All this is one country, how many states could this United States of America have?

[riggerrob]

If you make the POD before railroads, slow transportation makes it easy to establish plenty of small, local governments.
For the big picture, read “The Nine Nations of North America” which divides the continent into distinct topographical and climate “nations.”
For example, the dry, eastern parts of Washington to state share few common interests with the wet, mountainous west coast. It would be easy to separate eastern Washington from the “ecotopia” along the Pacific Coast.
Similarly, Oregon could split into three or more distinct states: Cascadia, Williamette Valley and the dry eastern parts.

 

[Brady Kj]

Agreed. But if you go that route, could you not use the name "Cascadia"? It sounds silly and like it was just made up in the last few decades, which it was.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

The blue/gold one? It was a bit of a meme for a while.

Do you mind sharing with the class?

I think Canada's gigantic provinces (in comparison in size to most American states) might be cut down to say half or even quarter size. I mean, obviously the further north you go, the sparser the population will get, so the cuts are going to be pretty weird I'd imagine. Or, you might see OTL US states covering bigger areas. Ergo, TTL's Canada might have double or even triple the amount of states as OTL.

IDK Mexican/Central American geography well enough to comment.

 

[Thisisnotausername]

Do you mind sharing with the class?

Here's the Wikipedia article.

I think Canada's gigantic provinces (in comparison in size to most American states) might be cut down to say half or even quarter size. I mean, obviously the further north you go, the sparser the population will get, so the cuts are going to be pretty weird I'd imagine. Or, you might see OTL US states covering bigger areas. Ergo, TTL's Canada might have double or even triple the amount of states as OTL.

Why? The average Canadian province is already a lot less populous than the average US state (~3.7 million vs ~6.5 million)--doubling or tripling them in number gets ridiculous very fast. Sure, they're gigantic, but that's because they consist of relatively populous regions attached to vast tracts of frozen wasteland. Like, look at Saskatchewan:

The population of the grey area: 1,061,288.
The population of the red area: 37,064.

Unless you relegate all these sparsely populated northern regions to territories, you're going to have to accept some pretty damn big states up there--there's a reason Alaska is just one state despite being larger than the next three largest states combined.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

Here's the Wikipedia article.
Why? The average Canadian province is already a lot less populous than the average US state (~3.7 million vs ~6.5 million)--doubling or tripling them in number gets ridiculous very fast. Sure, they're gigantic, but that's because they consist of relatively populous regions attached to vast tracts of frozen wasteland. Like, look at Saskatchewan:

The population of the grey area: 1,061,288.
The population of the red area: 37,064.

Unless you relegate all these sparsely populated northern regions to territories, you're going to have to accept some pretty damn big states up there--there's a reason Alaska is just one state despite being larger than the next three largest states combined.

Thanks for the link, and about the population size/doubling them being ridiculous, fair enough.

 

[AltHispano]

By the way, will this country have enough oil not to need Middle Eastern nations?

 

[stevej713]

By the way, will this country have enough oil not to need Middle Eastern nations?

A unified North America would not need much from the outside world at all. The US is almost self-sufficient in trade when Canada and Mexico aren't lumped in with the rest of the world.

 

[phx1138]

Providing you use the OTL U.S. state size conventions, & providing population remains in roughly OTL locations, 90 states is pretty easy. Most of northern Canada & Alaska is so unpopulated, it will never achieve statehood under the OTL minimums.