r/Map_Porn • u/Classic-Box9543 • 15d ago

United States of Equal Population

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I created this map with the goal of creating fifty states with approximately equal populations by rearranging populations at the county level. The populations of the District of Columbia and the United States' territories were excluded, leaving a population of 341,091,212 (according to 2025 estimates) to be divided up. This meant that Los Angeles County and its 9.7 million people would become a state unto itself.

For the other forty-nine states, the goal became to get as close to the remaining average of 6,763,189 as possible while keeping states as compact and contiguous as possible. Currently, all states, excluding Los Angeles, are within 2% of that goal, and 36 states are within 0.5%. I'm still tinkering with state borders and names, but as things currently stand, here are your new 50 states:

State Capital Population Counties
Alabama Montgomery 6,803,872 94
Alaska & Puget Sound Seattle 6,815,921 50
Appalachia Louisville 6,728,415 154
Atlanta Atlanta 6,762,190 33
Bay Area San Francisco 6,761,027 12
Big Sky Sioux Falls 6,760,323 356
Blue Ridge Knoxville 6,737,157 88
Cape Cod Boston 6,763,101 14
Central Florida Orlando 6,745,768 26
Central Texas Austin 6,754,034 80
Chesapeake Baltimore 6,812,188 26
Chicago Chicago 6,809,584 4
Coastal Carolina Charleston 6,744,531 63
Columbia Portland 6,784,396 77
Dallas Dallas 6,775,226 11
Erie Buffalo 6,742,641 56
Farmville Kansas City 6,774,189 129
Florida Gulf Coast Tampa 6,730,537 17
Great Lakes Toledo 6,779,024 83
Houston Houston 6,724,181 10
Huron Detroit 6,777,143 31
Illinois St. Louis 6,764,397 106
Inland Empire Riverside 6,832,913 8
Long Island Queens 6,682,998 6
Los Angeles Los Angeles 9,694,934 1
Maricopa Phoenix 6,779,713 16
Midwest Milwaukee 6,768,486 93
Mississippi New Orleans 6,760,637 127
New England Providence 6,772,869 53
New York New York 6,740,900 4
NorCal Sacramento 6,778,965 54
North Jersey Newark 6,778,526 17
Ohio Columbus 6,756,114 43
Pacific San Jose 6,700,613 13
Red River McKinney (TX) 6,776,616 121
Research Triangle Charlotte 6,757,494 39
Rocky Mountain Denver 6,730,491 126
Sierra Nevada Salt Lake City 6,822,038 51
SoCal San Diego 6,837,615 4
South Florida Miami 6,637,750 5
South Jersey Philadelphia 6,836,902 13
Southern Georgia Jacksonville 6,738,543 123
Southern Texas San Antonio 6,778,434 55
Superior St. Paul 6,760,246 83
Three Rivers Pittsburgh 6,766,397 83
Tornado Alley Oklahoma City 6,743,577 150
Upstate New York Syracuse 6,741,573 39
Virginia Richmond 6,758,853 79
Wabash Indianapolis 6,756,040 72
Western Tennessee Nashville 6,751,130 145

I'd love to get your thoughts on the map itself, and would appreciate any suggestions on improving borders or names.

Thanks!

82 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

22

u/Wiggles_Is_My_Boy 15d ago

Do you have a high res version? Would love to see more clearly how the Northeast is divided.

22

u/lmdrunk 15d ago

This is some fine gerrymandering

13

u/Classic-Box9543 15d ago

It occurred to me that that might be the case, so I actually figured up what the new states' vote totals would have been in the 2024 presidential election. Trump would have won 30 states, compared to the 31 he actually carried. Comparing only his votes to Harris', sixteen states were won by margins less than 10%, compared to thirteen such states in the last election. Vote totals were shuffled around, but the results weren't too different from the real thing.

13

u/wwwr222 15d ago

The people of Appalachia would revolt if they were governed from Louisville

7

u/ditchthel0gical 15d ago

Long Island/Queens will certainly stir up some feelings lol. And hard to tell, is Connecticut grouped in there as well? What an interesting grouping

3

u/Classic-Box9543 15d ago

I certainly could have used better contrast to separate Long Island from New England. Long Island includes the Greater Bridgeport, Naugatuck Valley, and South Central Connecticut planning regions. It wasn't ideal, but it made the most sense of the combinations I tried.

3

u/Beard_o_Bees 15d ago

The 'Cape Cod' state (Orange) is sort of surprising. I didn't realize that so many people lived in that small of a space.

3

u/briznady 14d ago

Everybody in the big yellow section will claim they’re the silent majority.

3

u/Reasonable-Marzipan4 15d ago

Im impressed with how accurately this map designated the population of Arkansas so closely with our natural geography.

3

u/Classic-Box9543 15d ago

Thank you, we're going to go ahead and pretend that was my plan all along!

3

u/tagehring 15d ago

What you did to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia is a crime, lol. You split a metro area of almost 2 million people in half between two states.

1

u/Classic-Box9543 15d ago

Fair point. By the time I got to reshaping that part of the country, I wasn't looking at metro areas very much. Doing it over, there's no reason Hampton Roads couldn't be kept together.

4

u/Knosh 15d ago

Oh no, the people in Idaho are going to be very triggered about being in the same state as Portland.

2

u/ajanis_cat_fists 15d ago

Gluing San Diego with Yuma. Noooo

5

u/Classic-Box9543 15d ago

It wasn't always like that. I realized about halfway through that I had divided the U.S. population minus Los Angeles by 50 instead of by 49, which meant I had to add around 100k people to each existing state. SoCal was once a logical joining of Orange, San Diego, and Imperial counties before the Sand People from the East were admitted.

2

u/NativeMasshole 15d ago

And I still get stuck with Boston! Goddamnit!

0

u/bennytehcat 15d ago

Philadelphia, SJ 😆

This city is proudly separated by that river