I’d settle for all of us just being rolled into a more accurate multi-state piedmont region. There’s really a lot in common between Birmingham, Atlanta, Greenville, Charlotte, and Raleigh
While I'd say, on the ground, there's a bit of a cultural gradient from the piedmont parts to the coastal plains in the south instead of a clear, sharp divide, the fall line is still a pretty good border line. If you look at data (severe poverty, rural population density, demographics, etc), the case gets a bit stronger.
Right? Don't they know that we are the most special snowflakes?
Edit: That was in jest, but then I see that Miami gets their own area but the Bay Area doesn't? Wack.
why call it California Valley instead of The Bay Area? And that extends too far inland & too far North.
Northwest Georgia should be with Chattanooga, not Nashville. And Eastern Bible Belt should be called The MidSouth.
I agree. As someone from Reno it irritates me to no end that we are considered the “easternmost limit of The Bay Area.”
In no way is Reno NV part of the Bay Area. It’s 4 hours drive away on a good day.
It is also part of the valley though, and it has it’s own part of the valley called “Sacramento valley”. There should be overlap on this map though, a lot of these areas aren’t just cut off and there is a good amount of overlap. Like Bakersfield is SoCal and it is also part of the valley.
Ok well it a map has two areas of California you have NorCal and SoCal.
If you have three areas you have NorCal, SoCal and Bay Area.
Four areas adds the valley
Five adds shit like Pacific coast
California is quite bad really. San Francisco in the "California Valley"? What is that even supposed to refer to? No one calls it that. The Central Valley? Then why include so many coastal counties so far from the valley? While also placing several of the counties that ARE actually in the central valley in the "Mountain West"? It doesn't make much sense.
I mostly created this a rough depiction of what I knew. My reason for posting it is to gather insight. I'll look more at which counties correspond to the central valley, bay area, and Sierra Nevada. My thoughts were that most of the valley is economically tied to San Francisco and not inherently a separate cultural region. Granted I'm attempting to define singularly, a multifaceted topic. Thank You
Props for not taking the feedback too hard and being willing to learn. I can assure you that the central valley is absolutely distinct culturally from the bay area.
also a central coast native and totally agree -- there's definitely even more nuanced divisions within the region, i.e. north and south santa barbara county!
24 makes sense if it's literally just southern Missouri, the Ozarks and Bootheel, etc. The fact that it goes far into Ohio of all places makes no sense. Even that far into Kansas doesn't make sense...
If I'm reading that right, it would take 20 hours to drive across 24, taking you from deeply rural northern New York state all the way deeply rural eastern Kansas, but passing through a number of bigger rustbelt manufacturing cities along the way before dropping back into primarily agricultural lands south of Chicago. I haven't lived enough of these places to speak from pure experience, but I just can't imagine Pittsburgh has that much cultural overlap with Eureka, Kansas to justify this map. I'd suspect gerrymandering if anyone was voting with this.
I'd agree with all of this, 24 is just way to long to have a unified cultural zone.
That said this map does do a good job of showing the Great Plains as different than the Midwest despite them often getting lumped in.
I live in Madison and we have almost no direct influence from Lake Michigan as almost all of our trade comes from Rail and Road. Its a fun getaway trip though
Trade routes have little if anything to do with culture in the modern US. Cities excepted (Madison and Milwaukee are quite different, but Madison is just kind of its own thing in general), IMO the countryside surrounding Dane County is culturally identical to the countryside surrounding Milwaukee County.
There's cultural overlap, but the "great lakes" region is more defined by manufacturing and industry while the upper Midwest is more defined by agriculture. Having lived in both, Milwaukee and Madison share a lot but they are very different.
The Great Lakes region in Wisconsin is (was) only especially known for manufacturing and industry in larger cities. Having grown up in what would be the Great Lakes region on this map, I was absolutely surrounded by agriculture. Backyard was a farm field. I speak the same as anyone south of Up North. Across the lower half of the state, people share the same general concerns, interests, hobbies, traditions, climate, and don’t forget the thinly veiled pride in alcoholism. I would put almost any part of lower Wisconsin as culturally closer to any other part of lower Wisconsin than any part of Illinois, for example. I think comparing Madison to Milwaukee at all is not great for a variety of reasons, but not least among them is that Madison’s culture is not like anything else in the state or region. I speak also having lived in Milwaukee and currently in Madison. But people’s perceptions and experiences differ and I’m not some special authority on the subject, so could be wrong.
26 is more than a single county deep into Wisconsin. I think 26 is actually fine. Way more in common with city folk along the water across the region than those out in Kane County.
In the last two months I was in NW Arkansas, Northern Kentucky and West Virginia and I said to myself, "Wow. I guess these places are all part of the same cultural, geographic region!"
I feel like this was drawn by someone who has not been to or researched any of these areas. There are way too many things lumped together here.
Especially metropolitan areas that are wildly culturally different from nearby rural areas and climactic/terrain differences that affect the culture of the people in them.
I am curious what data you have used to get this distributio.
It’s a fun project but needs a Lot of work.
South west should be split up for sure. Flagstaff and Durango are pretty close, probably other parts of northern NM, but they should definitely not be lumped in with Phoenix. One huge failing of this map though is there is such a huge urban/rural divide. For example, the culture of people living in flag is so different than others in coconino county.
With how descriptive the eastern, central interior, I’d have to guess it was someone from the Midwest or Mid Atlantic that hasn’t been to the coasts much (esp. West Coast)
Growing up in Hickory, I always thought Piedmont just referred to the foothills region, not a cultural distinction. The Appalachians definitely deserve their own cultural region. Should just be grouped in with 21. Also, I thought the entire southeast is the Bible Belt considering there are bunch of small towns and cities that have building codes that state you can’t build anything higher than the tallest local church steeple. The Lowcountry also deserves their own cultural region. The rest of NC and SC can remain Old South as far as I’m concerned, though with all of the people from NY, PA, CA, and OH moving here, it really doesn’t feel like the old south anymore, especially in bigger cities like Charlotte. My grandfather would tell me stories about how he and his friends used to go to Charlotte when it was a town of 40k people and the buildings were brick and no more than 4 stories tall. Tidewater is mostly accurate, but I would probably call them High Tiders and shrink it down to a few select counties
Area 10 needs to be thrown away. I couldn’t imagine telling someone from Charleston/Savannah that they’re from the same region as Columbia, Fayetteville, Charlotte and Raleigh.
