The United States divided into 5 areas of roughly equal population

[Daniel Fiddler]

30 pixel diameter circles = metropolitan areas 2,000,000 - 4,999,999 (23 in total)
40 pixel diameter circles = metropolitan areas 5,000,000 - 9,999,999 (10 in total)
50 pixel diameter circles = metropolitan areas 10 million and over (2 in total)

[Max Rockatansky]

And?

[Daniel Fiddler]

I just thought I would share that, I find that interesting.

[gonealookin]

The issue I have with it is that Red gets 32% of the U.S. Senate membership...and of those, 28 are Republicans and 4 are Democrats.  Merge some of those states together.

Orange is the other one that is over-represented in the Senate, slightly, at 24% (4 Republicans, 18 Democrats, 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats).

[GaryV]

The issue I have with it is that Red gets 32% of the U.S. Senate membership...and of those, 28 are Republicans and 4 are Democrats.  Merge some of those states together.

Orange is the other one that is over-represented in the Senate, slightly, at 24% (4 Republicans, 18 Democrats, 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats).

Says the person from a state that has 2% of the US Senators, but slightly less than 1% of the US population.

Hint: That's the way the system was designed by the original framers of the Constitution.

[SEWIGuy]

The issue I have with it is that Red gets 32% of the U.S. Senate membership...and of those, 28 are Republicans and 4 are Democrats.  Merge some of those states together.

Orange is the other one that is over-represented in the Senate, slightly, at 24% (4 Republicans, 18 Democrats, 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats).

Says the person from a state that has 2% of the US Senators, but slightly less than 1% of the US population.

Hint: That's the way the system was designed by the original framers of the Constitution.

In retrospect, a terrible idea.

[SEWIGuy]

30 pixel diameter circles = metropolitan areas 2,000,000 - 4,999,999 (23 in total)
40 pixel diameter circles = metropolitan areas 5,000,000 - 9,999,999 (10 in total)
50 pixel diameter circles = metropolitan areas 10 million and over (2 in total)

The Indianapolis metropolitan area is geographically very large.

[formulanone]

Greetings from Alakandaho, the Big America Land.

U.S. Route 37 from Mobile to Coeur d'Alene, I think this is needed.

[vdeane]

Hint: That's the way the system was designed by the original framers of the Constitution.

Hint: there is a reason why it's unconstitutional for states to replicate that system for their own Senates.  Especially since nearly all political battles these days are urban vs. rural or blue collar vs. white collar, not big state vs. small state.  Even before the modern divides, it was slave state vs. free state, so in retrospect, big state vs. small state feels more like an unfounded fear than anything that was ever actually real (although the Senate did at least prove useful for balancing power between slave and free, but it ending up that way was largely a happy coincidence for a while and eventually broke down, resulting in the Civil War, so that was really more postponing the inevitable and possibly making it worse rather than keeping the peace).

[gonealookin]

The issue I have with it is that Red gets 32% of the U.S. Senate membership...and of those, 28 are Republicans and 4 are Democrats.  Merge some of those states together.

Orange is the other one that is over-represented in the Senate, slightly, at 24% (4 Republicans, 18 Democrats, 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats).

Says the person from a state that has 2% of the US Senators, but slightly less than 1% of the US population.

Hint: That's the way the system was designed by the original framers of the Constitution.

I don't mind that all states don't have exactly the same population.  And people obviously move around over time.

As you allude to, Nevada is relatively small at #32 in population as of the 2020 Census.  At this time I think around 3 million population should be the minimum for a state, and Nevada just squeezes in there at 3.104M.  Kansas, #35 at 2.937M, is the smallest state that fits under my criteria.  There's a pretty big dropoff after Kansas to the 15 smallest states; #36 New Mexico is 2.117M, and 6 states don't even crack 1 million so they have less than 0.3% of the population but still get two Senators.

If you wanted to say 5M is minimum population for a state, I could see merging #32 Nevada and #30 Utah into a single state that would have 6.375M, which would be proportional Senate representation.  Those are two of the faster-growing states, though.  The constitutional convention to resolve the differences in state laws between Utah and Nevada would be entertaining.

A few obvious mergers that need to happen:

North Dakota (#47), South Dakota (#46) and Nebraska (#37):  This single state would have 3.626M, moving it into 30th place behind Connecticut.

Maine (#42), New Hampshire (#41) and Vermont (#49):  3.382M, becomes #31 behind Utah.

Idaho (#38), Montana (#44) and Wyoming (#50):  3.499M, also behind Connecticut.

A few other things like merging Rhode Island into Connecticut, Delaware into Maryland, splitting up West Virginia and New Mexico among their surrounding states.  Possibly demote Alaska and Hawaii (ahem, Puerto Rico has more people than Alaska and Hawaii combined).  I could get it down to something like 38 states.

And while we're at it, could we please shift the City of Carter Lake from Iowa to Nebraska. 

[ZLoth]

This might be better...

[ZLoth]

[kphoger]

This was a fun exercise.

Ten regions, using 2024 population estimates:

[formulanone]

This was a fun exercise.

Ten regions, using 2024 population estimates:

Georgida loses Alabama to Kentissouriana to balance out the population.

Either that, or Illinichigan and Kentissouriana should get draft picks to balance things out. You know one of them is picking Hawaii and/or Vermont in the first round, forget about cultural differences in this fantasy nation.

I think I'm just having fun making up conglomerate state names.

[kphoger]

Illinichigan

I think I'm just having fun making up conglomerate state names.

Illianagan?

[Daniel Fiddler]

This was a fun exercise.

Ten regions, using 2024 population estimates:

That is a nice map, although that one is not quite as evenly divided as my map is, even if my map is fewer regions.

