I'm pleased to present the improved version of the detailed American Nations Today map, which will appear in the Penguin paperback edition of the book to be released in the fall of 2012. [Update, 11/4/12: the paperback is now available.]
This map makes a two minor improvements over the original. We've bumped up the state and provincial borders a notch so as to make the map easier to navigate. I've also added a label to south Florida, since everyone always asks about it. There are also three county corrections: Allegheny (PA), St. Louis (MO) and St. Charles (MO) were always supposed to be in the Midlands (as they are in the text), but got misassigned to Greater Appalachia due to my own sloppiness. (Three thousand little boxes, so little time.)
Feel free to either download the JPEG file above or a higher resolution PDF file and show it to your friends and colleagues. It's a wonderful conversation starter and comes from a book that would make an ideal gift for any occasion, except Talk Like a Pirate Day.
As always, let me know what you think, either here at World Wide Woodard or at the American Nations Facebook page.
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This should be interesting. It looks like something of an update on Joel Garreau's "Nine Nations of North America" from the 1980s. Some of the borders seem similar (South Florida as Caribbean, El Norte mimics MexAmerica, The Left Coast is Ecotopia. But the Greater Appalacia looks far different as does the Midlands. Guess I have to wait for the book to come out.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous - The book came out last October, so you need not wait. It's the paperback that comes out this coming fall.
ReplyDeleteI just ordered and cannot wait to read it. I grew up in Tennessee but have lived in New Hampshire for twelve years.
DeleteI'm enjoying your book so much i cannot stop reading it. Finally i get to understand this complex country of 11 nations. One word, though. You should include a chapter on the Hispanic community of Pan-caribbean origins: Cubans, Venezuelans, Dominicans and Panamanians, most of them living in South Florida. They -Cubans, specially, have a significant clout in American politics because unlike Hispanics of Mexican descent arrived to the US they were middle class people, often better educated. This is probably why your readers (i included) feel your brilliant book to have a historic gap. Congrats and thanks for your interesting account.
ReplyDeleteThis is great but I recommend some research in several areas. I sell software to school districts in Missouri and Southern Illinois.
ReplyDeleteFirst there are several Illinois Counties that are really in the midlands due to their German-American Population. Washington and Clinton counties are more midlands than Greater Appalachia. The academic performance of the students and the lower rates of free and reduced lunch are greater there than in counties north of them. This is the same for Effingham and nearby counties east of that area.
In Missouri you should google information about "little Dixie". This area is peopled by descendents of Confederate militias. Hermann, St. Charles, Boone, and St. Louis Counties are Midland. But, Calloway, Audrain, Ray, Carroll, Randolph, Pike, Ralls, are either in Greater Appalachia or the Old South.
http://littledixie.net/
http://www.missouridivision-scv.org/littledixie.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dixie_%28Missouri%29
You should also consider putting Cape Girardeau County in the Midlands.
The Bootheel counties might belong in the old south (Pemiscott, New Madrid, Dunklin and environs.
@Ignacio - I agree entirely that there is a Spanish or Pan Caribbean regional culture, and that southernmost Florida is a part of it. Adding it -- and 500 years of its history -- to the book was just one step too vast for what was already a vast analysis. Perhaps in a sequel (which could cover the regional cultures in Mesoamerica as well.)
ReplyDelete@Anonymous of May 24 - Thanks much for this excellent on the ground intel. I've been aware of Little Dixie -- it's that section of Greater Appalachia north of St. Louis -- but the sources you provide suggest it to be a third larger than assigned. Will check into the other counties you describe.
ReplyDeleteIs the District of Columbia included in Greater Appalachia?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous - Although the map doesn't make this clear, D.C. is a non-conforming federal district, artificially created and populated by people drawn from other regional cultures. (It is not a coincidence that the land the District occupies straddles the border between Tidewater and the Midlands. Originally Arlington was part of it.)
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Anonymous in that more of Central Illinois should be in the Midlands. Central Illinois is not really Appalachian, and the cities of Central Illinois like Bloomington, Decatur, Springfield, Galesburg, and Urbana are much more like Iowa than Kentucky or Tennessee. Abraham Lincoln was from Springfield and Central Illinois produced lots of Conscience Whigs and nonSouthern Republicans (like Bob Michel and Ray Lahood). Illinois south of Effingham is very much part of Greater Appalachia. Even the accents are different that those of Central Illinois (I travel and interact with school districts all over the State because of my job and I lived in Urbana for four years).