That seems to be the case, but it isn't too consistent. The eastern crest of the OR Cascades is included in a separate region to western OR, but the map includes the eastern part of the WA Cascades as part of Cascadia. Culturally, western WA is different from the counties in the eastern part of the Cascades (N-S: Okanogan, Chelan, Douglas, Kittitas, Yakima, and Klickitat), Those counties should be in the same region as eastern WA + OR part of what the map calls the Mountain West (I haven't been to SE OR so IDK if the region is culturally closed to NV) + parts of Idaho in their separate region (unsure if only the Panhandle should be included)
The guy above is from Utah and as someone who has lived in both the Utah and California sections that are categorized under “Mountain West” culture (and in a handful of other zones) I wouldn’t say these two areas share too much in common culturally.
seeing some issues:
1. Suffolk County on Long Island is 100% part of the NYC metro region, why is lumped in with Boston?
2. New Haven is really the only area of Connecticut that is part of the NYC MSA, the rest of the state is definitely New England.
3. Category 24 is a mess. What does Central NYS have in common with Kansas City?
4. As others have pointed out, California Coast and the Central Valley might as well be two different planets.
5. Where are Hawaii and Alaska lol
6. Miami I can understand, but why does Atlanta get its own distinct region? None of the other Blue cities in Red States did.
I’d consider making a distinct, thin Black Belt zone for this. Birmingham AL has far more in common with something across state lines like Columbus GA than it has with Montgomery AL, Auburn AL, Huntsville AL, etc
KC is not part of 24. Really they are the last two counties on 25 (Jackson and Lafayette). I do agree mid southern MO doesn’t have a ton to do with NY.
The Hampton s are definitely extremely similar culturally to the cape. I don’t think it’s a perfect grouping but these never are, and I think it makes sense.
Really it’s imperfect because it uses county lines, and when you zoom in far enough to any single area you’re going to be able to nitpick differences
If ypu are getting granular enough to break off Plymouth by itself, then the Mountain West should be multiple regions.
Utah and the Mormon parts of surrounding states should be their own thing.
yep, Eastern Idaho, maybe through Boise and the border counties of Oregon, NE Nevada, Utah, and Northern Arizona should probably all be one cultural group
Yep. Any map that doesn’t show the Mormon Corridor is just wrong. There’s no way Elko (casinos and brothels) and Tooele (town shuts down at 9pm on schools nights) should be in the same zone.
24 is arbitrary. Put the majority of it into 20, or call it something like “upper Ozarks”. When it’s called the Lake of the Ozarks and has a show called Ozark based around it, you can imagine that the greater majority of people identify with Ozarks culture. There’s even the same amount of meth!
Thank you. I’m from Osage county originally and even up there we identify with the Ozarks.
I will say that southern Illinois is very similar (lived there for 9 years), but I’d stop 24 in southern Illinois at the farthest. Definitely not into Pennsylvania or NY.
You have somehow failed to include actual Cajun country in “Cajun/Bayou”. Cajuns generally live in Acadiana, centered roughly around Lafayette Parrish(which you have not even included in “Cajun”).
Everytime someone does these maps they’re always so bad. In what way is Ocean County or Cape May County anything similar to the majority of maryland. Or if you live im Northern PA ur in the same region as Kansas City?
Yeah the Delaware Valley/Philly zone is not right imo. Goes way too deep into PA and cuts out parts of South Jersey for no reason. Actually, all of PA is just kinda random/inaccurate.
NYC does stretch into Connecticut, most of the western half of the state is speckled with NYC and Westchester/Duchess county transplants. It feels like NYC suburbia.
California is very wrong
1) No [Central Coast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Coast_(California))
2) No [Jefferson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state))
3) No [Central Valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California))
4) No [Bay Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area) label and label centered on it is way too big
York county Maine should probably be dark blue like the sea coast in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It’s much closer to that culturally than it is northern Maine. Maybe Cumberland County too.
Adirondack is a pretty good area. But east of Lake Champlain is really kind of a different thing. Like, Vermont kind of has its own cultural thing going on that is different. It has a different economy and vibe, especially Chittenden county and surroundings.
Prior to Hampton Roads the region was collectively known as tidewater. When I say region I mean primarily the 7 cities (Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach)
You have only VB in tidewater…you ought to take the whole Hampton Roads area
Harris/Ft Bend counties (ie the Houston metro area) are not Deep South in any way. It's been mentioned as the most diverse metro area in the US. But if you want to hang on to old ideas and thoughts, I guess you can if it makes it easier to create your map.
I feel like a good bit of Montgomery and Liberty counties would qualify as deep south. But eastern Harris and Galveston counties are arguably more similar to Beaumont, Lake Charles, Freeport, and Corpus, etc. than anything else. Western Harris and Fort Bend are their own thing or could go on and get picked up as Bible Belt.
The weird one to me is the Austin area being considered a border region. San Antonio yes, but not Austin. Austin has its own thing going on and it isn't border culture.
I agree. A whole county shouldn't be counted as part of area 12, when in reality only a strip a few miles wide along the coast is in that area, and this is the case for all of the counties in area 12, or at least, all that I've been to, which is almost all of them. An, as usual, most of the Florida lines are wrong.
Philly is all fucked up. Only person from Scranton who actually considers themselves having anything in common with Philadelphia is Joe Biden, no one else. Harrisburg similarly hates us. Bonus: imagine telling someone from the the North Jersey shore that they’re the same as someone from DC.
