Revised U.S. Map Erases Pennsylvania, Makes Philadelphia Its Own State

NYC artist and urban planner Neil Freeman has divided the United States into 50, equally-sized states, each bearing a population of around 6,175,000. Under this formula, Philadelphia and part of South Jersey get their own state, called (ha!) “Philadelphia.” Meanwhile, the rest of Pennsylvania would be dissolved into three separate states called Pocono, Susquehanna, and Allegheny. All of those states, in turn, would drift into other current states as well.

The map is in many ways more intuitive than the one we uses now. Likely building off work by authors like Colin Woodard, and others who have re-imagined the United States, the mapmaker creates boundaries more attuned to cultural, ethnic, and geological factors than the legal ones we have today. Map here.