ReplyDelete@Joe - Thanks much for your input. It's very helpful to have feedback from on the ground. (Drawing the boundaries of the Midlands is one of the most difficult exercises as it is, in many ways, a buffer state. You could have Scots-Irish and Anglo-Protestant New Englanders living side by side with Germans and others and it would be very "Midlander", so the cultural markers are less distinct from afar.)
ReplyDeleteAs someone who lived for many years in Champaign, let me add another vote for including central Illinois in the Midlands, rather than Greater Appalachia. Perhaps I-70 would be a useful border between the two. There is a surprisingly large cultural distinction between southern Illinois and central Illinois, which also appears in this map of religious pluralities by county: http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/237-regionalism-and-religiosity
ReplyDelete@Colin Woodward, If you have a chance, you may want to do some research on "Little Egypt" which is the portion of Illinois South of Effingham and is distinctly Southern. Also, you may want to do a little research on "Michiana", the area of Indiana which borders Michigan. Michiana (and the rest of Northwest Indiana) is very culturally close to Chicago (greater New England) and Michigan. Both Little Egypt and the Northern tier Indiana (the Northwest Region and Michiana) are great examples of small regions within a state dominated by a different culture (nation). The populations of these mini-regions generally feel alienated from the state governments and state cultures which are often antithetical to the values of the smaller region.
ReplyDeleteYou might consider making this graphic into a poster and selling it.
ReplyDeleteThanks much. You're actually the sixth person to mention that. If I was certain that each of you represented 200 customers, I'd be at the printer now!
DeleteI'm intrigued by your inclusion of the Nordic, agricultural upper Midwest in the same region as the predominantly Anglo-Celtic, forested-industrial New England/upstate New York and Chicagoland, a nation unto itself that spreads out for 100 or so miles in all directions from the center of the city of Chicago (the way New Netherland takes in the New York City area). I see very little to unite these regions other than similarity of settlement patterns in the first half of the 19th century, generally pragmatic-liberal politics, extreme weather, and support of public radio.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems odd that the greater Great Lakes area minus Chicagoland (the Inland North, the Rust Belt, the Pierogi Belt, the Polka Belt, the Lake Effect Snowbelt, the Bowling Belt, or whatever you want to call it) is divided among several regions. It seems as culturally cohesive as anything on this map.
It's best you read the book to understand the whys of this, but I stand by the borders.
DeleteI disagree that the "greater Great Lakes area minus Chicagoland" has great cultural cohesion. I refer you to the other comments on this page from residents of Illinois. The Western Reserve and southern Ohio don't see eye to eye about much of anything, either during the Civil War or the past few presidential elections. I could go on but, seriously, check out the book.
re: Talk Like a Pirate Day
ReplyDeleteI once heard New Orleans referred to as the northernmost Caribbean port. I was delighted to find so much information and allusion in a simple little sentence.
Yes, New Orleans is an amalgam, in American Nations terms, of the Spanish Caribbean, New France, and the Deep South, which is why it's so fascinating.
DeleteFor the next edition of your map I would recommend a greater deep dive into Southern Ontario as well. My background is in industrial sales so I interact with a broad spectrum of groups within this area. Southern Ontario is quite diverse and should not be completely lumped into the Midlands region.
ReplyDeleteYes the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to Ottawa Valley region is Midlands but I would argue that Southwestern Ontario culturally and politically doesn't fit into this rubric. Windsor for instance has more in common with Detroit and Chicago than it does to Toronto. Windsor/Chatham/Sarnia (Essex, Kent and Lambton Counties) are economically tied with the Midwest US, not the GTA. Windsor and Sarnia for instance even have the culture and even the cities look "American." The influence of Catholicism is much more present here than in the rest of Ontario. Much of Windsor for instance was developed by Midwesterners (almost a a Midwestern colony in the Commonwealth you could say) and of course the auto industry brought Midwest corporate culture to the area. Windsor has the Detroit style of aggressive labour unionism that quite frankly would be more at home in Chicago/Detroit or even Montreal than in "polite" Toronto. Southwestern Ontario is also more extroverted culturally and has a more "live and let live" culture than staid Toronto.
I'd be pleased to do a deeper dive into southern Ontario, and thanks much for your thoughts.
DeleteI'm guessing you haven't read the book itself, though, and may misunderstand the salient characteristics of the Midlands, which would more easily embrace "the influence of Catholicism", being "developed by Midwesterners" and "live and let live culture" than the Yankee ethos I'm guessing you'd seek to place the southwest of the province in.
