Let me know what you think of each of these regions. If there's anything you think should be changed, do let me know. As well as if you have additional insight on the cultures of these regions. If you enjoy our content, please consider supporting us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/monsieurz/membership

It is honestly craxy to put southern california in the same group as the rural west.

As a St. Louis native, I should bring up how insanely difficult it is to classify St. Louis into a single region, as it is basically the mixing point between the Southern, Midwest/Plains and Great Lakes cultures and St. Louis culture and identity takes some inspiration from all three. You get the typical "nice person" midwestern feel, while everybody seems to be more southern in terms of cooking and to a lesser extent accent (a lot of people say "y'all" for example), while also being a very blue-collar town like many Great Lakes cities. Edit: thx for all the support, i think this is my most well-received comment yet. again thank you and have a wonderful day 😊

Btw, your map has Appalachia spreading too far west, especially in Tennessee. Once you get past the Cumberland Plateau, the geography becomes largely flat and the culture is overwhelmingly similar to the South (e.g. cities like Memphis and surrounding region). Even on the Cumberland plateau (cities like Nashville), the culture is largely distant from true Appalachian culture.

As a resident of the area I think you got the whole Plains, Scandamerica, and West region wrong in various ways. If you want to judge agriculture in these areas look to a map showing short, mix and tall grass prairies. The short is cattle and wheat, mix is wheat and corn while tall is corn and soy. These characteristics run north and south. Then culturally look to a map that shows what city people defines there region. The smallest is Valentine Nebraska. You can use small rivers to split up those regions instead of using the Missouri, which is to culturally significant to use as a border.

China next Monsieur

The Black Belt and the Mexican-American Southwest should be their own cultural regions I think. They’re so culturally distinct from the Southeast and Southwest surrounding them. They’re like mirror images of each on the map.

calling anywhere in New England mid atlantic outside of fairfield county ct is a big yikes.

Their is no way you just tried to argue that Boston and Providence are Mid-Atlantic and not New England that literally doesn’t even make aense

Why tf did you put Southern California with the Rockies 😂

I keep telling you that the Cajun region (or Arcadia as you call it.) extends across southern Louisiana all the way to Houston , Texas. Go in any restaurant and you are more likely to find Cajun Fare than traditional Texas fare. The people I grew up with all had French ancestry, i.e. names like Thibideaux, Ritter, Ladoux, Bourgeois, Bordraux, etc. It is very different from Texas culture, and very much Cajun.

i think more of Massachusetts and perhaps Rhode island would be culturally closer to New England than the Mid Atlantic

A surprising number of Americans in northern Wyoming are descended from Polish coal miners that arrived in the 1900’s. I’m one of them

I live in New York, have family in Massachusetts, and went to college in Massachusetts. I have never once, in my entire life, ever heard anyone refer to Boston as being in the “Mid-Atlantic” region. Bostonians share much more culturally with the rest of New England than they do with New Yorkers or Washingtonians, despite their similar urbanization. That’s like a really bad, almost comical miss for me. Not to mention lumping Coastal Southern California with the Rural West, and incorporating the 2nd largest city in the US (Los Angeles) with like 15 million people in its metro area into the “Rural West” despite Los Angeles and Southern California sharing very few cultural or geographic similarities with the rest of the group you call the “Rural West.” What is going on here?

Boston and Cape Cod are not part of the "Mid-Atlantic."

Brazil next. You will be surprised how much it mirrors the US

Isn’t Boston like the hub for New England?

This has actually really helped me visualize the migration of my family's past generations in North America; from arrival in New England, to the Ohio River Valley, to our current home in the Mid-West. And it has certainly helped to explain the mannerisms of our old, distant cousins.

Your cultural regions in the NW are not correct, there is one culture around Seattle Puget Sound area that does not go beyond that area and a similar one around Portland basically islands culturally, they share a culture with other far left urban areas but both are surrounded by the traditional rural Western culture, 45 minutes from Portland is rodeo country, ranchers, farmers and loggers and the two sides hate each other.

