Regions

BEA Regions are a set of Geographic Areas that are aggregations of the states. The following eight regions are defined: Far West, Great Lakes, Mideast, New England, Plains, Rocky Mountain, Southeast, and Southwest. The regional classifications, which were developed in the mid-1950s, are based on the homogeneity of the states in terms of economic characteristics, such as the industrial composition of the labor force, and in terms of demographic, social, and cultural characteristics

For a brief description of the regional classification of states used by BEA, see U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Geographic Areas Reference Manual, Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, November 1994, pp. 6-18;6-19.

For a list of BEA Regions and their component states, please see http://www.bea.gov/regional/docs/regions.cfm.

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