Realistically, the fewest number of regions that the US can be divided into might be eight due to California's large population (nearly 40 million) and Hawaii being closest to California.

[hotdogPi]

11, needs a serious update


12, also needs a serious update

[Scott5114]

Illinichigan

I think I'm just having fun making up conglomerate state names.

Illianagan?

Washorevadahontanomingtahawalazona.

[kkt]

The issue I have with it is that Red gets 32% of the U.S. Senate membership...and of those, 28 are Republicans and 4 are Democrats.  Merge some of those states together.

Orange is the other one that is over-represented in the Senate, slightly, at 24% (4 Republicans, 18 Democrats, 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats).

Says the person from a state that has 2% of the US Senators, but slightly less than 1% of the US population.

Hint: That's the way the system was designed by the original framers of the Constitution.

It was.  That was necessary to get the Consitition ratified.  But back then there was not the extreme difference between very small population states and very large population states. 

[kphoger]

Realistically, the fewest number of regions that the US can be divided into might be eight due to California's large population (nearly 40 million) and Hawaii being closest to California.

OK, but I suspect Scott might not be happy with the results.

[Scott5114]

Realistically, the fewest number of regions that the US can be divided into might be eight due to California's large population (nearly 40 million) and Hawaii being closest to California.

OK, but I suspect Scott might not be happy with the results.

As long as Carson City calls the shots, Topeka runs the highway system, and we never let Phoenix decide water usage, never let Denver draw the county lines, and never ever give OKC or Jeff City any power at all, I'd be fine with it.

[mrsman]

Illinichigan

I think I'm just having fun making up conglomerate state names.

Illianagan?

Michillinda.

There is actually a Michillinda Ave in Pasadena, CA because some of the early settlers were from Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+Michillinda+Ave,+California/@34.1627869,-118.0745208,16z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x80c2dc87adad02c7:0x60a5b32d4dda0a78!8m2!3d34.1619044!4d-118.0680513!16s%2Fg%2F1tnpl8bw?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcyMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

https://lastreetnames.com/street/michillinda-avenue/

-------

As far as some other comments about the pics on this thread,

Daniel Fiddler's original division is pretty good, because at least it keeps things somewhat regional.  It is a good way of dividing up a distribution system for a national company. 

Five regions: Northeast (NYC) includes all Northeastern states with WV
Southeast (Atlanta) includes all coastal southern states and TN
Midwest (Chicago) includes a wide view of both Great Lakes and Ohio Valley areas (seems we discussed somehting along these lines in this forum a couple years ago)
Pacific or Western(Los Angeles) every Pacific state plus AZ and NV (probably every Western conference in pro sports is basically this region
Central or Mountain or Heartland(Houston or Dallas or Denver) every other state not previously mentioned.  This is a giant region, but most states don't have large populations here.

kphoger's 10 region map is a little trickier to work with, but you can still do something:

Northeast (New York or Albany), Mid-Atlantic (Philadelphia), Appalachia and Piedmont (Richmond), Southeast (Jacksonville),  Michillinda (Chicago or Indianapolis), South-Central (Memphis), Central (Denver or Omaha or Minneapolis), SOuthwest (Dallas or Houston), Western (Salt Lake City or Seattle or Phoenix or Las Vegas), California (LA or SF).

The Federal circuit courts have a lot of interesting history.  It is much trickier to change this map around because federal courts do interpret state law for federal purposes and so states won't be traded between regions once the regions are established.  To my knowledge, after the Civil War, Congress created 9 circuits to correspond with the 9 Supreme Court Justices.  The country was divided into 9 regions based very roughly on population, but of course a lot of current states were just territories then.  Of course, these regions had to stay on state lines.

In 1929, as population changed and more states have been added to the Union, instead of doing a full scale re-assignment, the 8th Circuit was split into two, between the 8th and the 10th.  The pre-1929 decisions of the 8th Circuit are binding upon the 10th Circuit as precedent.  Similarly, in 1981, the 11th Circuit was split off from the 5th.  [The original headquarters of the 5th was in New Orleans, making sense as a region for the entire south, from Texas to the Atlantic.  Now it seems not so central as so much of the population in what is left of the circuit is in Texas.]

So this map is not going to change, except to split.  There are many groanings in the West to split the 9th Circuit so that California judges don't provide precedent in more conservative parts of the West, but it does not appear that splitting the 9th is really on radar.  And simply kicking out CA and HI would make a very intersting district.  Phoenix is the largest city, but too far away from the Pac NW, so likely the court would be centered in Seattle, which is almost as liberal as San Francisco.

The federal reserve is a bit closer of a population split.  They do allow splitting states here.  But it seems like they keep a territory around the original banking cities.  8th district is very weird - every state other than AR is split.  This will always happen if both St Louis and Kansas City each have regional HQ, they are in the same state.

The cities match very closely with the cities of the Circuit Courts:

BOTH:
Boston
New York
Philly
Richmond
Chicago
St Louis
Atlanta
San Francisco

Dallas (Fed) New Orleans (Circ)
Cleveland (Fed) Cincinatti (Circ)
Kansas City (Fed) Denver (Circ)
Minneapolis (Fed)
 

[Scott5114]

The federal reserve is a bit closer of a population split.  They do allow splitting states here.  But it seems like they keep a territory around the original banking cities.  8th district is very weird - every state other than AR is split.  This will always happen if both St Louis and Kansas City each have regional HQ, they are in the same state.

I've always though Fed District L is way the heck too big. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to make a District M by splitting off OR, WA, ID, MT, and AK.

It's also a little strange that Las Vegas doesn't have a Fed branch bank, considering way more cash circulates in and out of here than I would expect to be the case in Salt Lake or Portland (and maybe even San Francisco itself, since it's a tech hub that likes to use things like Apple Wallet and Google Pay).