Learn English – I grew up IN the east coast vs ON the east coast

grammarprepositions

I cannot understand why there is "in" in the sentence "I grew up in the east coast…" – why it is not "on"?
Google search provides results for both with quite high number of hits.

Best Answer

According to the Oxford American dictionary:

Coast - The part of the land near the sea; the edge of the land.

This suggests that one grows up on the coast, rather than in the coast, since the latter would indicate being raised inside a piece of land. Usage statistics also support this conclusion, as "on the east/west coast" is significantly more popular than "in the east/west coast," according to Google Ngrams.

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