Boston is New England not mid Atlantic

Being from the Ozarks in Missouri it is much closer to the Appalachians than the south here and some areas are even more midwestern closer to Saint Louis

SoCal should not be lumped in with the Mountain West. It is unique and as standalone as the Northeast Corridor.

I'd argue that the Midwest region extends further east in upstate New York than you have it shown. The Erie Canal cities of Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo share more with the Midwest than they do with New England. That said, Albany and New York's Capital Region are properly shown in New England, although the Mid-Atlantic extends pretty far north up the Hudson Valley to just south of Albany.

Dude i absolutely love the fact that you highlighted susquehanna as it's own thing. Idek how you would know unless you were from that area but thank you its very cool to see it represented

Outstanding work! Thanks for posting!

I love your fresh new take on the makeup of our great nation! This has definitely changed my outlook on local American cultures.

Eastern WA, North Idaho, and Western Montana I dob't think are really similar at all to places like Las Vegas or SoCal, a little but if an odd inclusion there

Arguably equally important as the differences you did mention is the extent of German settlement in Texas that is largely absent in the rest of the South.

When I saw the map at the end, I exclaimed, 'Oh, it's beautiful'. I would totally buy that at put it on my wall. I'm in school in Greenville, S.C. and it's interesting how I see 'The South', and a little bit of Appalachia. Being originally from the Mid-Atlantic, the contrast is absolutely shocking.

Southern California a subregion of the West? I don’t know about that…

I'm curious as to why your map puts southern New England (MA, CT, RI) in with the Mid Atlantic rather than the rest of New England?

Would note too another reason St. Louis is its own subregion is that it has a different racial history from the rest of Midwest due to slavery and Jim Crow existing there. the DC subregion of the Northeast has similar situation.

I would argue that the north woods of northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and the UP of Michigan are their own sub region.

It seems like Rochester right in between the Midwest and New England? I figured it’d be placed in Midwest

This is some of the best, most dense, and altogether entertaining content I have had the privilege to stumble across in a while. Insta-subscribed. Keep it up.

As a Southern NJ native, Mid-Atlantic Northeast ends at the Mid-Hudson valley area of NY state. Massachusetts especially Boston is New England.

Appalachian culture is mostly in the borders depicted here great job, though the geographic region goes from Maine to Georgia they taught us in school and then further updated that when I was in college that it also extends up into parts of Canada and across to almost Texas amazingly enough. Also while I was in college or few years later they started finding evidence that the same land that comprises the Appalachian chain actually matches up identically with land in Scotland and Ireland, at one point they were apparently connected before the land masses moved apart. Which makes it more amazing that the Scots-Irish wound up settling the Appalachians along with German settlers/refuges who came here after passing through England and or Ireland on the way here.

Why is Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut included in Mid-Atlantic? These states are always considered New England.

I listened to this yesterday, and I actually understood it more as I followed along with you today. It’s very fast and very dense informationally, so probably takes multiple exposures to start comprehending it, even though he’s generalizing and simplifying some of the regions by necessity. Thanks for doing the video! I live in the Mojave Desert area in Southern California.

Interesting. How do you make your maps? Being a map nerd I'd be interested in more numbers, like populations and economies for the regions, but that would probably be a lot of work and turn people off haha. Id have included the French character and independent political bent of northwest New England as a sub region but that's probably because I live here. Might not be a blip in your calculations. You can find whole videos and papers on the unique dialect spoken here, for example, if you're interested.

Missouri and Kansas would like to have a terse conversation with you about where the Midwest is!

The Anglo-Canadian influence in New England is mentioned. One could include the French Canadian as well. Many were employed in the mills.

I feel like you completely skipped over the massive dairy farming and cattle farming in Wisconsin, as well as the fact that most of Wisconsin (particularly the northern half) is incredibly rural with millions of acres of farmland, massive state forests and innumerable state/national parks.

