Historical term for the High Plains region of North America
"Great American Desert," mapped by Stephen H. Long in 1820Historic photo of the High Plains in Haskell County, Kansas, showing a treeless semi-arid grassland and a buffalo wallow or circular depression in the level surface. (Photo by W.D. Johnson, 1897) [1]
Today the area is usually referred to as the High Plains, and the original term is sometimes used to describe the arid region of North America, which includes parts of northwestern Mexico and the American southwest.
^Darton, N. H. (1920) Syracuse-Lakin folio, Kansas. United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Folios of the Geologic Atlas, No. 212, 10 pp. (See Plate 2)