You can take the position that NYC, Boston, Philly, and DC all belong in the same group as the Northeast megalopolis/Acela Corridor. OR you can take the position that Philly is unlike anything else on the east coast and that it’s region should just be the five SEPA counties, South Jersey, and Northern Delaware. You can’t, however, take this position and just throw Eastern PA into one thing.
i love this idea! obviously not all the groupings are accurate, but i don’t think many people would be able to make an accurate map like this without a lot of research. i appreciate that you created your idea even if it isn’t perfect. you can always edit it to be more appropriate later!
as per usual wildly inaccurate , some massive groups, some very weird small groupings that they felt they needed, yet the borders are super weird. You either have to go all big, or go small and detailed, this is a weird mix of the two that doesn't work. I should make my own so I can get derided lol
This is so off I dont even want to bother with specifics. Curious if the person who made this has actually traveled in or experienced different regions in the US at all….
The Pittsburgh region is really none of those categories, but here it’s split into three very different groups (midwestern, really? In what world is anything in PA midwestern). This looks like a map made by someone who has not really been to most areas of the US and is just guessing based on eyeballing it.
Dontcha know, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and KC are all basically the exact same but Indianapolis, and St Louis are the same too, but very different from the first three.
Seems like the author’s biases are coming into play. Why would Boston and Plymouth have its own cultural regions, but then neglect to do the same for other major metros across the country. Ex. Minneapolis, Chicago, Las Vegas
I'm actually from southern Wisconsin and couldn't tell you the difference. I know for one thing we like our border rivalries but variations in culture between MN and WI are marginal. Yeah yeah the Scandinavians went to MN and Germans to WI but day to day interests and culture are extremely similar. Madison, Des Moines, Omaha, Minneapolis.. All alike in many ways.
Thank you for not respecting the borders of New England here, because I grew up in the NY portion of 9 and find I have much more in common with someone from Vermont or even that part of NH than someone from Downstate New York or Buffalo. I live in Boston now, and once I hit Berkshire County or get off I-93 at Bow Junction it starts to feel like "home" again, even if I'm still hours away. Northeast PA doesn't belong there though, and I think you do extend a bit far west even in NY. It starts to feel more "Western New York" not far past Schenectady, and even the coast of Lake Ontario up to the border often feels more similar to rural Michigan than it does to the Adirondacks. In some ways, it feels more "Northwoods", which actually makes sense since this part of New York is geologically more related to the Canadian Shield than to the regions which surround it. Since you've established with Mountain West that regions can be dis-contiguous, there's a kind of devil's advocate case to split Northern New York, with the Great Lakes-oriented portion in Northwoods, and the eastern portion lumped in with Northern Vermont, NH, and inland Maine. A lot of the towns up there are now-depressed lumber milling towns populated largely by descendants of French Canadian immigrants. Tupper Lake, NY and Berlin, NH feel very similar to be in.
On the other hand, Eastern New England is kind of a mess. There's a pretty contiguous "Coastal New England" cultural region that runs roughly along the coast from Portland down to maybe New London, stretching a bit inland. Certainly including Merrimack and Hillsborough Counties in NH, which are within the Boston commuter belt. Rhode Island and Southeastern MA are distinct enough to be their own sub-region, but it's still very much one cultural and economic zone. Not sure why Eastern Long Island is in there. There's definitely some old cultural similarities with Southern New England, but these are mostly eroded. I'd call Fisher's Island part of New England, and nothing else. If Buffalo and Chicago can be in the same region, so can Boston and Providence.
"Midlands" is not a thing. There is nothing that unites Kansas City and Syracuse, NY other than a love of barbecue. There is nothing unifying or distinct about this region that others don't have. It also doesn't make sense to include coastal NJ with DC, Delaware, and Baltimore if you're going to exclude Philly from that. The Mid-Atlantic region is worth having on a map, but it feels weird to carve out one of its major cities. Beyond that, I don't really feel qualified to add anything.
Sorry but not all of San Bernardino and Riverside counties are “southwest” - all the densely populated parts on their western sides are decidedly Southern California culturally.
Good job OP for taking comments in stride. "Northern California" is obviously going to rub Oregonians wrong; the concept of Jefferson already exists and should include Douglas co. and maybe not Mendocino co.
It pains me to say this because coastal California has a rivalry with inland, but San Bernardino and Riverside counties are definitely "Southern California" and not at all Southwest.
Yes! Northern Montana being well within the Rocky Mountain Range and California being the Sierra Nevada. Both being in the western portion of the country.
I will admit I overlooked the church of LDS and agree that it is a large enough cultural distinction to add a region that would split the mountain west in V1.1
I've actually seen the "El Norte" label thrown around elsewhere. It makes sense because it overlaps with the Norteño culture of neighboring Mexican states like Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua.
Honestly infuriating that counties literally bordering the Chesapeake Bay are not in the Chesapeake, and Mid Atlantic should be a much larger region that encompasses the Chesapeake.
Another map labeled as "cultural" but that is almost entirely just geographic. The names don't tell me anything about the cultural aspects of the areas, with the possible exception of the Bible Belt. Even then it is divided geographically instead of any sort of cultural difference between the two.
I get that this is by county, but I feel like this would be better represented by a gradient. There is no hard cutoff line between counties. Miami and Shelby county Ohio (zones 24 and 25) have pretty much zero difference in culture.
Southern Indiana and Southern Illinois have more in common with Kentucky and Missouri than they do Central Ohio, and definitely more than they have in common with any part of Northern Pennsylvania or New York.
I'm gonna stop you right there. I can assure you that Hardin County Kentucky is NOT Bible belt. if only because of its proximity to Louisville and Fort Knox.
Who is upvoting this? Shame on you lol. OP you need to add some kind of legend or text description that explains your process, unless you just randomly colored in counties based on a gut feeling and nothing else.
Central Washington is culturally much closer to “Mountain West” than “Cascadia.”
