Forget The 50 States; The U.S. Is Really 11 Nations

(Before It's News)

By Susan Duclos

Author Colin Woodard does not believe America is made up of 50 states nor that it is united. His belief is that the American is really made up of 11 regions which is separated out in his “map” which will be shown below.

He says that this is evidenced by voting patterns, demographics and public opinion polls going back to the days of the first settlers.

“Yankeedom” in the Northeast and industrial Midwest was founded by Puritans and residents there have always been comfortable with a government that regulates and moderates. The communities of the Deep South in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and other states were founded by former West Indian plantation owners who wanted to recreate the society they were used to: government based on the sacrosanct rights of a few wealthy elite. “Greater Appalachia,” extending from West Virginia in a wide band to the northern half of Texas, was settled by people from Northern Ireland, England and Scotland. Those people were openly antagonistic to the so-called “ruling oligarchies” and upper classes, so they opposed the slave plantation economy, but they also distrust government.
The full transcript of the NPR interview can be found here.