Timestamps: <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="0">0:00</a> - Intro <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="110">1:50</a> - The South <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="240">4:00</a> - Appalachia <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="320">5:20</a> - Greater Texas Region <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="355">5:55</a> - Interior West <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="495">8:15</a> - Pacific Northwest <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="545">9:05</a> - The Plains <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="598">9:58</a> - The Midwest <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="680">11:20</a> - New England <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="728">12:08</a> - The Mid-Atlantic <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="766">12:46</a> - The overall map, labled <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="785">13:05</a> - Standard state borders map, colorized to reflect these cultural regions (by majority)

The only difference I would say as a Pennsylvanian is that Pittsburgh is more of a subset of MidWest culture, and there is a distinction between Upper Appalachia and Lower Appalachia which cuts off about mid-way into WV.

Interesting that you pointed out the “Susquehanna region” as a small distinct region associated with Appalachian region. It’s worth noting that particular and incredibly small part of South Central PA is the farthest northern point of the Blue Ridge Mountain range and the only part of the state within it. It’s also the only part of PA that flows into the Chesepeake Bay instead of the Atlantic or Mississippi water basin. I’ve always felt that the small area of South Central PA is fairly distinct geographical as it doesn’t quite fit into any other region that well. The area is roughly a triangle from Harrisburg, PA to Hagerstown, MD, to Dillsburg,PA.

Great video :) Since, in the collective consciousness, 'PNW' tends to include all of eastern Washington and even the northern part of Idaho, I recommend you swap out the now-popular name 'Cascadia' for the blue PNW blob you have there. You're spot on in illustrating the eastern sides of both Washington and Oregon as sociopolitically, culturally, and otherwise more in camp with Idaho and your 'The West' region than they are with their respective states' coastal regions. Both Seattleites and Portlanders, as well as their neighbors in Vancouver, B.C., seem happy with the 'Cascadia' designation.

What's the Hungary of America?

The area encompassing El Paso to the 4 corners is not adequately portrayed. We are in no way like Texas or Arizona. The majority religion is catholic, but they are kind of relaxed. Native American, Latino/Chicano/Hispanic depending on where you are and who you ask. Mixture of white people from across the spectrum. Not really conservative, not super liberal. Lots of military and retired military. Most definitely nothing like Texans

The Southwest is its own thing not part of greater Texas lmao

This was fun to follow along. And its neat to see the discussions in the commetns as people suggest differences. Though i would recommend as you talk about each region and subsequent subregion you highlight them or have a label pop up signifying which region you are talking about. Some of it was a little hard to follow especially if you arent familiar with the areas in general. As a residient of southern kansas i would say it definitely feels more great plans than greater texas in my opinion.

Very in depth detailed, interesting video. I think you're spot on with everything.

I find it ironic that you included Missouri in the "Southern-ish" states, when in recent polling it considers itself one of the most Midwestern states in the country. Missouri as a whole is heavily baptist, so if feels weird associating it with the Plains. Furthermore most of the settlement outside of major cities is Upper-Southern; Germans primarily settled the Lower Missouri River and in the old large cities, primarily St Louis. Southern Illinois may be closer to Northern Missouri in some ways due to this. Overall, while i disagree with associating western KS/NE in the same group as Eastern KS/NE and northern MO, I think overall you captured the essence of the region well.

Love your "nations of" videos, maybe you can do Latin america or somewhere in asia next?

It would be cool if you could take the coloring of the final firs map and overlay the states on it so we could see how regions cross different states.

I think you have tended to overstate the influence of Methodists in the OH/KY/etc. region. If you go to the larger cities in the area (Cincinnati, Louisville, etc) you’ll see a much heavier Catholic influence, then a much heavier Baptist influence in the rural parts of the region.