I have partly read the book and have been rereading sections, that is true... My point, to clarify, was to accentuate the differences between Yankee and Midland culture within Southern Ontario. The GTA and cities away from the border, such as London, Kitchener/Waterloo, Kingston, Ottawa, etc. definitely have a different culture and worldview than for instance Windsor and Sarnia. After all, Toronto and Kingston were settled primarily by "United Empire Loyalists" those who fled the Revolution. The elites of Toronto were called the "Family Compact." Southwestern Ontario was settled by the French and has a much more Catholic infused culture with more than a touch of New France settlement. A cursory comparison of street names and land surveying in Windsor and Detroit for instance shows a French influence that you do not see even in London, ON. (Many common names between Windsor and Detroit names as well) The area is a meeting point between Yankeedon and The Midlands as detailed in the book. Perhaps a county by county analysis of Southern Ontario for the next edition such as done for MI and NY would be appropriate? Maybe the Toronto area actually has more Yankeedom influence while Metro Detroit and Windsor are part of the Midlands?
DeleteAll interesting ideas. The paradigm would argue for both areas being in the Midlands (on account of the Late Loyalists -- really Midlanders fleeing the aftermath of a Revolution they'd never supported), though Windsor and the like are so close to the borders of Yankeedom, one might perhaps feel the cultural pull (being on within what the cultural geographers would call the periphery of Yankee culture.)
DeleteYou do get a certain degree of variation even within a "nation". Consider northern and southern France or northern and southern Italy or Germany. Or New England vs Yankee Michigan vs Yankee Minnesota. Broadly speaking, they're all a shared culture, but it doesn't mean they're entirely homogenous. Perhaps the same is true comparing the Toronto GSA with the southwest of Ontario?
One thing I would love to see someone create a "pedestrian vs. motorist" right-of-way map. From my extensive experience traveling all over North America, you can tell a lot about a place by conscious motorists are of pedestrians. Do they stop traffic to let them cross or do the drive past them?
ReplyDeleteThat and liquor laws. You can tell a lot about the local culture by their liquor laws since most liquor laws are local and they are so varied from state to state (or province to province)
I have to disagree with the people who said that central Illinois should be Midlands. I was born in Danville and have lived in Champaign for 30 years. Take the University of Illinois away from Champaign-Urbana and you are left with a small town mentality. Quite a few of these people have white collar jobs but inside a mix of worldviews. There are a lot of people here with what I would call a hillbilly or peasant worldview. They have nice enough cars and homes but when you talk to them about politics or economics, that is when you see the above stated worldview revealed.
ReplyDeleteRegarding a printed map-a print on demand service?
Thanks for the book--it really comes at a good time.
Thanks much for your input. Central Illinois has been the subject of quite a bit of discussion.
DeleteI haven't yet taken any action toward creating a printed map on demand, although with the high res PDF many users-with-plotters may be able to produce their own.
Do enjoy; the paperback is out at exactly the right time, me thinks.
IMO --- McLean Co Illinois should be midlands; Tuscarawas Co Ohio should be Greater Appalachia.
ReplyDeleteThanks much for your input. There's been a lot of discussion of the Midlands/Appalachia border in IL and OH, so I appreciate your votes on that.
DeleteAllegheny, PA works much better in the Midlands. Pittsburgh is clearly heavily influenced by the our neighbors in Greater Appalachia, but our culture is far more northern. Since reading your book a couple of months ago, I've been noting the Appalachian/Midland divide in practically every interaction I have had. There's a major change in attitudes, values and even accent as you move eastm south or west. I think this boundary even explains driving behavior, with a peculiar local inability to cooperatively merge onto a highway, and an agression to anyone who tries to change lanes.
ReplyDeleteThanks much for the feedback. I'm glad it rungs true on the ground.
DeleteAllegheny County was always supposed to be in the Midlands - it's referred to as such in the book - but I tagged the wrong county when I was helping create the first version of the map. (It's corrected in this map, which appears in the Penguin paperback edition.)
Greetings from the Czech Republic, Colin, where your book is being put to good use in two courses I'm over here teaching on a Fulbright Fellowship: "Cultural Geography of the US" and "Race, Culture and Politics of the US and UK." These are in the Dept. of English and American Studies at the Univ. of Ostrava.
ReplyDeleteBasically, your account is the core of the story I'm telling students about the development of the US, especially as this bears on its politics. I'm supplementing that story with material from Michael Lind, Kevin Phillips, and Ira Berlin's "The Making of African America." Of course, we've also got the election in the background (or sometimes foreground) as a contemporary point of reference.