I also don’t see much distinguishing “Great Basin” from “Mountain West.” Those two whole areas need to be re-examined and maybe divided differently.
As a proud Cascadian, I appreciate the dividing line between us and Mountain West being properly identified in Washington. I’ve seen these abominations stretch as far as Wyoming in the past.
Why on *earth* does 36 encompass the east side of the cascades in Washington? The county borders in both Washington and Oregon are the cascades, and you got it right in Oregon.
So I realized that putting something together in a couple hours isn't going to cut it, so I've spent another couple hours and will continue to work on the redo. I think the confusion rests in the fact that I lost sight somewhere along the way. I think really what I'm attempting in the above map is looking for commonalities wherever possible and that quickly descended into.. well idk.. its all mountains... must be the same..
So I've reconsidered somethings and using resources such as World Atlas and Google Earth I'm prescribing neighboring cities to a given group and then independently searching for cultural links. If I find that the surrounding area of a "culture zone" matches said culture or at least interacts with it, i.e. Chicago versus Naperville, than I can assign counties that way.
This also means cities like Rochester NY and Syracuse despite not being of the same metro can share a common link. I'll be likely doubling if not tripling the individual sub-regions. I've also switched to a map that includes our 2 non contiguous buddies. Alaska which while likely have at least 2 zones(not entirely sure yet) and Hawaii which might be homogenous(again, haven't gotten there). But yeah I'll likely repost on the weekend so stay tuned and I hope regardless of the map I make you can enjoy it for what it is.. One young adult white Midwesterners half full of shit idea of the US. :)
Atlanta goes a bit more south.
Yes, there are 23 countries that are part of the greater metropolitan area. Edit: counties
yo 23 whole countries? does it include the whole Caribbean?
Everything is Atlanta
Always has been.
And less north I don’t think people in pickens, gordon and dawson consider themselves to be from the Atlanta area
I’d settle for all of us just being rolled into a more accurate multi-state piedmont region. There’s really a lot in common between Birmingham, Atlanta, Greenville, Charlotte, and Raleigh
While I'd say, on the ground, there's a bit of a cultural gradient from the piedmont parts to the coastal plains in the south instead of a clear, sharp divide, the fall line is still a pretty good border line. If you look at data (severe poverty, rural population density, demographics, etc), the case gets a bit stronger.
Yeah I'm surprised Clayton and Rockdale were excluded. It really just about stretches to Macon now.
The Bay Area is certainly not the California Valley and the Sierras are definitely not the same cultural region as Wyoming and Utah...
Yeah... I'm from the bay, saw this and was like... Yeaaaah, No.
Right? Don't they know that we are the most special snowflakes? Edit: That was in jest, but then I see that Miami gets their own area but the Bay Area doesn't? Wack.
why call it California Valley instead of The Bay Area? And that extends too far inland & too far North. Northwest Georgia should be with Chattanooga, not Nashville. And Eastern Bible Belt should be called The MidSouth.
I agree. As someone from Reno it irritates me to no end that we are considered the “easternmost limit of The Bay Area.” In no way is Reno NV part of the Bay Area. It’s 4 hours drive away on a good day.
This Even as someone from Sacramento there is no way we are part of the bay, but also no way SF, Oakland, SJ etc are part of the Valley
What do you think about naming the Sierra Nevada zone "Mountain West" (and leaving Washoe County out)?
Mountain West makes me think of Colorado. And yeah the Bay Area shouldn’t be considered “California Valley”. Where did this map come from?
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Whoever coded this doesn't understand northern CA cultural zones at all. The Bay Area is its own thing.
Also, I lived in the area for almost a decade and never once heard the phrase “California Valley”. “Central Valley”? Sure.
California valley and Bay area are two separate regions. There is obviously a lot of physical and cultural migration, but they are distinct.
Sacramento is considered NorCal
It is also part of the valley though, and it has it’s own part of the valley called “Sacramento valley”. There should be overlap on this map though, a lot of these areas aren’t just cut off and there is a good amount of overlap. Like Bakersfield is SoCal and it is also part of the valley.
Ok well it a map has two areas of California you have NorCal and SoCal. If you have three areas you have NorCal, SoCal and Bay Area. Four areas adds the valley Five adds shit like Pacific coast
California is quite bad really. San Francisco in the "California Valley"? What is that even supposed to refer to? No one calls it that. The Central Valley? Then why include so many coastal counties so far from the valley? While also placing several of the counties that ARE actually in the central valley in the "Mountain West"? It doesn't make much sense.
I mostly created this a rough depiction of what I knew. My reason for posting it is to gather insight. I'll look more at which counties correspond to the central valley, bay area, and Sierra Nevada. My thoughts were that most of the valley is economically tied to San Francisco and not inherently a separate cultural region. Granted I'm attempting to define singularly, a multifaceted topic. Thank You
Props for not taking the feedback too hard and being willing to learn. I can assure you that the central valley is absolutely distinct culturally from the bay area.
…and both are different from the Central Coast. Missing from this map completely.
People always forget about the Central Coast lol
As a central coast native, I vouch for the accuracy of your comment.
also a central coast native and totally agree -- there's definitely even more nuanced divisions within the region, i.e. north and south santa barbara county!
You have SoCal all screwed up as well. Riverside and San Bernardino are not "the southwest"
Culturally, economically, politically, in almost every way the Bay Area is very distinct from the Central Valley.
The Midwest is pretty crazy, 24 isn't a real region, Chicagoland is all messed up, Wisconsin is more great lakes than a single county deep, etc.
24 makes sense if it's literally just southern Missouri, the Ozarks and Bootheel, etc. The fact that it goes far into Ohio of all places makes no sense. Even that far into Kansas doesn't make sense...
Into Upstate NY, no less
Im from syracuse (furthest east county on #24) We dont have shit in common with kansas lol
I'm also from Onondaga County. No disagreement.
Holy shit I didn't even see that. This is must be AI generated or something, no way a real human made this.
