Earlier this summer, over at Nationhood Lab, we extended our data models to enable researchers to apply the American Nations model in Canada, This also let us create, for the first time, a master map of these regional cultures across North America.
The book the model is based on, American Nations, is a history of the entire continent north of the 25th parallel, including what’s now Canada and northern Mexico. Until now, I’d never had a proper map of what that looks like, facilitating research across borders. The map’s been popular with the public as well, with the post introducing it garnering unprecedented organic internet traffic.
Note Spanish Caribbean’s extension to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The region probably includes parts of the “Spanish Main” — the northern, Caribbean coast of South America — and maybe some other island locations as well, but, it being peripheral to our core study area in North America, I haven’t done the research into all that. First Nation, of course, includes Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Central and Southern Mexico likely belong to “post-Aztec” and “Maya” regional cultures, the latter extending into parts of Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Someday, hopefully in collaboration with regional experts, maybe there will be a South American Nations map as well.
Thanks to my counterparts at Motivf, John Liberty (who created the map) and Tova Pearlman (who helped wrangle some of the underlying data.) Enjoy.