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Liberal Arts Blog — Mathematical Geography (Part Three): “Chunking” The United States of America 11+11+6+9+5+6+3

4 min readMay 19, 2025

Liberal Arts Blog — Monday is the Joy of Math, Statistics, Shapes, and Numbers Day

Today’s Topic: Mathematical Geography (Part Three): “Chunking” the United States of America 11+11+6+9+5+6+3

We began this series with Canada (5/5) with just 13 national subdivisions (provinces) and then proceeded to Mexico with 31 national subdivisions (states). Today the USA with a whopping 51. To me this requires seven macro “chunks” or groupings of states. Plus some micro “chunks” or sub-groupings. For example, the far western chunk of 11 states is broken down into a northwestern group of 5 (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming), and a southwestern group of 6 (California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Were you ever taught to “chunk” the USA in order to remember the states and which ones border which? How much precision should be required of a 4th grader? 8th grader? 12th grader? a college graduate?

Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

THE FAR WEST (11) — How to group them? the Big Three Sub-Groups

1. The Group of Five: Idaho sandwiched between Washington and Oregon to the west, and Montana and Wyoming to the east.

2. The Four Corner States: Utah and Colorado to the north and Arizona and New Mexico to the south.

3. The Pair of California and Nevada: sort of like a Madonna and Child, or a very pregnant California.

THE PRAIRIE-CATTLE-PETROLEUM OR MISSISSIPPI MIDDLE (11) = COLUMN 6 AND COLUMN 5

1. Coiumn 6: 2 (Dakotas) + 2 (Kansas and Nebraska) + 2 (Oklahoma and Texas)

2. Column 5: 3 (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri) + 2 (Arkansas and Louisiana)

THE OLD MIDWEST/RUST BELT/OHIO RIVER MIDDLE (6) = 2 (north)+4 (south)

1. North: Wisconsin and Michigan (the weirdest shape award winner, comprised of two peninsulas, one oriented north-south, the other east-west)

2. South: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia (split off from Virginia in 1863 in the middle of the Civil War

THE SOUTH (9): northern 4 (Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina), Deep South (5) (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida)

1. Or how about the coastal (7) and the inland (2) Kentucky and Tennessee?

2. Or the northern (4), the Deep South (4), and the outlier (1), that. is Florida, the peninsula with the panhandle and the oldest city in the USA (St. Augustine) as well as the “capital of Latin America” (Miami).

THE NORTHEAST — 5 (Midatlantic) + 6 (New England)

1. Midatlantic (5) : Maryland and Delaware (2) plus Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York (3).

2. New England (6): Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts (3) plus New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine (3)

THE ANOMALIES — 3

1. Alaska — acquired from Russia in 1867 and known as “Seward’s Folly”

2. Hawaii — annexed after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by sugar planters and US Marines in 1893.

3. DC — where license plates still read “Taxation without Representation” because residents pay federal taxes but do not have voting representation in Congress.

FOOTNOTE — What about the Five Territories? the Native American reservations?

1. Five Territories: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Marianas, American Samoa. The total population — 3. 6 million, 90% in Puerto Rico.

2. Native American Reservations: there are 324 reservations owned by 574 federally recognized tribes. In total the are is 52 million acres (2.3% of the US. 12 reservations are larger than the state of Rhode Island. One (the Navajo) is roughly as large as West Virginia. 25% of Arizona is Native American reservation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States

QUOTE OF THE MONTH — Have you made your own Bible yet?

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?

ATTACHMENTS BELOW:

#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).

#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)

#3 Israel-Palestine Handout

NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)

Last four years of posts organized thematically:

Updated PDFs — Google Drive

YOUR TURN

Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to math, statistics, or numbers in general.

Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to math.

This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.

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John Muresianu
John Muresianu

Written by John Muresianu

Passionate about education, thinking citizenship, art, and passing bits on of wisdom of a long lifetime.

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