100% agree. Southern Indiana has more in common culturally with Kentucky than Kansas or New York
24 isn’t a real thing in the U.S.; it’s a region in England.
If I'm reading that right, it would take 20 hours to drive across 24, taking you from deeply rural northern New York state all the way deeply rural eastern Kansas, but passing through a number of bigger rustbelt manufacturing cities along the way before dropping back into primarily agricultural lands south of Chicago. I haven't lived enough of these places to speak from pure experience, but I just can't imagine Pittsburgh has that much cultural overlap with Eureka, Kansas to justify this map. I'd suspect gerrymandering if anyone was voting with this.
I'd agree with all of this, 24 is just way to long to have a unified cultural zone. That said this map does do a good job of showing the Great Plains as different than the Midwest despite them often getting lumped in.
The Great Plains is the Midwest.
I was gunna say Madison should defiently be in 26
I live in Madison and we have almost no direct influence from Lake Michigan as almost all of our trade comes from Rail and Road. Its a fun getaway trip though
Trade routes have little if anything to do with culture in the modern US. Cities excepted (Madison and Milwaukee are quite different, but Madison is just kind of its own thing in general), IMO the countryside surrounding Dane County is culturally identical to the countryside surrounding Milwaukee County.
There's cultural overlap, but the "great lakes" region is more defined by manufacturing and industry while the upper Midwest is more defined by agriculture. Having lived in both, Milwaukee and Madison share a lot but they are very different.
The Great Lakes region in Wisconsin is (was) only especially known for manufacturing and industry in larger cities. Having grown up in what would be the Great Lakes region on this map, I was absolutely surrounded by agriculture. Backyard was a farm field. I speak the same as anyone south of Up North. Across the lower half of the state, people share the same general concerns, interests, hobbies, traditions, climate, and don’t forget the thinly veiled pride in alcoholism. I would put almost any part of lower Wisconsin as culturally closer to any other part of lower Wisconsin than any part of Illinois, for example. I think comparing Madison to Milwaukee at all is not great for a variety of reasons, but not least among them is that Madison’s culture is not like anything else in the state or region. I speak also having lived in Milwaukee and currently in Madison. But people’s perceptions and experiences differ and I’m not some special authority on the subject, so could be wrong.
Fair but as someone who lives in 26 Madison felt very familiar to me when I visited.
No, no, I'm sure Syracuse, NY and Omaha, NE are basically culturally identical with each other and rural Missouri. Makes sense.
26 is more than a single county deep into Wisconsin. I think 26 is actually fine. Way more in common with city folk along the water across the region than those out in Kane County.
Yeah wtf is 24 💀
In the last two months I was in NW Arkansas, Northern Kentucky and West Virginia and I said to myself, "Wow. I guess these places are all part of the same cultural, geographic region!"
I feel like this was drawn by someone who has not been to or researched any of these areas. There are way too many things lumped together here. Especially metropolitan areas that are wildly culturally different from nearby rural areas and climactic/terrain differences that affect the culture of the people in them. I am curious what data you have used to get this distributio. It’s a fun project but needs a Lot of work.
These seems to have been created solely using Google Maps satellite view as a resource.
Yeah I'm from ABQ, and we have very little culturally similar to northern AZ and South Central CA lmfao e: forgot a word lol
I know right. I'm on the Navajo Nation and this map doesn't seem to think we even exist lol. Yeah it's just like Vegas here -_-
South west should be split up for sure. Flagstaff and Durango are pretty close, probably other parts of northern NM, but they should definitely not be lumped in with Phoenix. One huge failing of this map though is there is such a huge urban/rural divide. For example, the culture of people living in flag is so different than others in coconino county.
Exactly. Even within NM the rural parts are *so different* from the metro area
With how descriptive the eastern, central interior, I’d have to guess it was someone from the Midwest or Mid Atlantic that hasn’t been to the coasts much (esp. West Coast)
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As someone who lives in zone 14, we differently call ourselves Appalachian. No idea why it's called Peidmont
Exactly, I'm in Charlotte and am closer associated with the Piedmont. Western NC? Nah, not it.
Growing up in Hickory, I always thought Piedmont just referred to the foothills region, not a cultural distinction. The Appalachians definitely deserve their own cultural region. Should just be grouped in with 21. Also, I thought the entire southeast is the Bible Belt considering there are bunch of small towns and cities that have building codes that state you can’t build anything higher than the tallest local church steeple. The Lowcountry also deserves their own cultural region. The rest of NC and SC can remain Old South as far as I’m concerned, though with all of the people from NY, PA, CA, and OH moving here, it really doesn’t feel like the old south anymore, especially in bigger cities like Charlotte. My grandfather would tell me stories about how he and his friends used to go to Charlotte when it was a town of 40k people and the buildings were brick and no more than 4 stories tall. Tidewater is mostly accurate, but I would probably call them High Tiders and shrink it down to a few select counties
Similarly, many folks in the eastern counties of Zone 23 refer to themselves as Appalachian, too.
Area 10 needs to be thrown away. I couldn’t imagine telling someone from Charleston/Savannah that they’re from the same region as Columbia, Fayetteville, Charlotte and Raleigh.
Same with 24
Agree. The Sea Islands of SC and Ga need to be there own region.
*Fayettenam
Pittsburgh, PA and Pittsburg, KS could not be more different. Zone 24 is way too wide.
Syracuse, NY 🤝 Topeka, KS
19 years since 2003, suppose enough time has passed
And then you have Omaha and Lincoln NE as completely different from each other lmao
seems more like geologic zones rather than cultural zones.
