"Why are people having so many children in Alaska?" What else is there to do in Alaska?

The states where teens can drive a car at earlier ages are usually very rural & flat states where they can drive for miles & miles without seeing another vehicle.

me, an american, watching a british guy who can actually tell the states apart from their shape on a map.

One way to remember the Baltics is that they are in alphabetical order from top to bottom - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

It is so refreshing to listen to a non-American speak about America in a tone that isn’t nearly 100% hysterically negative.

Europe enjoys the influence of the Gulf Stream/ North Atlantic Current, bringing warmer than normal waters to the seas of Western Europe. This influences the air temperature extremely throughout the year, bringing much warmer, more stable, pleasant conditions (but also sometimes strong westerly winds, clouds, and persistent rain showers, particularly in coastal areas of western Europe, like nearly the entirety of the UK).

12:54 - keep in mind that there is a bit more of a barrier for Americans coming to Europe than Europeans coming to America. (1) Language barrier: English is the language of the world, so many people in non-English-speaking countries learn it, so language barrier often isn't as bad for the latter as it is for the former. (2) Europe is a collection of nation-states, the US is a country built of immigrants.

Obviously, Russia is so massive so it's more likely it will include more extreme temperatures. Not all parts of Russia ever get extremely hot, and certainly not in the areas that most Russians live. That 45C (113F) degree reading was in Kalmykia, which is a dry area of Southern Russia, known for its interesting Buddhist culture, but with a very sparse population.

I love how his head just covers half of Europe

I love how California has such a high average income, yet it has such a high cost of living that it completely cancels it out... 😆

7:25 my short synopsis on the lack of development down south It effectively ties back to slavery. Towards the end of slavery, the north became incredibly good at industrialization. While the south remained HEAVILY dependent on agriculture which includes slavery; besides large plantations staffed with slaves, poor whites also worked in agriculture. When this was lost, there was no recovery. Just like deindustrialization in the north/Midwest (although many cities have since recovered) nothing replaced the existing industries. There was a poor attempt at industrializing in parts of the south, but it didn't last long. What's left with is miles and miles of rural countries side and low-income/impoverished communities. Unlike anything I've seen before. Seriously, it was like a seen out of a movie with how decrepit people's homes were and how many people were missing teeth.

20:37 It's called Death Valley because it's really, really easy to die out there. It first got the name because a bunch of white people tried to cross it without sufficient supplies and died of starvation and dehydration. Now and then you hear about the occasional tourist doing the same because they didn't bring water and their car broke down, forcing them to walk in some pretty nasty heat. The local tribes that live(d?) around it and are smart enough to stick to the edge and only hang around during Winter give it a much more prosaic name. Can't recall what it is though, sorry.

Obviously, it is important to remember that cost of living needs to be factored in. People make a lot in Boston, Massachusetts, but it's crazy expensive to live there. My wife and I rejected the idea of living there when she had the option of working there, because even apartments are outrageously expensive. We prefer to live in Dallas, Texas, which is particularly much better for families.

The drinking age of the US was typically 18 until the mid 1980s, by the way. It hasn't always been that way, as you might imagine.

As a Dutch person, I'm glad to see that Americans see Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg as The Netherlands. 🥳

I think more people from Europe are moving to the US than Americans are moving to Europe is cultural as well. Wealthy/highly educated Europeans are very mobile compared to Americans of the same socioeconomic status. Also, most Americans will experience a significant drop in their quality of life by moving to Europe; at least in the beginning, because of the language barrier(s). Europeans who have the resources to move to the US are usually very proficient in English before even setting foot in the country, so there are less things to adjust to.

New York City is roughly the same latitude as Madrid, Spain. Dallas is slightly further south than Casablanca, Morocco and is slightly further north than Jerusalem. Oslo, Norway is further north than Juneau, Alaska. London is further north than the entirety of the continental US. So, yes, the US is generally MUCH closer to the equator, which means that there are more daylight hours throughout the year, which gives the possibility for more sunshine than in most of Europe. Additionally, the interior of the US is not influenced like western Europe by a large body of water, like the Atlantic, so that causes it to be much sunnier than anywhere in Europe (even southern Spain and Greece) The influence of the Great Lakes causes that part of the US to be cloudier. The influence of the Pacific in the Pacific northwest causes that area to be very cloudy (except in summer).

