West and frontier The frontier is the margin of undeveloped territory that would comprise the United States beyond the established frontier line. The U.S. Census Bureau designated frontier territory as generally unoccupied land with a population density of fewer than 2 people per square mile (0.77 people per square kilometer). The frontier line was the outer boundary of European-American settlement into this land. Beginning with the first permanent European settlements on the East Coast, it has moved steadily westward from the 1600s to the 1900s (decades) with occasional movements north into Maine and New Hampshire, south into Florida, and east from California into Nevada. Pockets of settlements would also appear far past the established frontier line, particularly on the West Coast and the deep interior with settlements such as Los Angeles and Salt Lake City respectively. The "West" was the recently settled area near that boundary. Thus, parts of the Midwest and American South, though no longer considered "western", have a frontier heritage along with the modern western states. Richard W. Slatta, in his view of the frontier, writes that "historians sometimes define the American West as lands west of the 98th meridian or 98° west longitude," and that other definitions of the region "include all lands west of the Mississippi or Missouri rivers." Maps of United States territories Key: History Colonial frontier In the colonial era, before 1776, the west was of high priority for settlers and politicians. The American frontier began when Jamestown, Virginia, was settled by the English in 1607. In the earliest days of European settlement on the Atlantic coast, until about 1680, the frontier was essentially any part of the interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the Atlantic coast. English, French, Spanish, and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Only a few thousand French migrated to Canada; these habitants settled in villages along the St. Lawrence River, building communities that remained stable for long stretches. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and midwest region they seldom settled down. French settlement was limited to a few very small villages such as Kaskaskia, Illinois as well as a larger settlement around New Orleans. In what is now New York state the Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson River valley, followed by large grants of land to rich landowning patroons who brought in