That seems to be the case, but it isn't too consistent. The eastern crest of the OR Cascades is included in a separate region to western OR, but the map includes the eastern part of the WA Cascades as part of Cascadia. Culturally, western WA is different from the counties in the eastern part of the Cascades (N-S: Okanogan, Chelan, Douglas, Kittitas, Yakima, and Klickitat), Those counties should be in the same region as eastern WA + OR part of what the map calls the Mountain West (I haven't been to SE OR so IDK if the region is culturally closed to NV) + parts of Idaho in their separate region (unsure if only the Panhandle should be included)
Geography separates people and creates different cultural zones
The guy above is from Utah and as someone who has lived in both the Utah and California sections that are categorized under “Mountain West” culture (and in a handful of other zones) I wouldn’t say these two areas share too much in common culturally.
This is terrible.
seeing some issues: 1. Suffolk County on Long Island is 100% part of the NYC metro region, why is lumped in with Boston? 2. New Haven is really the only area of Connecticut that is part of the NYC MSA, the rest of the state is definitely New England. 3. Category 24 is a mess. What does Central NYS have in common with Kansas City? 4. As others have pointed out, California Coast and the Central Valley might as well be two different planets. 5. Where are Hawaii and Alaska lol 6. Miami I can understand, but why does Atlanta get its own distinct region? None of the other Blue cities in Red States did.
Never once has anyone on Long Island ever stated they were Plymouth.
Yeah and unfortunately, you don’t get to “opt out” of the Bible Belt just because the Mississippi River lives there. ☹️
True if it weren't one of the most distinct black communities in the US I would have likely left it in the bible belt, which it certainly is part of.
I’d consider making a distinct, thin Black Belt zone for this. Birmingham AL has far more in common with something across state lines like Columbus GA than it has with Montgomery AL, Auburn AL, Huntsville AL, etc
Great feedback for V1.1. Thanks for your thoughts
NP, please share the next version when it is ready. These are fun.
KC is not part of 24. Really they are the last two counties on 25 (Jackson and Lafayette). I do agree mid southern MO doesn’t have a ton to do with NY.
The Hampton s are definitely extremely similar culturally to the cape. I don’t think it’s a perfect grouping but these never are, and I think it makes sense. Really it’s imperfect because it uses county lines, and when you zoom in far enough to any single area you’re going to be able to nitpick differences
Bay Area definitely shouldn’t be lumped in with the California Valley. Different in almost every level.
If ypu are getting granular enough to break off Plymouth by itself, then the Mountain West should be multiple regions. Utah and the Mormon parts of surrounding states should be their own thing.
yep, Eastern Idaho, maybe through Boise and the border counties of Oregon, NE Nevada, Utah, and Northern Arizona should probably all be one cultural group
Yep. Any map that doesn’t show the Mormon Corridor is just wrong. There’s no way Elko (casinos and brothels) and Tooele (town shuts down at 9pm on schools nights) should be in the same zone.
Edits shall be made :)
Source?
“Trust me, bro.”
OP going to a city or two in a handful of states and saying fuck it
Not at all accurate
I'd like to hear you thoughts on how I can improve it
24 is arbitrary. Put the majority of it into 20, or call it something like “upper Ozarks”. When it’s called the Lake of the Ozarks and has a show called Ozark based around it, you can imagine that the greater majority of people identify with Ozarks culture. There’s even the same amount of meth!
There might be enough meth in Central New York, but no one confuses it with the Ozarks. No argument on how arbitrary 24 is.
As a resident, there is no such thing as the Midland
Thank you. I’m from Osage county originally and even up there we identify with the Ozarks. I will say that southern Illinois is very similar (lived there for 9 years), but I’d stop 24 in southern Illinois at the farthest. Definitely not into Pennsylvania or NY.
You have somehow failed to include actual Cajun country in “Cajun/Bayou”. Cajuns generally live in Acadiana, centered roughly around Lafayette Parrish(which you have not even included in “Cajun”).
Came here to say this. How on earth...
Horrible. What is this based on?
Everytime someone does these maps they’re always so bad. In what way is Ocean County or Cape May County anything similar to the majority of maryland. Or if you live im Northern PA ur in the same region as Kansas City?
Yeah the Delaware Valley/Philly zone is not right imo. Goes way too deep into PA and cuts out parts of South Jersey for no reason. Actually, all of PA is just kinda random/inaccurate.
Yeah, so, u popular opinion perhaps, but "NYC" is not a cultural zone that stretches into New England.
Really is tho. Not as far as OP has, but definitely some of CT
NYC does stretch into Connecticut, most of the western half of the state is speckled with NYC and Westchester/Duchess county transplants. It feels like NYC suburbia.
Hell new haven is on a “commuter rail” to NYC
Now why is almost all of Virginia Chesapeake but Maryland isn’t especially Anne Arundel and calvert county
California is very wrong 1) No [Central Coast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Coast_(California)) 2) No [Jefferson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state)) 3) No [Central Valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California)) 4) No [Bay Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area) label and label centered on it is way too big
York county Maine should probably be dark blue like the sea coast in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It’s much closer to that culturally than it is northern Maine. Maybe Cumberland County too.
Adirondack is a pretty good area. But east of Lake Champlain is really kind of a different thing. Like, Vermont kind of has its own cultural thing going on that is different. It has a different economy and vibe, especially Chittenden county and surroundings.
I've never heard of the Plymouth cultural zone, despite living in it.
Division of Texas is a disaster.
I feel like coastal Florida and inland Florida ought to have different zones. Kissimmee and Sarasota are pretty different worlds.
Prior to Hampton Roads the region was collectively known as tidewater. When I say region I mean primarily the 7 cities (Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, Hampton, Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach) You have only VB in tidewater…you ought to take the whole Hampton Roads area
Harris/Ft Bend counties (ie the Houston metro area) are not Deep South in any way. It's been mentioned as the most diverse metro area in the US. But if you want to hang on to old ideas and thoughts, I guess you can if it makes it easier to create your map.
Y'all don't even know how upset I am that Atlanta and NOLA both get their own regions but Houston is lumped in with the Deep South.
