[Psudo]

People love to divide the US into cultural regions, like the South, New England, and (after the 2004 elections) Jesusland. But how many of these divisions have an empirical basis for existing?

This video has an interesting basis for drawing such regional borderlines. You can watch the whole thing to hear the logical basis behind it, or skip to 4:30 to see the borders themselves. [EDIT: Or look here.]


It's interesting which regions are consistently distinct and which blur into each other. The Northwest, Southwest, South, New England, and New York are almost always distinct regions, though typically either New York or the South includes the Mid Atlantic states, and for the South to border on the Mississippi to the exclusion of Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas, but not necessarily Louisiana. It's also very common for the Midwest to be separated eastern and western halves approximately along Indiana's southern and and eastern border. Perhaps these could be called the Appalachian Midwest and the Lake Michigan Area.

Most confused, though, is the vertical column through the center of the states. There is always a northern section and a southern section, but whether a third middle section exists or not seems completely undependable. Montana is sometimes included in this Minnesota/Dakotas northern region and sometimes with the Northwest. New Mexico is sometimes with Arizona and sometimes with Texas. Colorado may be with California in the southwest, Texas in the south, or Kansas/Nebraska in a central position, rarely the Dakota north, and on occasion even left independent. A blow to my regional sentiment, Utah is almost never excluded from the Nevada/Arizona/California west; I had some strong emotional connection to the idea that Utah maintained a strong feeling Deseret independence, but that seems not to be the case.

In short, regionalism breaks down into a blurry mush between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. There seems to be more division between New York and the rest of New England, and between Tennessee and Kentucky, than between Colorado and any of it's border states or their border states.

I would summarize the regions as [Edited to reflect dialect names. Thanks, raydan!] the:

• Pacific Northwest
• Pacific Southwest
• Flyover Country (which includes:)
  • Dakota North Upper Midwestern
    
  • Southern Plains Texas Southwestern
    
  • Central Plains Midland (maybe independent, maybe not)
• Lake Michigan Area
• Appalachian Midwest
• New England
• New York Region Inland Northern
• Coastal Southern
  • Mid-Atlantic States (equally part of both previous groups)

This gives between 9 and 11 regions, and two different levels of distinctness. The borders are fuzzy, even the exact number of regions is a blur, but it's the simplest I can think of making it while keeping true to the video's considerations.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Sometimes I include Canada as an American region. They pretty much own everything.

[BartSimpson]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

Sometimes I include Canada as an American region.

Probably wise to do so as any upheaval that results in the USA breaking up into regional identities will inevitably include Canada. Maybe even Mexico.

[raydan]

Here's something I found a while back that may be used to confirm or fine-tune these regions.

Dialect Map of American English

[BartSimpson]

Better yet, draw the borders politically and we'll have a few regions of liberals and a huge expanse of conservatives.

[KyleEverett]

BartSimpson wrote:

Better yet, draw the borders politically and we'll have a few regions of liberals and a huge expanse of conservatives.

Well jee, how about we distort that by population. Conservatives can have the huge expanses of emptiness where few people live.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ The site you got your map from actually,

[raydan]

KyleEverett wrote:

Conservatives can have huge expanses of emptiness.

I like to have fun taking things out of context.

[BartSimpson]

KyleEverett wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Better yet, draw the borders politically and we'll have a few regions of liberals and a huge expanse of conservatives.

Well jee, how about we distort that by population. Conservatives can have the huge expanses of emptiness where few people live.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/ The site you got your map from actually,

Um, yeah. That's exactly what I have here.

[Psudo]

I remember seeing those same kinds of political maps just after the 2004 election. Both sets are based on 2000 census data, which means the southwest is probably under-represented pretty badly.

In any case, the election results of a given election are not likely to demonstrate cultural boundaries much, especially when it's only a two-party system. If we had six or seven regional parties maybe we'd have something useful.

[Marcus_Ozius]

I lament the breakdown of regional distinctness in America, and around the world in general. I suppose that it's the price that we pay for modernism and convenience, but I do wish that there was more regional variety. People seem to be locking into particular subcultures, largely fostered through the communication available through the internet, to form virtual regionalism without any of the actual faces or locations that made the old regionalism so charming. Even within this forum, we can see a tendency towards the development of a common culture based on our virtual proximity to each other. Again, this is happening to greater extents in certain places, but it seems to be the general trend. I think the breakdown of the traditional regions is indicative of the breakdown of traditional human interaction.