The one thing I'm finding frustrating is that the 11-nations schema, while overwhelmingly true I think, leaves two or maybe three things unexplained. You see the problem as soon as you overlay a county map of the election results on your map. Yes, Yankeedom, the southern alliance, the Left Coast and El Norte are all visible in those results, but you have to kind of squint to see them, because lots of counties in each region voted the "other" way. The best single explanation of why, it seems to me, is urbanization: rural counties even in Yankeedom are Republican, and urban areas even in the Deep South are Democratic. Related to that, African-American areas are Democratic; that includes big cities in most regions, and also several tracts in the South that politically cut across the tendencies of the Southern Alliance.
It would be nice if there were a single account, a kind of Unified Theory as it were, that incorporated these facts along with -- and equally as elegantly -- as your account of the 11 regions. As it is, "American Nations" makes clear why, for instance, Ohio and Colorado are swing states, but it's harder to see without a bunch of further explanation why Nevada is one too (on your map it's all "Far West"), or a rural Yankee state like Wisconsin, or a gentrifying southern state like Virginia with a substantial A-A population.
The one other thing that I find I have to reach outside my core sources to explain is the overwhelming dominance of Baptists in the South. Based on the regions' origins, one would expect the Deep South to be Anglican or Methodist and Greater Appalachia to be Presbyterian. Again, I understand the later influence of revivalism and the like, but I'd love to see this incorporated into a Unified Theory too.
Anyway, your book came out just as I was beginning prep work on these courses, and it's helped me immensely, so thanks very much for that!
Thanks much. Believe it or not, I've passed through Ostrava many times by train heading to and from Hungary and Poland back in the 1990s.
DeleteYes, some counties vote "the other way", but not as many as you might think, and rural/urban explanations often fall short. (How to account for 15 of 16 counties in Maine -- a rural, overwhelmingly white state -- having supported Obama two elections in a row?) The cores of major cities do tend to vote Democratic, but that doesn't explain why rural counties fail to show consistent patterning.
On religion, turn to historical sources on how the Second Great Awakening played out in different parts of the country. Add the (regionally based) split over whether slavery was God-ordained or not (which have us Southern v American Baptists, Southern v United Methodists, etc) and you'll see how regional cultural characteristics shaped religious denominations.
Colin: First, let me tell you how much I enjoyed the book.
ReplyDeleteNow that we're done with the election, a great deal of the results can be explained by your book. But there's one anomaly: Why do the counties of the eastern Midlands (Iowa and east) tend to vote for Democrats, while the western Midlands (Nebraska, Missouri and points west) go so reliably for Republicans?
There is a similar East/West split in Yankeedom: The eastern parts are quite liberal, while the Yankee portions of the upper Midwest also went Democrat, but by uniformly smaller margins.
I don't yet have a scientific answer for you, but certainly the national characteristics have the strongest signal in their oldest (generally easternmost) cores, and weakest as you approach the 100th meridian. Still the patterns hold.
DeleteI would note that the Midlands has always been politically ambiguous, so one would expect a mixed checkerboard, all other things being equal. (Note that much of the Missouri midlands voted Democratic in this cycle; its the Appalachian sections that carried the day for Romney there.)
This is godawful. Please explain to me why Austin, TX and the, well, ANY part of Texas is akin to appalachia.
ReplyDeleteI suggest you read the book. I don't provide cliff notes to the rude.
DeleteI loved your book! I grew up in Wisconsin in a family that came from New England several generations ago, so I really understand the NE influence on Wisconsin. Now I live in Washington, and for the first time I understand why Seattle is so different from the eastern part of the state.
ReplyDeleteBut here's what I don't understand--if you look at the 2012 county electoral map, you'll see that there are large regions of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota that are very red. Why are these regions--often settled by Germans, Scandinavians, Polish--different from the blue parts of the state settled by the same ethnic groups? As far as I know, these parts of the northern midwest were not settled by Appalachians or southerners.
Thanks for the most enlightening book I've ever read which has helped my understand the crazy politics in this country!
Thanks much - I'm glad you enjoyed the book.
DeleteThere are, indeed, "red" sections in the "Yankee" Upper Midwest states. The paradigm would argue that Yankees set the cultural DNA of the area and that, over time, newcomers' descendents generally assimilate into that dominant cultural landscape. There are variations in political behavior even within the nations, to be sure. (A look at an electoral map in Germany, England, Italy, or Japan will reveal the same.) But I'd posit that these continue to represent a minority position.
I think a revised map is a great idea (and add my vote for making this map into a poster), yet I'm frustrated by the absence of a larger map which takes into the account northernmost North America, that we might see how far the borders of the Far West, Left Coast, New France, and First Nations extend. I'm particularly interested in seeing more of First Nations, given what your book said (at least I think it did; it's been awhile since I read it) about the growth of First Nation autonomy in Canada, and its future ties with Greenland.
