Consider the following paragraph.
I have a friend who has always wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest. So I invited him to my home in the southern part of Oregon. Once he arrived, we took my car and drove 30 miles west to Gold Beach. We tried to find a restaurant there that served high-quality seafood. A local resident told us that two miles southeast of the city limits, we would find a restaurant that served halibut, black cod, scallops, and prawns, all freshly caught. We were eager to see if the seafood here was better than it was on the East Coast. Unfortunately, we got lost and ended up getting dinner at a hamburger joint in Northern California.
At first, it might appear that directional words, e.g., Pacific Northwest, East Coast, southeast, have been uppercased (capitalized) inconsistently. But that is not the case. Depending on how it is used, a directional word may or may not be uppercased.
Most style manuals (such as The Chicago Manual of Style) say writers should not capitalize directional words when referring to a general direction or a nonspecific area or weather-related phenomenon. Accordingly, we might write about a westerly wind being atypical in a southern climate. Or an easterly wind moving across a lake up north.
On the other hand, style manuals stipulate that directional words be uppercased when they describe a specific region of the world or within a specific country. So that just-mentioned westerly wind might flow across the Midwest or into the South or up the East Coast. There might also be similar winds in the Mideast, in Southeast Asia, across the North Sea, and through West Australia.
Keeping two guidelines in mind will help writers decide whether or not to capitalize directional words. First, if the article “the” precedes the word, it should typically be capitalized.
The doctor set up a practice in the Northeast after moving away from the West Coast. The farmer felt at home in the Midwest, but the Deep South did not appeal to him.
An exception arises when the preposition “to” precedes “the.”
Bill lives to the east of a quiet park after living just to the north of a busy intersection.
Second, country and region names are almost always capitalized if they are followed by another noun.
People from North America who travel to Eastern Europe or West Africa often have amazing adventures. South Yemen broke off from North Yemen almost 30 years ago.
Most writers know they should capitalize the names of continents, nations and their subdivisions, mountains and mountain ranges, bodies of water, and natural creations such as waterfalls and canyons. They also know not to capitalize general, nonspecific references to countries, states, rivers, mountains, etc. But questions can arise when writers wish to make additional references to a particular place or geographical feature they have already identified by its full name. For example, consider this passage.
A pilot steering a steamboat down the Mississippi River during Mark Twain’s youth had to have unique skills. This (river or River) has hazards that can sink even a large vessel.
Most style manuals would say “river” should be lowercased in the second sentence. Still, there might be room for some flexibility, depending on what the writer wishes to emphasize. In some contexts, the capitalization in the following passage’s second sentence may be acceptable: The Mariana Trench is no ordinary hole in the ocean floor. At about 43 miles in depth, it is The Trench of all trenches. If the writer wants to uppercase “Trench,” that may be okay, as long as he or she is consistent in uppercasing it throughout the rest of the composition.
In Part III of “That’s a Capital Idea,” capitalization rules for academic subjects and degrees will come into focus.