From most populous to least populous:
Greater Appalachia 56.56 million
Yankeedom 55.06 million
Deep South 41.36 million
Midlands 37.05 million
El Norte 31.54 million
Far West 27.81 million
New Netherland 18.07 million
Left Coast 16.96 million
Tidewater 11.93 million
New France 2.76 million
First Nation 0.06 million
Also, for those keeping count: the Spanish Caribbean section of south Florida has a population of 4.85 million; Hawaii (Greater Polynesia) has 1.36 million people. (Thanks to Nicollette Staton of the Miami University of Ohio's geography department for the calculations.)
If you're unfamiliar with the American Nations map, start with this Washington Post article and, if for a deeper and better explanation, this Washington Monthly feature.
[Update, 5/29/22: the 2020 census figures are now up over at this blog's new home, colinwoodard.com]
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Thank you! I meant to do this earlier. It allows me to complete a project.... ;)
ReplyDeleteQuestion: are the Canadian/Mexican sections of these nations factored into these totals?
ReplyDelete"...for the U.S. portions of each of the nations..."
DeleteAnonymous nails it.
DeleteJayMan - if you have ability to access Canadian population figures by Census Statistical Unit and blend it with my spreadsheet coding all the CSU's by nation, that would be terrific.
Population data on Mexican states. I'd use 2010 for consistency with US figures.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mexican_states_by_population
DeleteCensus data would indeed be ideal, but it would be a project I'd have to hold off on for now. :)
DeleteI did do a "quick and dirty" method of estimating the Canadian nations (mostly, using language and ethnic statistics), which is close enough for this purpose. I checked how represented each nation was by my readers (that is, to the extent those that answered the poll are representative – not a "scientific" poll :) )
Reader Poll Results | JayMan's Blog
The totals I got for the Canadian nations were:
Yankeedom (added English-speaking populations of the Maritime provinces): 1.44 million
Midlands (English-speaking Ontario + Winnipeg Metro area): 10.8 million
New France (Non-Aboriginal Quebec + French-speaking populations of the Maritime provinces and Ontario): 10.8 million
The Far West (Non-Aboriginal populations of Prairie provinces + British Columbia minus Winnipeg metro): 7.02 million
Newfoundland (Non-Aboriginal population): ~500,000
First Nation (Nunavut + Northwest Territories + Aboriginal populations of Yukon Terr and all bordering provinces): 1.29 million (likely overestimated)
I left out the Left Coast, didn't I?
DeleteWell, that's mostly the Greater Vancouver area; the few communities along the BC coast add less than 20,000. All told works out to 2.5 million.
Sounds like a pretty good set of estimates. You're missing some small pockets -- northern Quebec and Labrador for First Nation -- plus Victoria Island, BC for Left Coast, but that should be pretty good ballpark figures.
DeleteIs there enough data to plot trend-lines [over time] for each 'nation'?
ReplyDeleteThe data is certainly there from the US census bureau, but I haven't accessed it yet in a usable form. Current area of concentration are historic election results...
DeleteIt allows me to complete a project too... thanks for this Colin.
ReplyDeletehttp://thehifisite.com/
Hi Colin. I was wondering under what nation DC was considered for these population estimates. Also, which counties were considered splits between two and were there any counties considered to be part of an distant enclave, like Milwaukee, which were taken into account. Thanks
ReplyDeleteDC is not in any of these nations, so was not included. (Montgomery is in Midlands; Fairfax/Arlington in Tidewater, etc but the District itself is a federal zone.) There are only two counties that are officially split "50/50": Cook County, IL (Yankee/Midlands) and the City of New Orleans (New France/Deep South.) All other sub-enclaves -- Milwaukee, Cinci, etc -- are subsumed into the dominant nation.
DeleteI read somewhere that Chicago and the northern suburbs could be classified as Yankee, while the south and west suburbs would be Midlands; is that indeed the case? Also, if one wanted to divide up New Orleans, are there Wards you would consider more Deep South vs New France?
DeleteColin, any chance you'd be willing to share the county list for the 11 nations to
ReplyDeletehelp answer this question:
http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/190767/where-can-i-find-gis-files-tha
t-shows-the-11-nations-of-the-usa
Thanks for your consideration!