As for why the South is generally poorer than the North in the U.S., it can really be distilled down to a few factors: 1. Labor Force Patterns (i.e., slavery versus industrial factories / small farms): the South relied heavily on enslaving people for its economy. The economy there centered around a few very wealthy "planters" who amassed huge fortunes selling the cash monocrop of cotton. Cotton was then sold to the North to factories. The South's cotton-based, slavery-driven economy meant a few people were very wealthy, but the vast majority of people were so devalued as to not even be considered people (i.e., the dehumanization of Slavery). Not only was this terrible for enslaved people, but it created many generations of poverty, as the institutional factors that create wealth, such as (land) property ownership, banking, economic mobility, freedom of movement to find new jobs, education to change careers, etc, were all but impossible. Even for non-enslaved white farmers, the lack of demand for their labor due to, well, Slavery "underbidding" their work lead to general societal poverty. Especially once property ownership of people (except for a crime) was made illegal in the United States, even the remaining "wealth" (enslaved people) of the few wealthy southerners was confiscated. This left a society of the vast majority of people with no wealth at all. It is actually more impressive how wealthy the current South is, considering this history. Meanwhile, in the North, even before industrial factories, farming was much more independent and small-scale. This lead to an ability to control one's own economic affairs, which led to greater wealth. Especially once New England farmers moved west to better agricultural lands (and, as we must acknowledge, the Haudenosaunee people were forcefully removed from western lands), the wealth opportunities from western farms grew. Add to this several industrial cities that processed the cotton grown in the South into finished goods with much higher value than raw cotton, and you have an economy where the average person could actually earn money. This draw of steady work was enough to create widespread European immigration to Northern cities by the mid 19th century. 2. Urban and Rural Geography: simply put, the North urbanized much earlier than the South, and this helped concentrate wealth and build economic opportunities. Mercantile cities proliferated from about Baltimore (still the South back then) up to about Newburyport, and these cities had the factories and other job opportunities to create a generally wealthier population than Southern farms run on slavery and later sharecropping (not too different from Slavery). Also, it is worth noting that the North's early investment in infrastructure such as canals and railroads helped build Northern wealth. 3. The Great Lakes (hear me out!): The Great Lakes allowed Northern States easier access to western resources and farmland, and the North was able to more easily reach the west through the Erie Canal, followed by several railroads. As the Southern economy was focused on local cotton production as the almost sole economic activity, it missed this western wealth accumulation. Not to mention that without as many cities and without easy lake access, it was much harder for Southerners to reach the Great Plains (aside from the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, which are a long way from most of the South). 4. Racist Laws: This may sound like a lazy one thrown in ad hoc, but it's really not. Racially discriminatory laws created a climate of very economically-costly restrictions on businesses that cut off potential moneymaking opportunities for the sake of bigoted racism. The humanitarian disaster of these laws is clear, but its also worth noting that segregation is bad for an economy: it not only prevents many economic transactions from happening at all, but it scares away talented people who'd otherwise work in the South (educated African-Americans often left for where they could be treated more like human beings). Since the 1960s, the South's economy has grown considerably: There are more large and rapidly-growning Southern cities, many of which are more cosmopolitan than ever, and time gradually erodes the memories of legal segregation (if not socially so). This is why some "Southern" areas are now just plainly wealthy, such as Northern Virginia. Even places like Texas, the Atlanta Metropolitan area, and much of North Carolina are now basically as wealthy as the North. However, challenges remain, most notably the lower wages in the South. Even with lower living costs, poverty can still abound when many jobs are $7.25 per hour. In Mississippi's specific case, it has a lot of the factors still that define the "old" and economically disadvantaged South: a lack of large cities with many people living in rural areas, a reliance on agriculture rather than industry or "services" (e.g., post-industry as seen in East Coast cities), a deeply conservative culture and government that makes generally liberal outside investors weary (e.g., can you imagine Starbucks having Bible verses on the wall?), and a population that still suffers the intergenerational effects of Slavery, Sharecropping, and Segregation.

8:28 So this caught my eye. There is a heavy stigma that we earn more, but because we do we lose out on a lot more. There are no national guaranteed vacation days, your company can choose to give you vacation time, but a lot of the time it's something like 10-15 days a year plus maybe three sick days (not every company does this but it is a reoccurring theme in the United States). I think the EU mandates at least 20 and some countries and companies have as high as 25. Also the average US worker works 1,801 hours per year, which is 19% higher than OECD countries. This is the average, although it is a conservatively low average. Most Americans are really working between 40-60 hours a week and a lot of that can either be counted as overtime or "required" unpaid work by companies. The EU is nowhere close to these figures at all. Workers benefits are way less too. I remember when I was one my mom's insurance growing up, through her company, the insurance cost her just for my plan more than $600 a month. In Europe, healthcare for the most part is taken care of with your taxes, there's a reason why medical tourism is becoming such a big thing. Also, to live in big population centers where the higher paying jobs are is incredibly expensive compared to *most* European cities.

Actually a lot of the rural states in the U.S. allow driving at a younger age because many farm and ranch kids need to commute to school. It's not because of "freedom". I really appreciate that you've visited the United States and are getting into making geography videos but you make a lot of assumptions about the United States that are factually incorrect.

Arkansas' eastern border is the Mississippi River. That is why it's jagged like that. Arkansas is quite poor in most areas, except for in NW Arkansas, which is becoming wealthier and wealthier due to being the home of WalMart, Tyson's Chicken, and other companies. NW Arkansas is actually quite nice. My grandparents live there. The rest of Arkansas is mostly awful (parts of Little Rock excluded).

