How Long Do You Have to Live in Montana to Claim You’re From Here?

If you ask someone where they're from, are you wondering where they were born or where they grew up? Since we're a college town, when I ask, I'm typically assuming you're a transplant and wanna know where you were before you got here.

How long does a person have to live here to be considered a Montanan?

Do you have to be born here to be considered a Montanan? What if a person moves here to go to the U of M and never leaves? Honestly, as someone who was born and raised in Missoula, I don't think there's any magic number. If you weren't born here, but have been contributing to the health of our community for 30 years, I'd say you're a Missoulian alright. People WANT to claim to be from here, though, because we're awesome. When I think about it the opposite way, like, if we would have stayed in Portland, as much as I liked it there I wouldn't claim to be from there, I'm a Montanan no matter what.

What do other people say?

According to a website where volunteers take polls, 30% of people say that you can only be from the state where you were born. Surprisingly, 20% said you can say you're from a state if you've lived there for more than a year. Maybe for establishing residence for college tuition, but I would disagree that you are from somewhere after only a year. 18% of people said you have to live somewhere for longer than 10 years if you want to claim to be from there.

And what if you were born somewhere but moved to a new state as a baby, and lived there your whole life? What does it take to be a Montanan? Time? Or can you be so badass that people will just believe you're local? Your thoughts in the comments, please.