American Ethnic Geography

September 20, 2005 9:54 AM

A Cultural Geography of the United States and Canada. Many, many great maps from Valparaiso University. The section on religion, in particular, contains a great deal of interesting data.
posted by Gamblor (25 comments total)

Wow. When did the Quakers take over southeastern Colorado?
posted by Creosote at 9:59 AM on September 20, 2005

This is an awesome post. thanks.
posted by tkchrist at 10:00 AM on September 20, 2005

Fantastic resource, thanks for this post.

According to these maps, my only hope of escaping the cursed Irish is to move to Hawaii.
posted by saladin at 10:06 AM on September 20, 2005

I don't get this one http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/politics/elazar.gif

Maybe there's someone out there who took the course and can explain what it was designed to mean. Confusion aside, this is a cool site, thanks.
posted by allen.spaulding at 10:07 AM on September 20, 2005

well, this was totally unexpected. (pdf)
posted by crunchywelch at 10:09 AM on September 20, 2005

Great post. Some surprises and some not so surprising.
posted by sciurus at 10:11 AM on September 20, 2005

Wow, now I get why they call it the bible belt. Neat post, thanks.
posted by dpx.mfx at 10:19 AM on September 20, 2005

More like "A Cultural Geography of the United States and Canada."
posted by GhostintheMachine at 10:28 AM on September 20, 2005

very cool
posted by minkll at 10:29 AM on September 20, 2005

saladin, if my shockingly pale family can live in the Arizona desert, tropical islands certainly won't protect you. My people will be eating spam and boiled potatoes on Maui within the next decade, just you wait and see.

I was surprised by this one. Most of the high percentage areas make sense, but can anyone explain why there's a large Jewish population in central Idaho?
posted by Gamblor at 10:34 AM on September 20, 2005

How, exactly, does southern Ontario count as "Yankee"? Ah! the West coast is "Yankee" too. This is obviously some new definition of the word with which I am unfamiliar. Of course, labelling BC as "midland" is a bit bizarre.
posted by djfiander at 10:50 AM on September 20, 2005

Of course, labelling BC as "midland" is a bit bizarre.

Anywhere east of Vancouver and you're basically in alberta ;)
posted by Space Coyote at 10:54 AM on September 20, 2005

Gamblor, I googled "Idaho jews" and most of the hits were very, very bad. I am ignorant, but perhaps it has to do with the Basque population in Idaho?
posted by gazole at 10:55 AM on September 20, 2005

Idaho doesnt have many people so it doesnt take much to skew the numbers, each color is relevant on a county basis, not a country basis.

The red Baptist tide.
posted by stbalbach at 11:10 AM on September 20, 2005

Yikes, I forgot about all the white supremacist groups in Idaho.
posted by Gamblor at 11:12 AM on September 20, 2005

I was a bit disappointed with the Canada stuff, but otherwise, excellent resource.
posted by arcticwoman at 11:25 AM on September 20, 2005

It's interesting to compare the average family size map to the divorce percentage map.
It seems that: Bigger family=less likely to divorce
I wonder if that is because the couple is together for a longer time and has more children, or if it because of the hispanic population that has stronger family ties.
posted by idiotfactory at 11:47 AM on September 20, 2005

Didn't we just have an argument in another thread, in which some were saying the the USA has no culture?

well, okay, so it was me, and i said it because it was the natural extension of the argument that there is no black/white culture.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:58 AM on September 20, 2005

Yankees in Ontario probably refers to the United Empire Loyalists who fled the United States after the Revolution.
posted by cardboard at 1:34 PM on September 20, 2005

Yeah, the Canadian part of this is weak. On this one, for example, the Acadians of Cape Breton - all couple thousand of them - are given a little splash of surviving-folk-culture colour, while the far more numerous Cape Breton Highlanders, whose folk culture (fiddle music, step dancing, etc.) is more traditional Scottish than most of Scotland, are part of the great white nothing. And "Upper Canadian" as a surviving folk culture? In a swath of central Ontario known primarily as the place where Torontonians have their cottages? Weak.

Anywhere east of Vancouver and you're basically in alberta ;)

On behalf of the good, freaky, pot-growin', snowboardin', mudboggin' folks of the Kootenays, I'd like to call bullshit on that one.
posted by gompa at 1:52 PM on September 20, 2005

On behalf of the good, freaky, snowboardin, mudboggin' folks of Calgary, I'd like to call bullshit on that too.

Don't confuse the morons we send to Ottawa with who we are ourselves. We send them to Ottawa to get them the hell out of Calgary.
posted by watsondog at 2:00 PM on September 20, 2005

So, in a nutshell, your complaint is that they spent too much time on Red-Blue and not enough on Red-Green?
posted by Gamblor at 2:01 PM on September 20, 2005

It seems that: Bigger family=less likely to divorce

Bigger families also mean fewer suicides. There's probably a similar correlation in that within a larger family there are more relationship connections. This probably affects the decision to break those ties.

How, exactly, does southern Ontario count as "Yankee"? Ah! the West coast is "Yankee" too. This is obviously some new definition of the word with which I am unfamiliar.

A better word might have been "New England". In any case, compare that map with the Nine Nations of North America.

can anyone explain why there's a large Jewish population in central Idaho?

Well, the highlighted spot is Custer County, which has all of 4300 people. Three percent of 4300 is 170. A lot for a small town, but then Idaho was the first state to elect a Jewish governor.

When did the Quakers take over southeastern Colorado?

Same deal. Baca Co. has just 4500 people. Keep in mind that individual towns in the West were often settled by homogeneous groups from the same ethnic group or even the same town back East. Springfield was probably a Quaker settlement from its earliest days. And don't forget William Jackson Palmer.
posted by dhartung at 2:10 PM on September 20, 2005

This is neat, but what's up with the lack of mixed in their maps by ethnicity? The census measured it, and damn it, I want to know where my people are!
posted by dame at 2:27 PM on September 20, 2005

Preach on, sista girl! Mutt pride.
posted by Eideteker at 6:08 PM on September 20, 2005