Several things: The record high temperature is not really that important. What's important is the average temperatures and if there is typically much departure from average. Average temperatures in a city like Melbourne, Australia look nice, but often it can be either too cool or too hot and not actually what the average is. That also holds true for some places in the US, particularly when it is not summertime. Whereas, in Europe, it is very often close to the average temperature, due to a consistent amount of humidity in the air with westerly winds prevailing. Here in Dallas, where I live, and on the Southern Plains, the wind direction changes from north to south and back again frequently. This can cause extreme differences in temperature (and strong winds) in late fall, winter, and early spring. This can bring 21C (70F) weather one day and then next it can be 10C (50F) or even colder. For instance, the high was 82F (28C) on February 21st and the high was 35F (2C) two days later, on February 23rd, this year. While this doesn't happen to that extreme all the time, this would be unthinkable in Europe. It almost never even reaches 15C (60F) throughout the entire wintertime, in Northern Europe, but it also rarely would drop below -5C (23F). In much of the US, it can easily get much colder than that or much warmer than that during the winter. So, if you are willing to put up with dramatic temperature changes, then the Southern US might be the place for you. However, the reality is that coastal California and up to Portland/ Seattle, the extreme southeast US, Hawaii, parts of New Mexico and Arizona, and the Atlantic shoreline up to NYC are the only places that have more consistent temperatures in the US, like in Europe. Nearly everywhere else deals with the Arctic cold fronts and southern humidity from the Gulf of Mexico on and off, with the exception of during the summertime (when it is hot nearly everywhere). The Atlantic Ocean's consistent temperatures bring pleasant, more consistent temperatures to western Europe, in all seasons. However, the Atlantic Ocean also brings cloudy weather to Western Europe, particularly to coastal Northwestern Europe. In my opinion, coastal Southern Spain has the ideal climate in Europe. In the US, from San Diego up to Long Beach, CA are best, along with Hawaii. Or, you could just be like me and summer in Germany with your in-laws, avoiding the Texas heat and sun for a month to two months each summer and then returning to reasonable weather the rest of year in Texas!

I’d like to supplement what others have said on the South’s lower HDI- 1. The South was effectively a “colony” of the OG United States. It was settled by Americans of all stripes, but the first colonists were whites from Virginia and the British Caribbean. It was always meant to be a cash cow. 2. The slaveholding South was horrible not just for blacks, but most whites too. Whites outside the aristocracy were brainwashed into thinking slavery benefits them too, when in reality it chained them to menial labor and sticking within the confines of the agricultural economy. 3. The war and Reconstruction ruined any hope the South had of industrializing like the North did. What little manufacturing might the South did have was memed by Sherman on his March to the Atlantic and by Grant’s troops in the case of Virginia. Reconstruction didn’t help these matters, as infrastructure money only really went towards rebuilding *buildings,* not returning manufacturing. 4. Still today, the South maintains more of the honor culture and odd trust in todays equivalent of the “aristocracy.” Even more than the rest of the US, Southern state governments kowtow to any hawking company that comes to town promising government officials to make a quick buck… a continuation of the history of carpetbaggers. What I’m trying to say is ain’t nothin changed but the weather

The US expanded East to West, as a general trend. Serrated borders come about from natural barriers, and the flat ones come from treaties where we arbitrarily divided up the land.

I didn't even take any driver's ed. training to get my driver's license back in '01. Nothing. Zero. I failed the test the first time, practiced for one week on my own time and took it again, getting my license at the age of 16 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Things are changing, but it's still easier (and cheaper) to get your license in the US than in European countries.

Why is the south underdeveloped? I think it’s for the same reason as Brazil, or other former slave economies. Without a need to industrialize, the skill sets, mindsets, and facilities needed to have a modern functioning economy and society started behind the gun. While things did get better, the lower average quality of life led to an amount of brain drain that has compounded the issues. This has also given many southerners a “rose-tinted” view of the past which can increase resentment, and once again, further compound existing problems.

10:57 with this you’ve got to bear in mind that a lot of the USA’s railways are mainly for cargo trains and owned by cargo train companies. So even though they may have a lot of railways, passenger trains are usually expensive and very infrequent

Dude, really love this channel and I'm upset I'm just now finding it. I spend so much time staring at maps and have never really met anyone who shares the interest. Your channel is a breath of fresh air for people like me, so thanks !

europeans move to the states when their business is starting to go well for less taxes

Kudos for recognizing Europe's demographic problem. A plummeting birthrate is death for any nation.

I feel like the main reason that the alcohol purchase age is so high is that in the US there’s sometimes not another option to get home, other than driving yourself (at least in the 1980s when the law was established). When in Europe the bar you went to is likely only a couple blocks from your home.

Toycat: "Speaking of starting wars" *Switches to a map of Europe* Accurate transition for once lmao

7:30 - Bit of an explanation for the HDI in the southern USA. Historically the northern states always had higher development due to the lack of farmable land and the abundance of people willing to work. The south has been mostly rural, fertil, farm land. This was also the basis of the American Civil War as the south heavily relied on slaves to farm and the southern "way of life" was threatened when slavery was abolished.

