I tried this with 50 states. Of course, Los Angeles County is too big to fit into a state of such a size, so I'm pretending a big chunk of it can be attached to the undersized state north and west of it. The most effective place for further county division would be New York City, where I stuck my largest (pop. 6,448,712) and smallest (pop. 6,045,307) other states.Not an intentional gerrymander, but here's 29 states of equal population (plus DC). Alaska is part of the Washington/Portland/eastern Oregon/Idaho/Montana state, while Hawaii is part of the San Diego to New Mexico state. New York City (minus Staten Island, plus Long Island) is its own state.
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Link!