Help refine new county-based map of US regions? (university, DMV)
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I know, I know — do we really need yet ANOTHER “regions of America” debate? But I promise, this one is worth a look!
Here's the link to the map:
For much of the past year I’ve been reading dozens of CD forums about various regions of the US (and regions within states). This has provided some key data for the map I’ve created, which I’m sharing here for “beta testing” (i.e., fine-tuning and maybe structural revisions).
This map divides all 3,142 counties of the US into different regions, rather than just the 50 states. This allows different areas within different states to be combined where that makes sense (for example: putting East Texas in the Deep South).
I’ve used three broad factors to distinguish the regions from each other:
• Similarities of natural landscape. (I’ve used the EPA’s ecoregions as the main indicator of landscape, because they are based on the combination of terrain, climate, hydrology, soil, vegetation, and land use). https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/eco...-north-america
• Economic links, including similar major industries, commuting/trade ties, etc.
• If there’s an area within a state that is widely recognized by residents of that state (example: East River and West River in South Dakota), I’ve tried to keep the counties in that sub-state area all in one region.
You’ll see that I’ve intentionally not factored in migration patterns, racial/ethnic or religious composition, election results, or any sense of “what people there are like.” (See Colin Woodard’s “Eleven Nations” map if that’s what you’re looking for.) My reasons for this are explained in the criteria document linked below. But the bottom line is that this is not that kind of map: it’s a map with regions defined on the basis of environment and economics.
And here’s an overview of each of the 14 regions and the names I’ve given them (but please don't comment just based on this — look carefully at the map itself):
Deep South (01) runs down the Piedmont and across to the Lowcountry, reaches up the Mississippi Delta to Missouri’s Bootheel, stretches over to the Piney Woods of East Texas, and also includes the Southside region of Virginia and the northern half of Florida.
Gulf Coast (02) links New Orleans and Houston and extends out to Mobile and Corpus Christi, recognizing their shared oil/chemical industries.
South Florida (03) includes the portion of the state south of an Ocala-Daytona line.
Appohzarka (04) connects the two interior uplands — the Appalachians (from New York’s Southern Tier to Birmingham) and the Ozarks-Ouachitas — through the Ohio River Valley and Tennessee Valley, which lie between them.
Tidewater (05) encompasses Delaware and Chesapeake Bays and Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds as well as northeastern North Carolina, central Virginia, and the greater DMV.
Mid Atlantic (06) consists primarily of the New York and Philadelphia metro areas. (Although my map doesn’t simply group urban areas in some regions and rural areas in others, these two contiguous metro areas happen to be sufficiently large and consistent with my other parameters to qualify as a region.)
Northeast (07) joins Albany and the Adirondacks with New England.
Great Lakes (08) and Heartland (09) are best understood as an attempt to distinguish the Rust Belt and the Farm Belt in areas where they overlap.
Great Plains (10) keeps its southern and northern portions together, while Mountain West (11) is defined by the Rocky Mountains and the western basins they create, as well as the North State in California.
Southwest (12) traces the border from the Gulf to the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.
West Coast (13) combines California’s southern and central coasts with the San Joaquin Valley and Hawaii.
Northwest (14) includes western Washington and Oregon and Southeast Alaska and stretches down to the Bay Area.
Overall it's pretty good but I don't understand what you did in Michigan.
Why are those counties in central Michigan islands of "Heartland" and not "Great Lakes" like the rest of Michigan?.
It triggers my OCD...
Oh and another thing that triggers my OCD big time is that the "Northeast" is colored white.
It looks empty, just color it with something, it doesn't look good white.
Don't know about other states, but in Missouri the area around Jefferson City and Columbia should be in the same region as KC and St Louis. With the capitol and main university in those two cities, they are defacto exurbs of both cities.
There's a huge variety of stuff in that Mountain West region you've got, not sure they really should be lumped together.
Using landscape and economic links as your main criteria (without some of the other things you mentioned) is a bit awkward IMO. You're using two completely unrelated things to try to create a grouping. If you do that you'll end up with all sorts of odd results. For example, Spokane is closely linked to Seattle for many reasons economically, etc., while it basically has nothing to do with, say, Reno, NV. But since you're also using natural landscape, it *does* get linked in with Reno. So, you should either use "artificial" or human-activity related things for your groupings, or use natural features for your groupings. Trying to combine them is going to produce weird results.
That Appozarkahoma or whatever it is seems like a catch-all. I'd really want to break it into 2 or 3 pieces.
Atlantic City and Cape May are, to me, culturally in the Philadelphia orbit. I'd have them in the Mid Atlantic region. They're not Tidewater. There's water, there's tides, there's oysters, but it's just not the same as the Chesapeake/Carolina sounds Tidewater region.
I agree that the Orange region should be adjusted southward by several counties in Central Missouri. The Missouri River counties are not much like the Ozark highland counties and are probably more similar to St. Louis and Kansas City.
There should be some adjusting northward of the Mountain West region in Arizona and New Mexico, maybe up to the Four Corners. There are some isolated mountain ranges, like near Flagstaff or parts of New Mexico but this is really the Southwest. The map shows the desert counties west of Albuquerque as Mountain West when they are Southwest.
It is hard to review a map like this without a bunch of nit-picking. In general it looks pretty good but probably one or two more levels of detail would produce twice as many regions. I suspect that there are outlier counties like those in Michigan in several regions. There are places like Santa Fe that are Southwestern but also at 7,000 ft. and set against the southern edge of the Rocky Mountains.