I went to Death Valley two years ago and it was extremely interesting, with a lot of variety in elevation nearby. Dante's View, at an elevation of 5,476 feet above sea level (1669m) is a full 5,575 feet almost directly above Badwater Basin, the lowest point on the North American continent. It was one of the most incredible views I've ever seen. It was also around 35 degrees cooler than it was when I reached Badwater Basin only 45 minutes later (by car). It was around 118F (47.7C) in late July when we were there, which is actually just an average day. I've been in many hot places, but what was special about Death Valley was how insanely dry it was. The air was so incredibly dry that you felt thirsty extremely quickly. Your face and exposed skin felt slightly strange as well. Certainly a foreboding place! In the winter, it's quite pleasant, however. Around 20C (68F) The nearby Telescope Peak, in the Panamint Range, towers above Death Valley (still within the National Park) to the west, blocking any remaining Pacific moisture that has reached that far east. There are at least 3 other major mountains ranges to the east of the Panamint Range, as well. That causes an extreme rain shadow effect. Death Valley is extremely hot because of solar heating and the trapping of warm air within the valley, as it cannot escape the encompassing mountain ranges. The valley received its name in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. It was called Death Valley by prospectors and others who sought to cross the valley on their way to the gold fields, after 13 pioneers perished from one early expedition of wagon trains. The heat and lack of water in that part of California could easily be a killer. My car, which was a brand new rental, struggled on its way out of Death Valley, leaving the low elevation and quickly attempting to move up thousands of feet into mountain passes on the way to Los Angeles. I saw a bus completely broken down. Even today, one must use caution when visiting Death Valley, particularly in the summer months. Death Valley is quite isolated, with no major settlements within an hour or two.

I'm from South Dakota and before the driving regulations were changed last summer the earliest someone could drive unsupervised was about 14 and 3 months if they took driver's Ed I believe. But with the new restrictions, it's harder to get your license at such a young age, but most people drive by themselves by 15 or 16

5:40, drinking age used to vary from state to state, however with the introduction of the interstate highway system the federal government decided that in order to be able to obtain federal funding for the highways the state needed to have the drinking age of 21.

I've recently heard from someone that emigrated to the Netherlands that dutch people on average earn less because they work less hours per month. He thought we valued free time more. Idk if that was taken into consideration with the yearly earning numbers. Apparently this raised productivity as well. I'm guessing this applies to other European countries too, but I haven't checked any of this.

I greatly enjoyed this video Toycat and I hope that my comments, while laughable with the amount I made and likely obnoxious, helped some of you learn more about geography. That's all I can hope for as a geography teacher based here in the US. Have a nice day.

First of all I really liked your talk and maps. However, I wish you talked about income inequality in the economics part because that one shows the reason for the US' high median income. Sure, the Americans working in int'l companies earn a whole lot, nobody disputes that. What people are criticizing is that the money in America is as unevenly distributed as in countries like the Congo or China. Despite having a higher median income than most countries in the world, the US has poverty rates comparable to the former eastern bloc. So, even though the US might have higher wages on average, the average person still lives better in (western) Europe.

TL;DR: The south is agricultural and doesn't have a growing economy for may reasons. The reason that the south tends to have a lower HDI then elsewhere is because of several factors that have occurred since the colonies were first founded. The south relied on slavery since the beginning and was mainly agricultural, but around the 1820's a era of the United States known as the market revolution would lead to the north and great lake regions to develop a stronger industrial and economic region while the south remained agricultural mainly stagnant with little growth of the economy. Congress was also allocating infrastructure funds to the north and great lakes region instead of the south as there was more to gain causing the north and south to split further than already due to the disagreements on slavery. This was the case until the invention of the cotton gin which made it much easier to prosses and remove seed from cotton (the main "cash" crop grown in the south at the time). The cotton gin greatly increased the demand for labor to grow more cotton because 1 slave before the cotton gin could prosses 1 pound or ~0.5 kilograms every day, but the cotton gin increased that number to allow 1 slave to prosses around 200 pounds or 90 kilograms in a single day leading to further dependence on slavery in the south to maintain economic growth. It all came to ahead with the beginning of the American civil war where the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment was passed following the end of the civil war focused on civil rights instead of reconciliation. Leading to the rise of the first KKK and anti-black sentiments in the south. the south still remains agricultural to this day and struggles economically. It is also worth mentioning that the term "southern democrat" referring to the dominance of the democratic party in the south would cause issues because it was Lincoln's efforts that freed slaves and he was the first republican president causing many blacks in the south to vote for republican, but this was a era before secret ballots. Often times in the south between 1865-77 considered reconstruction era blacks voting in the south who spoke in favor of republican like telling a man out loud that his ballot was going to be republican would be shot on site from somebody passing.

Re: "what happened in" the American South(east), cotton was basically the oil of the 19th century: it required unskilled labor, but lots of it, and those who could control that labor became famously wealthy. So just like Venezuela or Saudi Arabia today nowadays are basically ideology-based dictatorships, so too is/was the American South, just with Fundamentalist Christianity in place of Wahabism or "Socialism" or whatever. Things are definitely better than they used to be, but it's an ongoing struggle.