I have been to the "California" area of the map, and despite it seeming largely hispanic and progressive, if you drive 45min - 1 hour from the city of San Diego inland, you will be in small ranching and farming communities. The small ranching and farming communities tend to be very conservative, have an ethnographic-mix of Anglos, and Germanic-Americans (Dutch and German), and broadly christian majority. I happen to come from one of the Germanic communities, and we are constantly represented on political maps as entirely progressive (blue), when all the inlanders are very conservative. I just wanted to point this out, that the only liberal areas in the "California" sector are San Diego, and its costal areas, not the rest. It's sad as our vote never counts as the rest of the state is blue, and we have more in common (culturally) with the "The Plains", "Scandamerika", and "The Mid-West".

Minnesota has the most Scandinavian/Nordic descendants at a third of it's population, but those are like all across Northern Minnesota with a huge concentration on the North Shore. So maybe the state shoulve had more on the top go to the Midwest. But also, even though Minnesota is flat, we have tons of trees compared to a lot North Dakota. So while Minnesota is known for having great plains, basically the whole state is considered part of the Midwest except maybe like Moorhead and a but of the Southwest corner

st. louis gets it’s own region let’s go baby

Dude I don’t know what you’re on with the west. We got Utah, Colorado, and socal, all with huge cities. It’s also beautiful and far from inhospitable, comparing it to Siberia is almost insulting.

Great Lakes Region is a real thing. The term Midwest does not fit for areas East of the Mississippi, especially Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit. Your dark green areas fit for the Great Lakes Region which reaches all the way to Minnesota. Nevertheless, this is a great video.

hey Z! My own mental map of the regions split Appalachia into northern and southern related regions along roughly the VA/WV border due to differences in climate and the presence of the Pittsburgh metro as a cultural force in the northern half and the lack of such a force in the southern half. do you think this split is feasible?

Central PA native, had a very strong feeling we would be lumped into the rest of Appalachia before watching. But he basically was able to distinguish us with a 5 second aside. A lot of detailed research and analysis had to go into this video. Well done!

That's cool. Fun to see stuff like that.

Your distinction between nation and culture is actually very fair and important. Great work!

East Tennesseean, Appalachian here. Can't stand when people mistakenly pronounce it "app-uh-lay-shun." It is "app-uh-lah-chun."

Being a 4th generation Tulsan, I appreciate your attempt to differentiate us from Texas. OKC is definitely more like Texas. Tulsa has some strong influences from the Midwest. I always say we are more like Kansas City than Dallas and OKC is more like Dallas than Kansas City.

The add more context to the western tail on Greater Texas, Texas is building FOBs in the region actively. The plan is to use Airbases in the FOBs as transport nodes and increase combat power in the region.

The highlighting of the specific region being discussed could be clearer be de-emphasizing areas as you move on.

Yeah ok the New England Patriots literally play in southeastern Massachusetts. To put Boston in with NYC, DC, Phili, and Baltimore is just wrong. Your map shows greater megalopolis (highly populated area of the east coast), but this is a video about the cultural regions of the US, and culturally there are many differences between all of these cities and their metros. But especially Boston, way more in common with Maine (part of MA for over 200 years), NH, and VT than NY even. There are six New England states, no more no less. Thought the rest was good, but I’m not from those areas so maybe ppl have similar issues with this.

Excellent video. I've lived in the NYC area (42 yrs), Tampa FL (21 yrs) and now central OR (7 yrs). There are definitely distinct differences between the regions in religion, climate, industry, agriculture, cuisine and entertainment. I'm grateful that I've been exposed to various areas of the country, and even a few far away places on business trips (Tokyo, Sydney, England, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico). Fascinating stuf and I wish everyone had the opportunities I've been given to experience at least a little of a whole lot of places. But I've never found a decent pizza outside of NYC.

