[mikeash]

Not to change your overall point, but you almost never launch west. When possible, you want to launch east, to gain the benefit of the Earth's rotational speed. Sometimes you launch north or south so you can go into a polar orbit which allows viewing more of the Earth. But there's pretty much no reason to launch west. One exception to this is if your launch site is located in a place where that's the only option, which is why Israel does it like this.

For American launch sites, you have KSC for launching east, and Vandenberg for launching south. (North and south are equivalent in terms of which orbits they can reach, so you don't need both.) Vandenberg can be used for launching west, but pretty much never is, unless you count ICBM tests and the like.

[brianwawok]

Well the launch Space-X launch was South-West, clearly not over any land.

[mikeash]

Southeast, not southwest. But yes, as I said in the original comment, it doesn't change your overall point.