I really feel some health maps should have been included. Life expectancy, BMI, percentage health cover. This is the area where Europe (Western and Med anyway) really outshines the US.

South Dakotan here - I never realized we were the only state that allowed unsupervised driving at 14 years old. Like, in my head, 14 is just the age everyone starts driving. I actually started driving when I was 11 because I had to go to work (which does seem weird in retrospect). Anyway, if you ever need to know anything about South Dakota, I'm happy to answer any questions

Don’t forget that the minimum tobacco purchasing age in the US only recently became 21 within like the past 4 years. It used to be 18 for a very long time before that. And trust me, regardless of what that railroad map says, trains are severely underused and underfunded in the US, and practically non existent in most places unless ur using them to travel extremely long distances. The only form of them that are relevant are the subway type systems in use in big cities like NY, DC, and SF.

I seriously never knew you could drive so young in South Dakota. That’s kinda ridiculous honestly.

At 16:19 North America is flipping us off, sascatuwan is the finger

As someone who has lived in both the USA and in Spain, in my opinion the cultural difference is not as significant as people on either side think it is. Also, even in poorer EU countries the quality of life is better than in the US. I would trade a slightly higher salary for guaranteed vacation, public health care, and generally better social protections any day. If I could trade my US passport, for ANY EU passport, I would do it without hesitation. One reason that there are more Europeans in the US than vice versa is that it is almost impossible to migrate to Europe unless you have close relatives. I've tried 3 times. Even with a Masters degree from a European university and proficiency in 3 EU languages besides English I was unable to do so. Additionally, a European can migrate to the US for a higher salary and still retain their citizenship and therefore retain access to the social protections in their home country.....Best of both worlds for them.

The idea of income inequality being much greater in the US than Europe only works when you are comparing the US to each European country individually. (Yes, Europeans, I know, I know, they are separate countries, so why wouldn't you do that?) That's exactly the point though. On the economic studies of income inequality, you are only looking at Norway's top and Norway's bottom, Romania's top and Romania's bottom. But if you were to look at the inequality between Norway's top and Romania's bottom, the income inequality would be much greater. The poverty line in the US is around $24,000/year for a family, yet Eastern Europe has median household incomes around $5,000. Yes, health insurance is a major factor in the US. 10% of Americans are uninsured, and that's not acceptable. But even Germany has a 5% uninsured rate. I have been poor, middle class, and upper middle class all across the US and Europe. It is simply not true that the average European has a higher standard of living than the average European. What we have in the US currently is a conflict of values. Americans want universal healthcare and government -funded secondary education. They are unfortunately not willing to "live as Europeans" to get these things. The average American over the age of 30 (outside of NYC) is unwilling to live in an apartment or share a car with their spouse. Americans have an expectation for things that are considered luxury items throughout Europe, and it's unfortunately costing us healthcare and education.

I live in Northern California, have my whole life and in 1972 we had 3 consecutive days where the temperature was 115-117 degrees F. I remember those days very well. Going outside was likened to opening the door of your oven to put in a casserole. The back field was so dry that the top was cracked and buckled just like you find in the desert. It does indeed get hot here in CA and not just in Death Valley. Thankfully the heat is a dry one and very little humidity!

4:22 ... driving a car at a young age is not a sign of freedom. It's a sign of car dependancy. Children are forced to be driven around by lack of other options. They are the opposite of free ....

By the way, up around Mount Washington, New Hampshire, which is the windiest place in the world, some say, is that little dot of 1800-2000 hours per sunlight in the northeast of the US. The dot of 1800-2000 hours of sunlight in Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula, is Olympic National Park and Mount Olympus. On the western side of the Olympic Mountains, you find the rare temperate rain forest, as a result of Pacific moisture constantly running into the western side of the 7,980 foot (2432m) mountain, which is only 35 miles (56km) from the ocean. Constant onshore westerly breezes bring over 259 inches of rain annually on average (6,580mm), which is the location in the continental US with the highest precipitation. Not surprisingly, it's also the cloudiest location in the lower 48 states, as well. Incredibly, on the northeastern side of the Olympic Mountains, an extreme rain shadow effect protects areas roughly 30-35 miles away (48-56km), like Sequim, a town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which only receives 16 inches (412mm) of precipitation per year, on average. That's 6% of the precipitation Mount Olympus receives, on average. Incredible.

Toycat, the tobacco purchasing age in the US used to be 18 until they changed it like 3 years ago for no reason!

7:30 - Holdover of reconstruction most likely from the civil war, those states never really fully recovered, and most of the wealthy or intelligent people living in those states left for the north after the war completely destroyed their home, and in general, the south has always been more labor reliant than the northern or western states in general the states in the south. Reconstruction was a huge issue for the south for far over the 12 years that it lasted, because realistically, the intangible effects of a country being destroy by all-out war for survival never really go away.