Born in Omaha, have lived and visited many areas throughout the plains so I’ll give you my two cents. Illinois is a continuation of the plains. They have more large towns and factory towns, whilst the rest of the plains are small town dominant with 3 major metros. Dubuque, and Davenport are more similar to the Illinois area development wise. Impossible to map but important to note, there is an Appalachian enclave in council bluffs and the surrounding hills. It runs north and especially south down I29. I have no idea how deep into Missouri it goes, but those folks pretty commonly move back and forth from the hills of Tennessee. I’ve only met a few folks from western Nebraska, but they indicated I had an accent that no one else ever pointed out to me. That makes me feel as if they belong in the west. And of course, the Yankton and Lakota subregion of the plains, with their little enclaves in scandamerica. I don’t blame you for not including it because many of them are white natives anyways. Most of our natives live in Lincoln. If I had to choose a capital for the plains, I would pick Omaha. KC is too urbanized and influenced by Texas, but another logical choice. Omaha is centrally located, a finance center, and nestled between hills on 3 sides. Not to mention many of its large industries have to do with the economy of the entire region.

Great video! It really helped me to understand the US and its geography as someone living thousands of kilometres from the US.

Boston mid-Atlantic?

I will say (as you somewhat mentioned), but the majority of Texans do not live in the dryer areas, with the majority (20 million) living in between the southern wetlands and the semi arid plains. Oak and pine forests with cattle fields in between are what most Texans call home, with the notable exception of San Antonio. Dallas sits right on the line of that biome, with oaks and pines on its east side, and mesquites (the tree that the city is named after) on its west.

Great video thank you 👍🏻

Very informative video that shines light on the diversity of American culture.

East TX is 100% the south.

Now whats amazing here is you do seperate the cultural regions by function of Census Bureas regional layer code. All the cities and all the rural have this culture. You find dollar tree everywhere.

Yep nailed that on the head, my mom taught me that up through the 60s and 70s even Pennsylvania was heavily Lutheran and Presbyterian. In modern times that has shifted to Methodist/United Methodist/African Methodist Episcopalian then in the late 90s and early 2000s seemed to shift towards spiritual non religious and practicing individual beliefs and contrastingly Catholicism was making a minor comeback and people were occasionally exploring what orthodox religion was about as it was kind of not ever explained or talked about growing up and we didn’t really know about it even being a thing. Sadly globally to reach more people the Methodist aligned with the Baptist even though much of the time the Southern Baptists and Methodists loathed each other and often fought for control of the overall conferences/organizations. Over 200 Methodist churches in the south just split off last year choosing to either align Baptist or go independent or some created a new denomination called the global Methodist church that isn’t really aligned anymore with the Methodist church at all. The biggest church in my hometown was the Presbyterian church if I recall correctly and sometimes non-denominational services were held there to try to bring the different churches together and share holidays and create a sense of a larger family and community and stop the infighting and bickering at least temporarily. They had to do that too I’m told because apparently back in the day all the various denominations large or small actually violently fought and sabotaged each other I’m told it was so bad at times in history that it made the infamous Hatfield-McCoy family rivalry look like a nice cozy happy go lucky picnic or something. So instead of fighting amongst the religious groups they took around World War Two and start of the Cold War era to fighting against Italian and polish and other immigrant groups that settled mostly all in one area of town coming to seek work in the brickyards and other industries around the area that used to be there back in the day. I’ve been told and taught and read that the fbi and other authorities had to crack down on that hard to get people to see sense. The violence still didn’t entirely go away, it shifted out of town out into the country side where camps and rural homes would mysteriously get torched every now and again, sometimes due to race/nationality, but usually due to business dealings or someone ticking off the wrong people or something. By the time I was born in 1984 and grew up in the 90s it seemed mostly safe and peaceful but there were still places you just didn’t go and you never went on peoples property even to visit even if you knew them or were family to them usually without calling/writing ahead and often times they met or sent someone to meet you at the property edge and guided you to where you were expected to go. You never trespassed ever most kids/hooligans knew better you never knew if people had shotgun or rifles or trip wires or barbed or razor wire or bear traps or mines of some sort possibly. Nowadays you see videos online of people exploring abandoned places, but back then you just didn’t do that unless it was exploring an old rail line or public right of way where they couldn’t technically/legally trap it and you theoretically had right to be there/explore it, but if security or police or rail road employee told you to get gone you got gone and didn’t ask any questions or make any protests about it. I was always the type to keep to myself and stay safe and indoors but have heard lots of stories over the years.

