Population - 1,608,000

Area - 924,552 km^2

Density - 1.74 /km^2

The Interior, also known as the Frontier and the Great American Desert, is a region of the United States which is broadly known for its low densities and that it, in many ways, may be considered the last remnant of the Old West. Under narrow definitions, it consists of Washingtonia, Cheyenne, Tahosa and the eastern slice, as well as the three National Preserve Territories - Yellow Rock, Schuldt Pass, and Medina Pass. Under the broadest definitions, it also includes the whole of Pembina, Minasota, and Nibrasca owing to their low densities, although they are climactically very different. 

As a commonly-held region, this dates from the Pike Expedition (1806-7), which extolled the region beyond the 100th meridian (from London - from the modern Prime Meridian this would be the 102nd meridian) as the Great American Desert, a heap of useless land and an American analogue of the Sahara. This is not true, but despite it this became an idea within the broader American consciousness. For this reason the settlement of this region was quite slow and even today fairly incomplete. The icy city Websteropolis was settled upon the creation of Pembina Territory in 1851 as a stop on President Webster's mooted northern route for the transcontinental railroad (a project scuppered by southern interests), and for a long time it was the only white town of any note in the Interior.

White settlement beyond the 100th meridian would only truly become viable with the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad from 1857 to 1863. The worker laying down rail against grizzlies, wolves, and cougars became an iconic symbol of the frontier, along with the older symbols of coonskin caps and mountain men. However, few wanted to stay in this waste country. This also saw the settler discovery of Yellow Rock and its geysers, and when fears emerged of it turning into a tourist trap akin to Niagara Falls, it got reserved as America's first National Preserve Territory, as a park for the ages and enjoyment of the public. Though it is today somewhat smaller than it originally was - to open land for settlement - it is still today America's greatest park.

With the end of the Liberty and Union War (1868-76), the huge Tahosa Gold Rush (1878) turned the area populous almost overnight, and Cherisia became larger than Websteropolis in quick succession. However, because the war had seen the South's economy turned to shambles and many proscribed, many '78ers were white southerners. Come the outbreak Antillian War in 1880, Tahosa would, just as with the South, see a White Knight rebellion, although this the Civil Guard suppressed with ease. But this would end up to be but a blip, and Tahosa saw settlement directly from the North in the years that followed.

Washingtonia would see smaller gold rushes of its own in the 1880s, which settled the region, and this set up the groundwork not only for long-term placer mining, but also for an expansion of cattle ranching in the region. In addition, in the years that followed, the gender imbalance created in the South by both the death and out-migration of many young men meant many Southern women chose to leave to find husbands; though 'Southron Brides' are chiefly associated with Buenaventura, they also had a great cultural impact on the Interior and helped to give it something of a southern tint. 

It was with the Black Hills Gold Rush (1902), the last gold rush of the west - and the expulsion of the Sioux into Minasota - that the patchwork of the modern Interior became established, with the creation of the city of Passupah. Aside from these cities, attempts to settle the west largely failed, however, with the 1890s drought, the 1930s Polvamiento [dust bowl - from ”polvo” meaning dust and “poblamiento” meaning settlement, to ironically mean “dustening”] and the 1950s drought falling in the way. 

Today, the Interior is a land of extremely low density - under the narrow definition, it has a mere 1,608,000 inhabitants, most of them in Tahosa. It must come to no surprise that Tahosa has given the Interior its only president, American Presidents > 1940-1946 Robert G. Menzies (Free Trade). But nevertheless, the Interior is a land of placer mining, tourism, cattle ranching, and hydro-power generation, and this is only broken by market towns and a couple of cities in the hundred-thousands. This is a stark contrast to both adjacent parts of Buenaventura, adjacent parts of Columbia and to a lesser extent adjacent parts of Canada, which both have higher densities. In particular, Cheyenne is so empty and flat it is said that one who stands on a chair can see no other soul on all horizons. Though the oil boom has somewhat changed this, it has done so by very little.

-flannel plaid shirts

-Demography > British-Americans, specifically Scottish-Americans, being common in going to frontier

-they bring their plaid with them

-Cossack clothing

-carried over by large Russian minority

-came over as part of settlement attempt where a lot of Russians from Port Townsend recruited

-when this collapsed with the Polvamiento a lot of the Russians fled

-but quite a few stay and become ranchers

-impart Cossack steppe culture as symbolic