I know one person who moved from Germany to the US. The reason was her getting married. I also know one person who came from the US and is currently living and working in Germany. Did it to be with her best friend. Seems like that's the main reason I hear.

Really interesting analysis, not just placing the maps and doing a video. Cheers from Spain.

7:53 The prices are also very different across europe, even in the ones that use euros. Swiss people might make a lot of money but that's also because toilet paper there costs like 5€, to the point where the people living near the border just go do grocery shopping to the closest country (and it's such a common occurrence that there are regulations on how much you're allowed to bring through the border)

Considering that the US is almost as big as the whole European Continent it really isn't supresing, it is rather surprising that the US only takes so few Country's in equal population

If you make a good salary, you want to be in the US. You will pay low taxes and you will possibly make more money for the same job. If you make a poor salary, especially if you are married, then you want to be in NW Europe. You will be well taken care of by the government. However, if you are in a country like Germany and if you are a doctor, then the government pays you far less than a US doctor (literally 1/3 of US salary for the same doctor or worse) and you will pay high taxes. Example - a single doctor in Germany makes around $100,000 and the same kind of single doctor in the US makes $300,000. The doctor in the US will end up taking home $200,000 when it's all said and done, whereas the German doctor will be lucky to take home $60,000. That's $140,000 difference per year! However, the married German couple with 3 kids bringing in only $70K will do much better and have many more social services available than the American family on a similar family income.

Thank you for your videos toycar!

12:13 Getting your own room on Amtrak is an extra fee of several hundred dollars (sometimes over $1000 depending on which room you book and when you book it). It was like this before, during, and after Covid, and the vast majority of Amtrak travelers travel in coach where you don’t get your own room, it’s just very popular especially with travel bloggers. Side note: Amtrak coach seats are about as comfortable as businesses or first class seats on airlines, so don’t write them off as an option.

hey, starting wars in the comment section means lots of comments, which is really good for the algorithm...

This was extremely interesting. Had my attention the entire time. I can’t believe this was all done in one take.

Great video very interesting. I'd love to see some comparison on south America and north America.

Another great video from ibxtoycar

@7:25 There is a book called Albion’s Seed. It talks about the initial four settlement’s of various parts of the US and how modern US cultures derive from them. A blog called slatestarcodex has an excellent summary. It is super interesting, if you want a short version. The slave owning south was initially settled by former nobility after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. They figured England was no longer safe for them and went to America. They wanted to keep living that lifestyle, so that meant indentured servitude. For various reasons, that ended up being blacks. Once it was perdominantly blacks, indentured servitude quickly became slavery. Once it was slavery, deep racial prejudices developed in order to “justify” such a system. They also brought a honor culture with them that is still around today. That will be important at the end of this post. Fast forward to independence, many thought leaders in the North didn’t want slave owning states to be allowed. They even wanted the constitution to ban it. The solution that was settled on is that the South would be let in and the North could get to work weakening and then removing slavery. The South was aware of this happening and it help solidify the idea that the South was one culture that stood against the North. Eventually there was s civil war over this and slavery was banned. The North forced the South to adopt something like their industrial capitalism. The South resented capitalism because of this. This is really different from the modern image of the South. The North tried to fund industrialization in the South. But the South resisted. A lot of people wanted to sabotage the success of capitalism in the South to prove it couldn’t work there and that they should be allowed to decide things (eg slavery) themselves. An example of this is Jim Crow laws. The Southern states adopted a set of laws that required businesses to systematically discriminate against blacks. Businesses where quite opposed to this. In a standard econ you are taught that price discrimination is not something most businesses can do, and when it does happen the profit maximizing strategy is to charge lower prices to groups with lower ability to pay and higher prices to those with higher ability to pay. Jim Crow laws mandated the opposite. This all further proved to Southerners that capitalism was not to be trusted: people would chose profit over Southern morals. This view existed so deeply that when lawyers argued against these laws, they were generally expected to publish their finances in order to prove they weren’t in the pocket of some business. I chose that example because it show both a distaste of capitalism and a willingness of Southern whites to chose harming blacks over their own economic wellbeing. The culture throughout the North (and California) during this era was one where the economy came first. During this era, the South reliably elected Democrats. Both nationally, and at the state level. Lincoln was a Republican so the Republicans were seen as the party of “Northern aggression”. The Democrat’s capitalism sceptical nature matched the South. The South was quite on board with progressive economic policy… as long as blacks could be excluded. So they adopted strong unions but resisted universal healthcare. This period ends with the Civil Rights act of 1964. This forced the South to give up its overt discrimination, which also meant they didn’t like the Democrats anymore. The new political landscape that we are used to now doesn’t get established until 1980 with Ronald Regan and his Moral Majority campaign. This gets the South to switch to Team Republican. Though it is not really until the mid 2000’s that you see the South actually start to adopt the capitalist parts of Republican ideology. Even then it is hit or miss. Some states like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina adopt it well. Others like Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi haven’t really changed. So the short version of the economic part of HDI is the South hasn’t liked capitalism until quite recently and has often been willing to hurt its own economies in order to spite black people. The South has higher crime rates than the North. Particularly in violent crimes. One factor here is typical socio-economic factors. Education and economic opportunity correlate with lower crime. If people can get ahead without crime, they will. But if they can’t then crime becomes an option. Some Southern states are better here than others (noted above). Socio-economic factor can’t explain the entire difference however. For the rest, we need to talk culture. Remember the honor culture I mentioned at the start and haven’t talked about yet? Most of the North, Canada, and I think the higher HDI parts of Europe are mixes of friendly cultures and polite cultures. This isn’t a super scientific breakdown of cultures but a useful starting point. This breakdown describes the “dominant rule” in social interactions. In a polite culture you are expected to be polite: don’t cause problems for others, don’t upset others, be mindful of others. These generally have a logic to them that makes them work and makes them stable. In honor culture, everybody has a sense of honor, you are to respect other people’s honor and defend your honor from violations. With violence if necessary. As you might imagine, a cultural norm that demand violence for social failures is going to be violent. I think a question like this inherently depends on bias. So I should at least state mine: I am a Libertarian in Canada. I have always been somewhat fascinated in why different places have ended up with such different outcomes, which is why I would know such things about a subregion in a country that I don’t live in.

