Map created by @StatisticUrbanThe map above is an interesting look at how you could make the US House of Representatives a little more fair. As @StatisticUrban says:

If the US followed the Cube Root Law, where the size of the lower house is the cube root of the population being represented, it would have 693 House seats.

Each member would represent ~477,000 people, down from today’s 760,000.

What is the Cube Root Rule in politics?

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Map created by Andrew ShearsThe map above shows what the US could have looked like if all the various breakaway plans had worked out. The original blog post by Andrew is no longer up, but you can read what it said here:

Most of my life, I’ve daydreamed about history — not so much the incredible depth of historical events that have already occurred, good thinking as that might be. No, I’ve constantly fictionalized history by changing the outcome of one event here and there and exploring the possibilities of what would have come next. Sometimes I come up with some utterly ridiculous progressions on these alternate timelines of whole new worlds based on relatively minor changes.

Though I admit my imagination was far more active in my youth, I’ve had a little help getting things going again… mainly, of all things, Wikipedia. A treasure trove of information, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit has tons of information on historical minutiae that can be used to pass idle time. One of my favorite things to read about, oddly, is defunct sports leagues and teams. These always make me think of the random “what if” questions: What if the USFL hadn’t failed in its anti-trust suit against the NFL? (It won, but was only awarded $1.) What if, instead of Green Bay’s Packers, that the Muncie Flyers had survived as a small-market team to the present? What if the Federal League, or World Hockey Association, or ABA had made it? Sure, the world of sports is limited in application, but think: if something so arbitrary can spark the imagination, what about larger world events like World War II or the American Civil War? The possibilities are seemingly endless.

I’m certainly not the only one who’s done this. It seems like a good third of all Star Trek episodes deal with timeline issues like this. In fact, there’s a whole genre of literature, called “alternate history,” dedicated to exploring these very possibilities. Harry Turtledove is probably the king of this genre in the US. Turtledove explored an alternate reality in which the south won the American Civil War, all the way through present day. Philip K. Dick’s contribution (The Man in the High Castle), a book in which he explores the opposite possible outcome of World War II, is probably the most well known in the genre. Even Newt Gingrich as gotten in on the action. His book…. wasn’t completely terrible, as much as it pains me to admit it, though it’s probably more the subject matter than the writing.

Recently, on Wikipedia, I discovered a list that really intrigued me like none other: the List of U.S. State Partition Proposals. For a geographer/cartographer who’s a U.S.-specialist and who’s interested in alternate history, this was Kryptonite for my productivity. From this list, I stumbled onto listings for U.S. Territories that Failed to Become States and the listing for the hypothetical 51st State. I even came across a nice little book called Lost States, a humorous account from Michael Trinklein that briefly explores a number of random states that never quite happened.

After reading all of these things, and all of the linked pages connected — that’s where Wikipedia really sucks you in — I, of course, allowed my own mind to wander and I came up with the beginnings of a historical geography narrative for the United States of my own, drawing on each of these sources. How could I spell this out? Well, I’m no novelist, because I just really don’t have the imagination or skills necessary to put together a story in that format. However, I can make maps here and there, and I firmly believe that maps can do a pretty good job telling a story.

Of course, as the map has stated right in the legend, this is NOT a proposal of any sort, it’s only a fictional work based loosely on history. Depending on my free time in the next few weeks, I’m hoping to post a summary of how I came up with this map (in other words, my timeline), and a brief capsule about each of these newly created states. I might even make a GIS shapefile so that I could do some rudimentary analysis. That’d be a bizarro GIS article to write, wouldn’t it?

Who knew fictional geography could be so much fun?

Map created by reddit user dphayteeyl

The map above shows which states have White majorities (over 50% of the population), White pluralities (largest group but less than 50% of the population), Black/African American plurality, Hispanic/Latino pluralities and Asian plurality.

All data is based on the 2020 US census.

Do the results surprise you?

Map found on redditThis map shows the Most Expensive Toll Roads to Drive End-to-End in the US.  It is based on 2021 data, prices based on non-discount rates for passenger vehicles and excludes bridges, crossings, and tunnels.

In order they are:

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Map created by MyPerfectWeather.comThis map represents the “Number of Days with Comfortable Weather” across the United States. The comfortable weather criteria are defined as days where the high temperature is between 10°C (50°F) and  29°C (85°F), and the maximum dew point temperature is ≤ 18°C  (65°F).

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The map above shows the 102 US counties that had a lower life expectancy in 2019 compared to North Korea’s.

According to the WHO North Korea’s life expectancy at birth was 72.6 years.

In that same year the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that the following 102 counties had a lower life expectancy:

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Map created by reddit user Spooderman89The map above shows which US counties have an overall life expectancy above 80 years.

What’s shocking is how different the results are between states, for example all of Hawaii and most of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey all have life expectancies over 80.

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Map found on reddit

The map above shows which foreign country is closest depending on where you are in the United States.

The countries are:
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The map above shows the number of Highrise buildings as defined as being over 50 Meters (164 Feet) by US State. The data comes from skyscraperpage.com, but is from 2021, so might be somewhat out of date.

Amazingly, California has fewer than either Illinois, Florida or New York despite being by far the most populous state.

Using their more up-to-date data from 2024, here are all US cities with at least 1 Highrise building.

However, note they now define a Highreise as: “A highrise is a multi-floored building of at least 12 stories or 35 meters in height (115 feet).”

I’ve also calculated the number of Highrises per million people.

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