How would the states be drawn if the US took Canada?

Gan

Banned
I recall on this forum seeing pretty much all maps based on the US taking Canada either during the Revolution or the War of 1812 being OTL's US states and Canada's OTL provinces as additional states. What are the chances of that being the case?

With Canada part of the US from early on, how would this affect the outlines of states? How many states would cross what is OTL's US/Canadian border? Would the Canadian states even be the same shape/size as the provinces? How many of them would've likely be carved into multiple states instead? Also, how much would we have to push for OTL's Canadian territories to be US States by 2013?
 
If during the Revolution or after 1812 then the new states boundaries are unknown. Mainly because the US won't be bound by what was there. Presumably Nova Scotia and New Brunswick become states but Prince Edward Island probably wouldn't. I have doubts about Quebec as well, Upper Canada treated as part of NW Territory. Prince Rupert's Land would still be British unless the war went spectacularly wrong(in which case the US can say hello to Wellington and the Peninsular Army)
 

JJohnson

Banned
Just about anything's fair game thenceforth, since the available land is larger. If we assume "Quebec" of the time and Nova Scotia, then at the very least, Nova Scotia (and St. John's Island) are very likely to remain a state, eliminating the potential state of "New Brunswick" from being in New England. I would figure that Nova Scotia will be considered part of New England from that point forward, at least culturally.

Quebec could very likely split its western territory (west of the Ottawa River) off into one or more states, which will affect Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, assuming that the US and the UK still sign a treaty making the 49° N the northern boundary west of the Lake of the Woods after the US purchases Louisiana Territory. Settlers into the one or two new northern (well, north of the Great Lakes) states will come from Pennsylvania, NY, and New England, and Quebec, so will likely be culturally and politically similar until the greater European migrations begin in the 1840s onward. This north-of-the-Great-Lakes territory will become majority English at some point during the 19th century but will more than likely maintain a certain French-speaking percentage to this day, especially at the Ottawa River.

The (OTL) Ontario peninsula, if you make that a state, will industrialize and have an important trade/railroad tradition and rapidly become an important and populous state. New York and Pennsylvania will most likely have a lower population since there are other states the people can move to with a roughly similar climate.

So, let's assume the US gets Canada in the Revolution. I would see Nova Scotia (OTL Nova Scotia, St. John's Island, New Brunswick) as one state, Quebec east of Ottawa River, the Toronto peninsula to Lake Nipissing/French River/Mattawa River as another state (roughly the size of NY/PA), and then the remainder of the Great Lakes northern shore as another state (with the Michigan Upper Peninsula) or given to the UK by treaty to allow Rupert's Land a way out to the Atlantic, along with demilitarizing the Great Lakes. If we go the second route, we likely get the 49° border to the Rockies again.

Going forward, the US will still have a Manifest Destiny that they should expand outward, and you might be slightly more likely to see more territory taken from Mexico and from the UK in the form of the Oregon Country.

Let's go with the UK getting Great Lakes territory. This is one option:

US new states:
Nova Scotia
Quebec
Ottawa (Ontario Peninsula)
OTL fifty states; Arizona and New Mexico extend southward so that Arizon has a port on the Gulf of California. California splits at 37°N into North and South California, with South California containing the entirety of OTL Baja California peninsula.
Rio Grande (Republic of the Rio Grande)
Sonora
New Brunswick (Chihuahua. Pick your own name)
Columbia (north of the state of Washington, reaching up to 52° in compromise with the UK). Here you can replace Oregon/Washington/Columbia with Oregon, and North/South Columbia or switch the names around.

That gives you 58 states, assuming the US still goes for Hawaii and Alaska. Canada's population would be concentrated along the shore of the Great Lakes and the 49° N border as in OTL.

If however, this US takes all the shores of the Great Lakes, and makes another state (59 now), then makes it likely that Rupert's Land would be sold to the US at some point since settlers would not easily be able to get into the territory (having to go into the US to get there), possibly in exchange for debt forgiveness after WWI or WWII (if those still happen in this timeline), and/or the British Virgin Islands. This would give you more than 60 states, easily.

It's going to depend on when you transfer the land to the United States whether it affects the states you get. Check out "How the States got their Shapes" for more information. Congress tried to make the states as even in size as possible, given the amount of land unallocated at that time. That's why you have tiers of states that are 7° wide and either 3° or 4° tall. Slight deviations will occur, like Mississippi-Alabama, where the slight angle is to even the amount of land between the two states, and avoid a little island of land separated from the other by a big river.
 
Prince Edward Island was already its own established colony since 1769 and would subsequently count as its own state if it joined the Revolution, and New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia in 1784 due to all the Loyalists moving in - till then the only real populated places in it were villages settled by pro-American Yankees at Bend (Moncton) and Maugerville (very short distance Fredericton).
 
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