As an American, I can confirm that 90% of America is indeed Texas.

Insulting your audience is the best way to get me to be a long time fan of your off shoot Channels. And mapping is fantastic! Much like Brain Blaze by Simon Whistler.

I've just discovered this channel, and watched a video on European infrastructure and now this. Immediately like it, and a likeable host as well who said kind things about Ireland 🇮🇪 . Subscribed!

The American south’s economy was very dependent on selling cotton harvested from slaves to European countries and the rest of the country. When the civil war ended, a lot of the south had their populations lessened from the war and had to rebuild, and going cold turkey with slaves really hurt the south as it struggled to find something else to lean on. It needed to happen, obviously, but it did have lasting consequences

"Why is Mississippi ___?" The answer is usually something to do with slavery and its aftermath A note on the drinking age: it is 21, but there are many states with exceptions to this. For example, it is legal in NY to drink at any age if your parents are drinking with you (that is, they give it to you). You just can't go to a bar and order a drink on your own until 21.

Great video. Even the self-deprecating Anglo meltdown at the end was quite punchy.

9 years ago I watched your minecraft xbox videos and now I rediscover you as a map reviewer.

Lytton, BC, Canada broke its hottest temperatur recently: 49.6°C. It kept climbing over 3 days, then the town burned down. That is hotter than ever in Europe or South America....in Canada lol

0:24 that is so inaccurate!!! Every European know about Florida and it's "Florida man"

7:31 in a word what happened in the south: Slavery. In two words: Civil War. In another word: Reconstruction

The sunshine map is guessed in areas and is incorrect in Washington. I had this in a high school project as a slide in PowerPoint about the state and Spokane gets about 2600 hours of sunshine and is in the wrong area on the map. All places in central Washington (where it's all desert and sunny 10 months out of the year) have zero data on them, but comparing with solar maps it's likely closer to 2,800-3000 hours. Seattle and Portland are spot on though. Lastly I remember reading somewhere that Europe and the US use different measurements for Sunshine data so comparisons may be inaccurate. I can't source this so I could easily be wrong.

What happened in the south: Its called the Civil War. Basically, the North industrialized while the South focused on Cotton which they made a lot of money off of. Certain states never really recovered from losing the war and no longer having their cotton empire.

"Belgium is Ohio" That's how you start wars.

To answer the question about what happened to the south's development (sorry if someone else already answered i didn't scroll down very far) what happened to the south's development was the civil war. They never really recovered from the 1860s

As a person who immigrated from the Netherlands to Brasil, I can say that weather makes a big difference, we have two weeks of winter when temperatures go below 10⁰C and the rest of the year between 25 to 38⁰C. Don't miss the missery cold rainy weather of the Netherlands.

As a Texan, I love your “American” accent 😂

Mississippi is consistently the bottom of every ranking of the US states and it’s hilarious

As someone in Canada near Niagara Falls, I remember one year where it hit 36C in the summer and then -30C in the Winter. We have quite a range in temperature. I've also experienced 42C in Arizona but it was more comfortable since it wasn't at 80% humidity.

Okay, your bit about Arkansas and it's border and "what kind of a map is that!?!" was stand-up comedian level humour. LMK when you're on your map standup tour and in Vancouver!

To be honest, we Lithuanians sometimes also are getting confused with our geography. Are we Latvians or Lithuanians? Is Riga our capital? Ah, it's Tallinn!

The thing to keep in mind is that the US has rather high income disparity compared to Europe. Yes, on average there's more money, but much less distributed.

On the railroad one... notice the country that mainly relied on railroads, AKA Germany, to fight 3 wars and win 1 has a super high railroad density? Because railroads, back then and even still today, are the fastest way to move a TON of military equipment and personnel around to where they're needed.