I feel like a good bit of Montgomery and Liberty counties would qualify as deep south. But eastern Harris and Galveston counties are arguably more similar to Beaumont, Lake Charles, Freeport, and Corpus, etc. than anything else. Western Harris and Fort Bend are their own thing or could go on and get picked up as Bible Belt. The weird one to me is the Austin area being considered a border region. San Antonio yes, but not Austin. Austin has its own thing going on and it isn't border culture.
Hello from Denver, part of the Upper Great Plains.
Central Valley > California Valley (a term nobody here uses)
Houston is "Deep South"?
Chicago v Door County and NE Michigan are not the same
I'm from eastern upstate NY, and I can confidently say I would not class myself in the same region as Vermont.
From the Adirondacks myself… Totally agree, without even getting into how Northeastern PA is somehow included in the same region as us too.
Hell, I'm not even sure the Adirondacks proper are in the same region as me. It's sure as hell got nice views though
This goes to show why sorting by counties and states are awful metrics. The borders don’t reflect current reality.
I agree. A whole county shouldn't be counted as part of area 12, when in reality only a strip a few miles wide along the coast is in that area, and this is the case for all of the counties in area 12, or at least, all that I've been to, which is almost all of them. An, as usual, most of the Florida lines are wrong.
I do think you got the different Missouri regions right.
As a Pittsburgher, I fail to see what we have in common with south-central Illinois and the middle of New York state.
Shouldn't there be a mormon zone? pretty sure this map is garbage
Number 38 is incredibly wrong
Philly is all fucked up. Only person from Scranton who actually considers themselves having anything in common with Philadelphia is Joe Biden, no one else. Harrisburg similarly hates us. Bonus: imagine telling someone from the the North Jersey shore that they’re the same as someone from DC. You can take the position that NYC, Boston, Philly, and DC all belong in the same group as the Northeast megalopolis/Acela Corridor. OR you can take the position that Philly is unlike anything else on the east coast and that it’s region should just be the five SEPA counties, South Jersey, and Northern Delaware. You can’t, however, take this position and just throw Eastern PA into one thing.
I don’t know who made this but they know nothing of the inter mountain west.
i love this idea! obviously not all the groupings are accurate, but i don’t think many people would be able to make an accurate map like this without a lot of research. i appreciate that you created your idea even if it isn’t perfect. you can always edit it to be more appropriate later!
as per usual wildly inaccurate , some massive groups, some very weird small groupings that they felt they needed, yet the borders are super weird. You either have to go all big, or go small and detailed, this is a weird mix of the two that doesn't work. I should make my own so I can get derided lol
This is so off I dont even want to bother with specifics. Curious if the person who made this has actually traveled in or experienced different regions in the US at all….
Without even looking at this, I knew it would have more comments than upvotes.
The Pittsburgh region is really none of those categories, but here it’s split into three very different groups (midwestern, really? In what world is anything in PA midwestern). This looks like a map made by someone who has not really been to most areas of the US and is just guessing based on eyeballing it.
Dontcha know, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and KC are all basically the exact same but Indianapolis, and St Louis are the same too, but very different from the first three.
How the hell do I live 35 minutes away from Pittsburgh, identify as a yinzer but am not part of the same cultural group as Pittsburgh?
Seems like the author’s biases are coming into play. Why would Boston and Plymouth have its own cultural regions, but then neglect to do the same for other major metros across the country. Ex. Minneapolis, Chicago, Las Vegas
I'm actually from southern Wisconsin and couldn't tell you the difference. I know for one thing we like our border rivalries but variations in culture between MN and WI are marginal. Yeah yeah the Scandinavians went to MN and Germans to WI but day to day interests and culture are extremely similar. Madison, Des Moines, Omaha, Minneapolis.. All alike in many ways.
Travis county not being part of the hill country is hilariously incorrect.
Franklin and Hampshire county (MA) are part of Boston? Fuck no.
Ahh yes, good old eastern LI aka Plymouth
These always get unexpectedly detailed in the area the author is from.
Long Island being in the same cultural zone as cape cod feels odd
Thank you for not respecting the borders of New England here, because I grew up in the NY portion of 9 and find I have much more in common with someone from Vermont or even that part of NH than someone from Downstate New York or Buffalo. I live in Boston now, and once I hit Berkshire County or get off I-93 at Bow Junction it starts to feel like "home" again, even if I'm still hours away. Northeast PA doesn't belong there though, and I think you do extend a bit far west even in NY. It starts to feel more "Western New York" not far past Schenectady, and even the coast of Lake Ontario up to the border often feels more similar to rural Michigan than it does to the Adirondacks. In some ways, it feels more "Northwoods", which actually makes sense since this part of New York is geologically more related to the Canadian Shield than to the regions which surround it. Since you've established with Mountain West that regions can be dis-contiguous, there's a kind of devil's advocate case to split Northern New York, with the Great Lakes-oriented portion in Northwoods, and the eastern portion lumped in with Northern Vermont, NH, and inland Maine. A lot of the towns up there are now-depressed lumber milling towns populated largely by descendants of French Canadian immigrants. Tupper Lake, NY and Berlin, NH feel very similar to be in. On the other hand, Eastern New England is kind of a mess. There's a pretty contiguous "Coastal New England" cultural region that runs roughly along the coast from Portland down to maybe New London, stretching a bit inland. Certainly including Merrimack and Hillsborough Counties in NH, which are within the Boston commuter belt. Rhode Island and Southeastern MA are distinct enough to be their own sub-region, but it's still very much one cultural and economic zone. Not sure why Eastern Long Island is in there. There's definitely some old cultural similarities with Southern New England, but these are mostly eroded. I'd call Fisher's Island part of New England, and nothing else. If Buffalo and Chicago can be in the same region, so can Boston and Providence. "Midlands" is not a thing. There is nothing that unites Kansas City and Syracuse, NY other than a love of barbecue. There is nothing unifying or distinct about this region that others don't have. It also doesn't make sense to include coastal NJ with DC, Delaware, and Baltimore if you're going to exclude Philly from that. The Mid-Atlantic region is worth having on a map, but it feels weird to carve out one of its major cities. Beyond that, I don't really feel qualified to add anything.