ReplyDeleteMy second point: You mention New Orleans' "amalgam" status as blending Spanish Caribbean, New France, and the Deep South; how much damage was done to that cultural status as the result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, given the mass exodus from the city in the aftermath? Or has it rebounded?
An excellent point; I have the data for the Far North of the continent on a county and Canadian census unit level -- just a matter of making the map. One of these days....
DeleteI don't have an answer on New Orleans, having not been there since Katrina, but as a general proposition, culture has a way of surviving.
Colin, Thanks much for your book. I read Garreau's Nine Nations years ago, and more recently, Fischer's Albion's Seed - so it was super to see you acknowledged their contributions - AND build on them.
ReplyDeleteI teach a class in the philanthropy and used Fischer as part of my introduction to explain some of the historical patterns of the development of nonprofits. Your observations lead me to consider how those are expressed today. Your thoughts?
Thanks.... M
Sir,
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed your book very much and have recommended to others.
However, I don't feel that Colorado can any longer be classified as part of the " Far West" or at least parts of Colorado cannot be. Many former residents of the loopy " Left Coast" have fled to Colorado but kept the ideology which wrought that they fled from. They have, unfortunately, also bred.
Colorado has sadly become the easternmost outpost of the Far Left.
( I'm serious about this is as a native of a neighboring state.)
I wrote the above and just realized that a subject to explore is " The California Diaspora"; it seems no one has analyzed it in depth and it is real and happening.
ReplyDeleteThe cause and effect both on Cali and the areas to which they flee.
When researching my family history I found that many early "Yankees" (pre-1800) moved from Connecticut and Long Island/Brooklyn to the Raritan River Valley of NJ. I imagine that their influence was overwhelmed by the New Netherlands crowd, or absorbed into the Midlands set, but there were so many that they must have had an impact for a while.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous - In moving to New Netherland or Midlands environs, your Yankee forebears would have been in good company. The cultural fabric of both those places prized pluralism, and Yankees were among the significant participants in their "national" life.
DeleteI was raised in Ohio, lived 41 years in central Florida...and finally have relocated to the Left Coast. yes...there were massive differences between all 3 places...i prefer the intelligence and tolerance of Ecotopia...we dont have all the answers but compared to the midlands and deep south, we are just fine...it remains to be seen if these differences stand up to immigration and the onslaught of digitized Wall Street capitalism....which destroys the planet,people and all life in reality...
ReplyDeleteI read your book (“Nations”) last year and found it fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in western Illinois (Quincy), moving later to Phoenix, Arizona. I agree with your designation of Phoenix’s county (Maricopa) as El Norte. When I moved here fresh out of college 30 years ago, I would have described Phoenix at the time as a Far West culture, and it had been for the previous 100 years. It was a Native American culture that several hundred years ago carved out the canal system upon which modern metro Phoenix has modeled its vital canals. White settlers arrived here just after the Civil War, centuries after the Native settlements were abandoned, and began anew as a crop-based agricultural economy (cotton and citrus, mostly). There was a Hispanic presence for years, but was a fairly small minority until the Mexican and Central American influx in the 1990’s and 2000’s transformed the area to what could inarguably be called a border culture, or El Norte (Tucson to the south, by contrast, has always been an El Norte culture, having been founded 200 some years ago by the Spanish colonials).
I agree with some of the other contributors here that much of “urban” central Illinois might be re-designated from Greater Appalachia to a Midlands status. Quincy, tucked into the corner of far western Illinois in Adams County, definitely deserves a re-visitation of its status as well. Quincy differs from the other central Illinois towns in that it is a Mississippi River town in an area of rolling hills rather than towns like the prairie farm towns of Springfield, Decatur, Bloomington, etc., to the east. It is one of the oldest major towns in Illinois, founded by “Yankee” John Wood around 1825, and described by Mark Twain in his 1883 “Life on the Mississippi”, as having “the aspect and ways of a model New England town”. The town was further settled in the mid- to late-19th century by German immigrants (including some of my ancestors). Quincy to this day has strong public schools a good appreciation of the arts, having the oldest civic arts council in the U.S. So I think Quincy, Illinois’ Adams County definitely merits a Midlands (heck, maybe even a “Yankeedom”) designation.
I know that a proper designation of every county and municipality in the U.S. is a tall order, and I think it’s great that you’ve created this forum for listening to your readers.
Yankeedom and the Midlands are far, far more mixed with each other than they appear on your map.
ReplyDelete