That Appozarkahoma or whatever it is seems like a catch-all. I'd really want to break it into 2 or 3 pieces.
Atlantic City and Cape May are, to me, culturally in the Philadelphia orbit. I'd have them in the Mid Atlantic region. They're not Tidewater. There's water, there's tides, there's oysters, but it's just not the same as the Chesapeake/Carolina sounds Tidewater region.
would agree on Atlantic and Cape May counties
if Jersey had to have some counties in the tidewater it would Salem and Cumberland on the Delaware bay
I know, I know — do we really need yet ANOTHER “regions of America” debate? But I promise, this one is worth a look!
Here's the link to the map:
For much of the past year I’ve been reading dozens of CD forums about various regions of the US (and regions within states). This has provided some key data for the map I’ve created, which I’m sharing here for “beta testing” (i.e., fine-tuning and maybe structural revisions).
This map divides all 3,142 counties of the US into different regions, rather than just the 50 states. This allows different areas within different states to be combined where that makes sense (for example: putting East Texas in the Deep South).
I’ve used three broad factors to distinguish the regions from each other:
• Similarities of natural landscape. (I’ve used the EPA’s ecoregions as the main indicator of landscape, because they are based on the combination of terrain, climate, hydrology, soil, vegetation, and land use). https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/eco...-north-america
• Economic links, including similar major industries, commuting/trade ties, etc.
• If there’s an area within a state that is widely recognized by residents of that state (example: East River and West River in South Dakota), I’ve tried to keep the counties in that sub-state area all in one region.
You’ll see that I’ve intentionally not factored in migration patterns, racial/ethnic or religious composition, election results, or any sense of “what people there are like.” (See Colin Woodard’s “Eleven Nations” map if that’s what you’re looking for.) My reasons for this are explained in the criteria document linked below. But the bottom line is that this is not that kind of map: it’s a map with regions defined on the basis of environment and economics.
And here’s an overview of each of the 14 regions and the names I’ve given them (but please don't comment just based on this — look carefully at the map itself):
Deep South (01) runs down the Piedmont and across to the Lowcountry, reaches up the Mississippi Delta to Missouri’s Bootheel, stretches over to the Piney Woods of East Texas, and also includes the Southside region of Virginia and the northern half of Florida.
Gulf Coast (02) links New Orleans and Houston and extends out to Mobile and Corpus Christi, recognizing their shared oil/chemical industries.
South Florida (03) includes the portion of the state south of an Ocala-Daytona line.
Appohzarka (04) connects the two interior uplands — the Appalachians (from New York’s Southern Tier to Birmingham) and the Ozarks-Ouachitas — through the Ohio River Valley and Tennessee Valley, which lie between them.
Tidewater (05) encompasses Delaware and Chesapeake Bays and Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds as well as northeastern North Carolina, central Virginia, and the greater DMV.
Mid Atlantic (06) consists primarily of the New York and Philadelphia metro areas. (Although my map doesn’t simply group urban areas in some regions and rural areas in others, these two contiguous metro areas happen to be sufficiently large and consistent with my other parameters to qualify as a region.)
Northeast (07) joins Albany and the Adirondacks with New England.
Great Lakes (08) and Heartland (09) are best understood as an attempt to distinguish the Rust Belt and the Farm Belt in areas where they overlap.
Great Plains (10) keeps its southern and northern portions together, while Mountain West (11) is defined by the Rocky Mountains and the western basins they create, as well as the North State in California.
Southwest (12) traces the border from the Gulf to the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.
West Coast (13) combines California’s southern and central coasts with the San Joaquin Valley and Hawaii.
Northwest (14) includes western Washington and Oregon and Southeast Alaska and stretches down to the Bay Area.
I believe this map is pretty close with respect to the areas that I have experience with.
A few notes:
Madison County, TN anchors much of rural West Tennessee. However, my knee-jerk reaction would have been to label it Deep South. East of there becomes a toss up between your Ozark-Appalachian region and deep south. I would put Henderson County, TN as upland, not deep south. There is a notable east-west split in that county.
Cape Girardeau County, MO is a pain to classify. It anchors SE Missouri and the Bootheel, but it is different than the counties to the north and south of it. I would probably leave it the same as you have it, but Ste. Genevieve County MO should be considered Heartland in my opinion. I never felt that there was much of a connection between Cape & Ste. Genevieve. Your Appalachian-Ozark region is only 2 counties tall (If that) along the Mississippi River in SE Missouri. I know you aren't directly going after culture so I will leave it at that.
I also concur that the orange may be a bit too far north in Central Missouri. I would put Phelps County, MO at the very northern edge of the region.
Overall it's pretty good but I don't understand what you did in Michigan.
Why are those counties in central Michigan islands of "Heartland" and not "Great Lakes" like the rest of Michigan?.
It triggers my OCD...
Oh and another thing that triggers my OCD big time is that the "Northeast" is colored white.
It looks empty, just color it with something, it doesn't look good white.
I live in central Michigan (in that blue shaded island) and it's part of the Great Lakes area and should be shaded gray like the rest of the state. Basically you're arguing that Lansing (and the Thumb area) are culturally different from the rest of the state, which isn't true.
I live in central Michigan (in that blue shaded island) and it's part of the Great Lakes area and should be shaded gray like the rest of the state. Basically you're arguing that Lansing (and the Thumb area) are culturally different from the rest of the state, which isn't true.
same with the Ft. Drum/Watertown area, on the western edge of Lake Ontario.
and the Orange region should be Appalachia, the Ohio River Valley and the Ozarks as separate regions
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