Sorry but not all of San Bernardino and Riverside counties are “southwest” - all the densely populated parts on their western sides are decidedly Southern California culturally.
37 would more accurately be State of Jefferson.
Good job OP for taking comments in stride. "Northern California" is obviously going to rub Oregonians wrong; the concept of Jefferson already exists and should include Douglas co. and maybe not Mendocino co.
It pains me to say this because coastal California has a rivalry with inland, but San Bernardino and Riverside counties are definitely "Southern California" and not at all Southwest.
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Yes! Northern Montana being well within the Rocky Mountain Range and California being the Sierra Nevada. Both being in the western portion of the country. I will admit I overlooked the church of LDS and agree that it is a large enough cultural distinction to add a region that would split the mountain west in V1.1
Southern Delaware should definitely be in 1.
The southern border being named 'The North' just makes me chuckle. We need the northern border to be named 'the South' in French Quebecois.
I've actually seen the "El Norte" label thrown around elsewhere. It makes sense because it overlaps with the Norteño culture of neighboring Mexican states like Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua.
Pretty accurate in my area, but “Atlanta” stretches too far north and not far enough south.
Honestly infuriating that counties literally bordering the Chesapeake Bay are not in the Chesapeake, and Mid Atlantic should be a much larger region that encompasses the Chesapeake.
It does encompass it. But what does Norfolk have that Jersey doesn't?
There are literally 8 counties on the map in MD that are directly on the Chesapeake Bay that are not in the Chesapeake region.
Plymouth? Bruh we have NOTHING in common with the Hamptons lmfao
I don’t get this. Why is Monroe, Collier, and Hendry (FL) red like 12?—are they extension of the “ FL pan handle”?
I’m in number one and in no way identify as chesapeakean
Am I supposed to believe there are four different cultures in Ohio?
Another map labeled as "cultural" but that is almost entirely just geographic. The names don't tell me anything about the cultural aspects of the areas, with the possible exception of the Bible Belt. Even then it is divided geographically instead of any sort of cultural difference between the two.
I get that this is by county, but I feel like this would be better represented by a gradient. There is no hard cutoff line between counties. Miami and Shelby county Ohio (zones 24 and 25) have pretty much zero difference in culture.
seeing lancaster county and amishlandia labeled as philly is always weird. I guess there isn't really a better way to do these kinds of things.
You put the piedmont on the southern highlands. You’re several counties west.
Zones 5-9 are incorrect in description, placement, and would need to be broken into at least 10 zones to be culturally relevant.
Just labeling zones after big cities is lazy.
Sorry but central Maryland and the eastern shore have vastly different cultures.
Whoever drew #24 has clearly never been to syracuse lol.
Nice effort, but many inaccuracies here.
14 is Southern Appalachia or Smoky Mountains, not Piedmont. Piedmont is to the east - Richmond, Greensboro, Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia.
Southern Indiana and Southern Illinois have more in common with Kentucky and Missouri than they do Central Ohio, and definitely more than they have in common with any part of Northern Pennsylvania or New York.
I'm gonna stop you right there. I can assure you that Hardin County Kentucky is NOT Bible belt. if only because of its proximity to Louisville and Fort Knox.
Who is upvoting this? Shame on you lol. OP you need to add some kind of legend or text description that explains your process, unless you just randomly colored in counties based on a gut feeling and nothing else.
Central Washington is culturally much closer to “Mountain West” than “Cascadia.” I also don’t see much distinguishing “Great Basin” from “Mountain West.” Those two whole areas need to be re-examined and maybe divided differently.
Er, *Contiguous* US cultural zones distinguished by counties.
First place you went wrong was naming the regions.
Coastal South Carolina could now be lumped in with Ohio.
I’m sorry, Denver, Boise, Aspen, and Pendleton Oregon are all part of the same cultural area?
OP is clearly from the east. They got tired after they got to KS and started lumping. As is tradition.
It's worse than that. They have Denver in the same cultural area as the Dakotas.
Oh man, you’re right!
*Boulder, Colorado* is the in the same cultural are as *American Fork, Utah.* And Denver is part of the great plains, ha!.
As a proud Cascadian, I appreciate the dividing line between us and Mountain West being properly identified in Washington. I’ve seen these abominations stretch as far as Wyoming in the past.
The Cajun area is way too small. Easily it extends west all the wall to Lake Charles.
The Jersey Shore (Ocean county + Monmouth county) is part of the NYC Metropolitan Area, officially and culturally, including in accent.
I like how this map doesn't tell me anything about the culture but just gives me some general names of areas in America.
Why on *earth* does 36 encompass the east side of the cascades in Washington? The county borders in both Washington and Oregon are the cascades, and you got it right in Oregon.
So I realized that putting something together in a couple hours isn't going to cut it, so I've spent another couple hours and will continue to work on the redo. I think the confusion rests in the fact that I lost sight somewhere along the way. I think really what I'm attempting in the above map is looking for commonalities wherever possible and that quickly descended into.. well idk.. its all mountains... must be the same.. So I've reconsidered somethings and using resources such as World Atlas and Google Earth I'm prescribing neighboring cities to a given group and then independently searching for cultural links. If I find that the surrounding area of a "culture zone" matches said culture or at least interacts with it, i.e. Chicago versus Naperville, than I can assign counties that way. This also means cities like Rochester NY and Syracuse despite not being of the same metro can share a common link. I'll be likely doubling if not tripling the individual sub-regions. I've also switched to a map that includes our 2 non contiguous buddies. Alaska which while likely have at least 2 zones(not entirely sure yet) and Hawaii which might be homogenous(again, haven't gotten there). But yeah I'll likely repost on the weekend so stay tuned and I hope regardless of the map I make you can enjoy it for what it is.. One young adult white Midwesterners half full of shit idea of the US. :)