I will say the median income map for the US really shows the tax differences per state. The states with the lower taxes have lower median incomes, because they are adjusted for each other. And vice versa.

As an Alabama native living just east of Mississippi, it doesn't terribly surprise me that they have the lowest HDI in the US. They have the worst of times when it comes to demographics and geography. Most of Mississippi is flat, swampy, or has a soil composed of sand/clay (road-building nightmares). However, they do have some excellent universities (Ole Miss/Mississippi State) which pump out engineering students who can't find jobs in Mississippi. They move to Alabama (specifically Huntsville) where they find jobs at NASA working on Space Launch System and/or department of defense. Basically, Mississippi suffers from a pretty massive brain drain akin to what some former Warsaw Pact countries experience. Excellent people, but not exactly a destination for people with an engineering degree. Huntsville, Alabama is odd because it is an outlier within the state that really skews the HDI of Alabama higher than it should be (again, NASA, department of defense etc.).

The south has historically been the poorest and least developed region since the civil war. Much of the south was completely destroyed during the war, cities were raised to the ground, the primary economic driver, slavery, was banned, plantations were burned, and such a large percentage of the southeast died that some 23% of southern males between the ages of 20-24 died from the war. And roughly 2% of the US’s entire population died, if it happened today that would be over 6 million dead. Contrast the south’s destruction with the north during the war, whose economy became more industrial and more developed as a result. While the economic and developmental gap between the north and the south was huge before the war, it was massive after the war. Even after reconstruction the south stayed fairly agricultural and rural, and Jim Crow laws seriously prevented a large chunk of the population from actively contributing. It really stayed this way for a long time, I had grandparents from the south who grew up in the 1950s with no running water, plumbing, no shoes, two room house, severe poverty. Contrast that with the north in the 1950s where the standard of living was the best ever seen in world history at the time. It wasn’t until the last few decade as the north began to deindustrialize, vaccines allowed for tropical diseases to be eradicated, and the invention of air conditioning allowed for people to escape the heat that northerners began to flock to southern states like Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. And northern investment in the southern economy sky rocketed. I’ve heard stories from people who grew up in the 60s and 70s in my hometown, who said it was nothing but a couple stores and the maim road was a two lane dirt road. And it had a population of a few hundred. Contrast with today the town is growing rapidly, population is close to 15 thousand, and that main road is now a 4 lane paved road. It’s the same story with much of the south. Florida has added 15 million people since the 60s, Texas has added 20 million, Georgia has added 6 million. Compare that to a northern state like Wisconsin who has only grown by 2 million. The reason you see states like Florida, Texas, Virginia, and Georgia doing well compared to Mississippi is they were the states that took advantage of attracting industry and business to grow their economies and invested the profit in development. States like Kentucky or Arkansas did not take advantage of positive economic factors like other states did, and didn’t have as much money to invest in development so are still lagging behind. Which can be seen in Arkansas only growing by 1 million since the 60s. What’s happening now is you’re seeing the states that played their cards right have caught up in their economies and development while are also growing rapidly. And the states that didn’t play their cards right are still struggling and likely will continue to lag behind for decades

The US has a larger rail network than the EU does. But instead of being developed with passenger trains specifically in mind, it's developed for freight trains. Rail lines cover the entire US except for Hawaii. That means the US rail network covers an area more than twice as large as the EU. 🙂 The EU rail network however is just much more closely compacted together with towns and cities being much closer together.

I love all discussions that involve the world as a whole. Sharing information and culture brings us closer a race. Especially when we have different governing powers controlling the general populous.

11:30 I imagine it is Russia that is sandbagging you guys. Don't they have like one railroad stretching across Siberia? Yeah, they're definitely pulling you down. If you take them out of the graph your railroad density would be way higher it looks like.

Just so you remember next time, the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth was a thing, so Lithuania is the one bordering Poland, not Latvia

I feel like there's probably a few factors as to why the USA has such a low driving age in places (speaking as a brit). Firstly, it's overwhelmingly automatic cars over there, which are easier to drive (and therefore learn to drive). Also, the fact that there's such wide-open spaces in the majority of the states probably factors in too - you're less likely to hit something/someone in Idaho than you are in central London (or even somewhere more 'remote' in the UK like the lake district). Gas is generally cheaper too, which means younger people are more likely to be able to afford it. Also, yeah, the whole "freedom, 'murica" thing too.

Economics is the one class every senior has to take. It tells you how to save money, use a credit card to build credit, and anything general about money. Also in my state (every state requires a different criteria) requires Global, Social, and U.S Studies to graduate but I got to skip those during specific circumstances during the year 2020 in which I had all my state tests that year. Still got my Regents exam which gives me a diploma that's only required in the state of New York. Global studies requires you to memorize the map of Europe for the Regents exam I skipped.

2.1 is the replacement fertility rate. Europe and the US are both well below that

9:53, That's Arkansas, Pronounced as Ar-kan-Saw, i live in the state just north of it

Can you put your sources (maps) in the description?

Where do you get these charts? I am very curious about the adjusted incomes and source of the data.