmental Cooperation | title=Ecological Regions of North America: Toward a Common Perspective | url=http://www3.cec.org/islandora/en/item/1701-ecological-regions-north-america-toward-common-perspective-en.pdf | year=1997 | access-date=2018-02-26}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Ecoregion Maps and GIS Resources |publisher=United States Environmental Protection Agency | url=http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/ecoregions.htm | archive-url=https://archive.today/20120604100817/http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/ecoregions.htm | url-status=dead | archive-date=June 4, 2012 | access-date=2008-04-10}}</ref>{{Panorama |image = File:Corn fields near Royal, Illinois.jpg |height = 175 |alt = Corn fields near Cayuga, Indiana |caption = Corn fields near Royal, Illinois }}
==See also== {{Portal|Agriculture and Agronomy|Geography}} * Breadbasket * Canadian Prairies, Canada's 'Breadbasket' * Central Black Earth Region, segment of the Eurasian chernozem belt that lies within Central Russia * Grain elevator * Palliser's Triangle, Canada's semi-arid grain production region * Peak wheat * William Scully (Irish-American landlord), by 1900 the largest landowner in the Corn Belt and the USA
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Anderson, J. L. ''Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945–1972'' (2009) 238 pp. {{ISBN|978-0-87580-392-0}} * Bogue, Allan. ''From Prairie to Corn Belt: Farming on the Illinois and Iowa Prairies in the Nineteenth Century'' (1963) * Cayton, Andrew, et al. eds. ''The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia'' (2006) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0253348862/ excerpt and text search] * Hart, John Fraser. "Change in the Corn Belt", ''Geographical Review'', Jan 1986, Vol. 76#1 pp. 51–72 * Hudson, John C. ''Making the Corn Belt: A Geographical History of Middle-Western Agriculture'' (1994) * Power, Richard Lyle. ''Planting Corn Belt Culture: The Impress of the Upland Southerner and Yankee in the old Northwest'' (1953) * Snapp, Roscoe R. ''Beef Cattle Their Feeding and Management in the Corn Belt States'' (1950) * Smith, C. Wayne, et al. ''Corn: Origin, History, Technology, and Production'' (2004) [https://www.questia.com/read/112030874?title=Corn%3a%20%20Origin%2c%20History%2c%20Technology%2c%20and%20Production online edition] * Socolofsky, Homer E. "William Scully's Irish and American Lands 1843-1976." ''Western Historical Quarterly'' 9.2 (1978): 149–161. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/966824 online] * Wallace, Henry Agard. ''Henry A. Wallace's Irrigation Frontier: On the Trail of the Corn Belt Farmer 1909'' 15 articles written by Wallace in 1909; 1991 edition edited by Richard Lowitt, and Judith Fabry
{{U.S. Belt regions}} {{Agriculture in the United States}} {{Authority control}} {{Coord|41|N|90|W|region:US_scale:5000000|display=title}}
Category:Agricultural production in the United States Category:Agriculture in Illinois Category:Agriculture in Indiana Category:Agriculture in Iowa Category:Agriculture in Kansas Category:Agriculture in Kentucky Category:Agriculture in Michigan Category:Agriculture in Minnesota Category:Agriculture in Missouri Category:Agriculture in Nebraska Category:Agriculture in North Dakota Category:Agriculture in Ohio Category:Agriculture in South Dakota Category:Agriculture in Wisconsin Category:Economy of the Midwestern United States Category:Midwestern United States Category:Belt regions of the United States Category:Corn production in the United States Category:Agricultural belts Category:Ecoregions of Illinois Category:Ecoregions of Indiana Category:Ecoregions of Iowa Category:Ecoregions of Kansas Category:Ecoregions of Michigan Category:Ecoregions of Minnesota Category:Ecoregions of Missouri Category:Ecoregions of Nebraska Category:Ecoregions of South Dakota Category:Ecoregions of Wisconsin