Wednesday, March 1, 2023

State Comparisons

Sort of continuing from the last entry, this is a master, master compendium of the population of Medieval America, but divided by contemporary state borders. Of course, I'm only going to count the continental U.S., and I would also italicize any states with a significant nomadic population. I'll also list where it ranks today, and maybe a little about where it stood in the middle of the 19th century.

1) Ohio 4 million  (7)
2 California 3.2 million (1)
3) New York 3.1 million (3)
4) Georgia 3 million  (9)
5) Michigan 2.9 million (8)
6) Alabama 2.7 million (23)
7) Pennsylvania 2.6 million (6)
8) Texas 2.6 million (2)
9) Kentucky 2.5 million (26)
9) Indiana 2.5 million (15)
10) Mississippi 2.4 million (31)
11) North Carolina 2.3 million (11)
12) Virginia 2 million (12)
13) Missouri 2 million (18)
14) Tennessee 1.9 million (16)
15) Illinois 1.9 million (5)
16) Arkansas 1.6 million (32)
17) Wisconsin 1.5 million (20)
18) Louisiana 1.4 million (24)
19) South Carolina 1.3 million (25)
20) Maryland 1 million (19)
21) Washington 1 million (14)
22) Florida .9 million (4)
23) New Jersey .8 million (10)
24) Oregon .8 million (27)
25) Maine .7 million (40)
26) Massachusetts .6 million (13)
27) Idaho .6 million (39)
28) Iowa .6 million  (30)
29) New Mexico .5 million (36)
30) Oklahoma .5 million (28)
30) Montana .5 million (44)
31) Utah .4 million (34)
32) Arizona .4 million (17)
33) Nebraska  .4 million (38)
34) West Virginia 350,000 (37)
35) Connecticut 330,000 (29)
36) New Hampshire 320,000 (41)
37) Minnesota 300,000 (21)
38) Wyoming 300,000 (50)
39) Kansas 300,000 (33)
40) South Dakota 300,000 (46)
40) Nevada 300,000 (35)
41) Colorado 200,000 (22)
41) North Dakota (47)
42) Vermont 150,000 (49)
43) Delaware 120,000 (45)
44) Rhode Island 80,000 (43)



The areas to make out the best would be the area between the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, with four of those states making up the top ten (and three of them making up the super-kingdom of Ohio in White's world), and the Deep South, with Georgia and Alabama comfortably in the top ten, and Mississippi shooting up the ranks to hover just outside it. However, the deep, deep south doesn't fare as well. Florida has one of the biggest declines. New York and Pennsylvania, as quasi-great lakes states stay pretty much where they are. Even though California has one of the biggest drops in population overall, its sheer size and the fertility of its river valley means the area that fits into the Industrial era borders is still one of the biggest in the country. Interestingly, the core of Mormon Corridor remains more or less where it is, proportion-wise. 

While the region between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians probably fare the best, there's no real monopoly in terms of which region get hit the hardest. The Southwest, the Great Plains, New England, all have states with the steepest declines, all for reasons of their own. Even Great Lakes states like Minnesota and Illinois tumble quite a bit. Texas, like California is simply so big that it still remains in the top ten, but as a combination of desert, grassland, and Gulf, it's also subject to the vulnerabilities that have seen places like Florida and Colorado see heavy declines. 

Another interesting thing to look at is the 1850 census. This was a little bit before the Civil War before the Industrial Revolution, and where a sense of American culture was truly coalescing. New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Virginia (this was before West Virginia was split off) are pretty close to their Medieval American populations. The only states to be significantly more populated in size are Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. This is definitely understandable in the case of the first two--the two states are among the geographically smallest and were the first places in the entire country to industrialize--Medieval Providence would effectively have to be a Venice-sized City State to match it, but it's interesting that Vermont circa 1850 is twice my estimated medieval population (Which I may have lowballed, but according to White's population map, it would max out at 20 people per square mile). 

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