The Nine Nations of North America

This is derived from Joel Garreau's 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America.

Garreau argued that these nine regions demonstrate such distinctive cultural and/or economic features that they are a more relevant way of dissecting North America than the traditional (Canadian) provinces and (US and Mexican) states. Those Nine Nations were:

• New England (or New Britain, or Atlantica): comprising not just the six traditional New England states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut), but also the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland (including Labrador). Its capital would be Boston.

• The Foundry: the (formerly) industrial heartland of North America, covering the US and Canadian sides of the Great Lakes region and including much of the US northeast. Capital: Detroit.

• Dixie: The cultural area more or less corresponding with the secessionist Confederate States of America (1861-1865), but for example excluding western Texas, the southern tip of Florida and including southern Missouri, Illinois and Indiana and southeastern Oklahoma (known as ‘Little Dixie’). Capital: Atlanta.

• The Breadbasket: includes most of the Great Plains states (in the US) and part of the Prairie provinces (in Canada). To wit: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, parts of Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana and Texas; and on the Canadian side parts of Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Capital: Kansas City.

• The Islands: basically a federation of the Carribean – the islands and their people. I.e. also the Greater Miami area, heavily Cuban by now, and the Florida Keys. Could stretch all the way across the Caribbean Islands to include parts of Venezuela. Its capital would be Miami.

• Mexamerica: those areas in which ‘tex-mex’ culture is prominent, i.e. most of northern Mexico, and a large area in the south of the US - most of New Mexico and parts of California, Arizona and Texas. Its capital could either be Mexico City or Los Angeles. Some later maps include all of Mexico in this Nation.

• Ecotopia: A big chunk of coastal Northwest America, from Alaska via British Columbia through Washington State and Oregon to California. Capital: San Francisco.

• Québec: the only part of North America that is institutionally non-Anglophone. Capital of this French-speaking enclave would be Québec City.

• The Empty Quarter: All the other, sparsely populated areas of North America, from Northern Canada down to Utah. The name refers to the desert of the same name, occupying the lower third of the Arabian peninsula (Rub’ al-Khali in Arabic). Capital: Denver.