Sure. Email me.
DeleteIs this county list still available? It would definitely help me with a project as well
DeleteDrop me an email. colin at colinwoodard dot com.
DeleteJust read American Nations--such a good read. I too would like data that would let me build a ArcGIS shapefile. I'll try the email-request to the author.
DeleteS. Jaretzki
I love the theory of the American nations, but I just have wondered what the rationale for choosing the eleven that you did and not south Florida and hawaii? Do they have little in the way of influence and signifiacant contribution?
ReplyDeleteReply follows. At the time, Blogspot wouldn't allow me to use the "reply" function....
DeleteJoseph - The book explains this, and also the absence of Newfoundland. They had little influence on the rest of the continent's story, and yet including them would require telling the history of each's "nation" -- Greater Polynesia, Maritime New Spain, and Newfoundland-ia -- over 400 years. Just a bridge too far to take on in a single volume.
ReplyDeleteDo you know which states are dominated by what cultural nations?
ReplyDeleteWill you ever do a second volume of American nations, illustrating the remaining nations.
ReplyDeleteWhat would say the archetypes of each nation would be. Expamle, yankeedom are the prophet, the deep south are the slavers ect.also do you think south Florida would be the dreamer
ReplyDeleteJoseph - Yes, I do know which are dominated, and which are not really dominated by any one nation. You can probably guess it pretty easily looking at the map and locating major population centers.
ReplyDeleteRelevant I think to this discussion, I recently did a party breakdown of the house of representatives by nation as best I could using these county and population totals. The goal was to try to understand the current "geopolitical" situation. Thought you or other readers might be interested...here were my results:
ReplyDeleteDem-Rep Nation
48-32 Yankeedom
8-67 Appalachia
17-44 Deep South
17-32 Midlands
32-15 El Norte
12-27 Far West
21-4 New Netherlands
22-2 Left Coast
7-9 Tidewater
4-7 South Florida
1-3 New Orleans
2-0 Hawaii
What I concluded is that Yankeedom has lost control of the Democratic party to the Left Coast and New Netherlands while the Southern Alliance-supported Republican party is now dominated by Appalachia (Tea Party populism/evangelism) rather than Deep South who generally find these new Republicans disgraceful and distasteful.
Though I haven't done a time series analysis, based on the political landscape, I suspect this shift has taken place over the last 2-3 decades. Money and technology have a much larger influence on campaigns now which I believe has given rise to stronger Democrat ties to Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and therefore a tendency towards laissez faire business and celebration of diversity and multiculturalism that has proven difficult for Yankeedom and the Midlands to support, though the Dems for now, maintain strong support from El Norte, a nation very concerned about border control and immigration.
Yanks are dismayed that bankers and the ultrarich are getting off the hook for exploiting communities; that college costs more even while it matters less compared to financial success (which incidentally often derives from inheritance or luck); and that it's easier and more profitable to outsource jobs, hire cheap immigrant labor, and sponsor highly-skilled immigrants than it is to build, educate, and assimilate. The result is a strengthening Sanders/Warren progressive wing...very typical moralistic Yankee movement.
DeleteMidlanders (my homeland) can see that Wall Street and Silicon Valley don't give a hoot about them. The middle class is shrinking, unions are weakening, manufacturing is weakening, and there's a long overdue minimum wage hike. The Democrats of late have weakened bank regulations, bailed out major institutions of other nations, can't keep up with regulating technology, and allowed soaring debt and college tuition. Where's the investment? ...more farm & ethanol subsidies? Thanks, but very few Midlanders are farmers. And the Midlands just doesn't care too much about social liberalism or diversity. That's why the population here has mostly checked out, allowing the more fiery Appalachianers among them to take the lead.
DeleteThe population figure given for South Florida is completely off the mark as just the three southeastern most counties in that area have a population of around 6.5 million.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it 0.6 million First Nation rather than 0.06?
ReplyDeleteI haven't looked at the stats again, but 60,000 sounds right for the tiny US portion of First Nation (in northern and western Alaska.) Figure much higher, of course, if Canada and Greenland are included.
Delete