Excellent work

Utah and south east idaho are their own culture.

There is a great book called "American Nations" that discusses this very concept.

Great video

As someone from upstate NY, we are definitely not New England. Especially Syracuse and Rochester

Daniel here. Love your content 😊😊😊❤❤❤

Having lived in Connecticut, New York, and California, having traveled through most of the country, and having made connections with many people from all across the US, I’d say the cultural explanations make a lot of sense. The culture shock you can feel in your own country is a little unbelievable.

I would like to see your Regional map superimposed on a map with the State boundaries.

Greater Texas actually looks like what an Independent Lone Star would look like if it didn’t join the USA in the 1840’s. I love it.

Awesome vid Mr Z

It would be cool to see both maps at the same time. I mean regions and states in one single map, because it would be way easier to comprehend, to understand the whole situation haha

@MonsieurDean I asked in one of your other videos, but I'm curious here as well: How did you decide on the symbols for each region? In the other video I asked about party/ideology.

Your characterization of the Inner Mountain West is at best partially correct. Only from the southern half of Utah and southwards does the region have an actual desert climate. Which is why the Intermountain West is typically divided between the Southwest (where the northern part of the Sonoran Desert is located) and the Inner West. Likewise, you have to go west from the border with Nevada to find more desert climate. The climate of central and northern Utah and northward is a combination of Mountains and high Chaparral Prairie/Steppe, not desert. The Chaparral/Prairie biome is sustained by snowfall on the mountains during winter which feeds down into the prairie/steppe valleys over the rest of the year. The further north and higher altitude you go, the more extremely cold and snowy the winters get. By the point you get to the northern half of Wyoming, you're actually in alpine forest territory, which extends northward into Montana and Canada. Ethnic composition is typically very lopsided in particular subregions. The Southwest has a large ethnic mixture, the largest single ethnic block being Hispanics, with English and German Americans being notable minorities. Eastern and central Colorado is the only area in the Inner Mountain West that has a highly mixed ethnic population without a single majority/dominate ethnic background. American Indians are largely limited to the reservation areas, such as northeast Arizona and southeast Utah. The center region from Southwest Wyoming all the way to northern Arizona and across from most of northern Nevada to the western quarter of Colorado is largely dominated by what is called the Mormon Belt, areas settled in the 1840s by the Latter-Day Saints/Mormons expelled from Illinois and Missouri in the decade prior. The Mormon Belt is noted for being among the *MOST* religious of American regions and the least diverse due to a low population count but explosive population growth from a limited ancestral pool, and limited modern immigration. In fact, because Mormons overwhelmingly share a common ancestry from New England (descended from East Anglica Puritans) and the English Midlands (the first and most successful foreign territory to which Mormon missionaries went, and from which large numbers of converts emigrated to migrate to the Deseret region), they are often considered by anthropologists to be their own ethnoreligious group comparable to Jews, Irish Catholics, Sikhs, and other peoples defined by having a shared monoethnic and mono-religious/cultural background and lifestyle. Should be noted that Mormons are the single ethnic/religious group in the United States with the highest rates of support for the Republican Party at over 85% affiliation, even outstripping Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, and religiously conservative Catholics.

you should make a website for maps of countries like this that way more people can be informed about the culture and politics of said countries

Very cool breakdown! I think it loses its way a little bit with the interior NW, but other than that I gained a lot of insihht into these groupings! Based on my experience om the West coast, I agree with the structuring of the PNW all the way to Norcal - it feels culturally the similar in most of the region.

great video

Loved the video!! Constructive criticism: it would be even better if you highlighted or placed the name of each region as you start explaining it. That way, it would be easier to follow up on your argumentation.

Bro…did you just say that Boston is a “mid Atlantic City?” Jesus Christ…

For the scar nicholas series can we get all the characters together to team up and maybe some others like wilhelm ii or rommel

I think Native cultural regions deserve their own video.