In 1973 Dr Pearcy published this booklet on the potential reassessment of U.S. state boundaries. The 38 states were informed by population, major cities, water basins, etc. The idea came to him after watching the migrations around WWII and how populations had shifted. Much had changed since the 18th and 19th century when many states were first made.

I still don't that's how you'd divide California.
#maps #dataviz #map #usa

@oldmapgallery Huh. While the California-Nevada border is straight lines, it roughly follows the Sierra Nevada mountain range, so it's really weird to not continuing to use it as natural boundary.
It feels like he just wanted to get rid of Nevada somehow.

@fskornia @oldmapgallery

He got rid of _all_ the pre-existing states!

@trochee @fskornia
Yep, it's a bit jarring in that sense, but rethinking political boundaries in terms of population concentration is interesting.
@fskornia Yep, you'd think it would be more related to drainage basins, or even the evolution of mega-regions, but no. I gotta say, the Sierras make sense as a boundary.
@oldmapgallery wow, I have a visceral reaction to this lol fascinating though!
@pillarboy Yes! So agree. I likewise felt conflicted about what would be potentially tearing apart communities, and others consolidating. But I did like the flexible thinking of realizing that changing people could use a changing political landscape.
@oldmapgallery
This makes intuitive sense, given the criteria. The aspects of the modern iteration with which I am most familiar are Cascadia and Greater Idaho. California could easily and logically be divided into three states; Texas we should just give back to Mexico.