www.gplus.com
Ads by Google
Sign up | Log in
HomeSpecial SeriesTopicsExpertsBlogsIdeafeed
Search
Search Blog
Strange Maps
Home
Tags
Subscribe (RSS)
522 - Calling America: Phone Zones as Alternate States
Frank Jacobs on July 11, 2011, 7:45 PM
Like
Send
69
Share
9
27
When you think of it, borders are paradoxical. They connect what they aim to divide. A borderline marks, with
guillotine-like precision, where two territories separate; but no matter how far they expand in either direction,
those territories resemble each other closest at their common boundary.
Borders can be impenetrable or irrelevant, and possess any degree of permeability in between: highly militarised,
annoyingly bureaucratic, or merely symbolic. In any of those degrees, borders retain an iconic status. They’re
humankind’s answer to the shorelines and mountain ranges of geology.
Without borders, a map is blind. With those lines, cartography is armed with a elementary tool for basic triage:
here from there, us from them.
But those boundaries serve another function. They mould the territory they circumscribe into a reassuringly
familiar shape. This geographic Gestalt is why, even though the genesis of borders is mostly obscured by history,
and their relevance is often obsolete, we get worked up when confronted with an alternate set of borderlines.
Those alternate borders fascinate us because of their imaginative out-of-placeness. Take a look at Jefferson’s
proposal for new states in the US’s new Northwestern Territories, for example: they seem all wrong - probably
only because they never made it off the drawing board [1].
This map plays into our fascination with borders, both the iconic ones and their alternate versions. The linear base
map shows the US subdivided into its constituent states and counties [2]. The colour overlay reveals so-called ‘call
data communities’.
The extension of these areas was calculated by MIT and IBM, analysing anonymised call data. The map
delineates zones in which people are more likely to call someone inside those areas rather than outside of them.
The result is a revelatory re-mixing of states of America. Some split, others merge with their neighbours.
Some states seem made for each other. People in Louisiana and Mississippi form an almost perfect
telephone union. The only spoilsports are two parishes in northeastern Louisiana (grey, so probably
inconclusive data) and five counties in northwestern Mississippi, more inclined to phone a Tennessean
friend. Otherwise, the state lines correspond exactly with the Louisissippi call data community.
An equally perfect fit: New England. Barring a few counties in northern Maine and New Hampshire, and
an overspill of two counties in upstate New York, the inhabitants of Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine keep their calls pretty much a local Yankee affair.
Other bilateral phone exchanges exist between both Carolinas - barring some Virginian infiltration on the
northern shores of the Tar Heel State, and similar intrusions in North Carolina’s westernmost inland
extension, and South Carolina’s southern border with Georgia.
The latter two intrusions are part of an Alabama-Georgia phone zone, also extending north into southeastern
Kentucky and into a significant chunk of the Florida Panhandle [3].
Florida, in return, annexes two Georgia counties just north of Jacksonville.
Another neat phone twin is Oklahomarkansaw. But Oklahoma loses its entire panhandle to No Overall
Control, and Arkansas re-annexes the Missouri Bootheel [4] and nicks one county from Texas.
Texas itself remains fairly homogenous, ceding only the extreme west of its territory across of the Pecos to a
New Mexico-Arizona telephone alliance.
Further west, a tri-state phone exchange exists between southern California, southern Nevada, and
northwestern Arizona (plus a single Utah county). This Calnevari zone is bounded by a Northern California
that is fairly modest in its telephonic expansionism (gobbling up only bits of Nevada), and a Utah spilling
over into southern Idaho, and a slice of Wyoming (perhaps following Mormon settlement patterns).
A phone zone relaying all of Washington State with most of Oregon and the northern panhandle of Idaho,
plus another one fanning out from Colorado - without occupying all of it - complete the western call data
communities.
Halfway back east, a Greater Minnesota dominates Iowa and northwestern Wisconsin, even slipping into
Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota.
Missouri is the central plank of a triptych, extending into Kansas and southern Illinois.
The rumps of Illinois and Wisconsin have banded together, infiltrating Michigan in a two-pronged attack
reminiscent of the Schlieffen plan [5], in the process also pocketing the bayshore of Indiana.
Indiana, Ohio and Michigan are basically one-state call data communities, fighting off their neighbours’
attentions.
Those include a mighty Kentucky-Tennessee alliance, bursting at the seams, and a peculiar conglomerate of
West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.
Most of Virginia is phoning almost all of Maryland; Delaware, southern New Jersey and eastern
Pennsylvania are happy to talk to each other; and New York is yakking to the southern bit of its own state,
the northern part of Jersey, and a teeny bit of Pennsylvania.
What’s left is upstate New York, minus three counties, plus two Pennsylvania ones. And the rest is silence:
you’ve run out of credit.
Some suggested names for a few of these new communication-based communities (or ‘communicities’). For
upstate New York: Seneca. For the West Virginia-western Pennsylvania state: Monongahela, after the river (and
the valley) that connects them. For Virginia and Maryland: Chesapeake. For more, see here at Underpaid Genius.
Or here at the NY Times.
Many thanks for all who suggested this map: Jennifer Berg, Alex Meerovich, Serena Palumbo, Guy Plunkett III,
and Jacob Schlegel. Hope I didn't miss anyone. Original context here at MIT's Senseable City Lab.
-----------------------------------------------[1] Another map of alternate US state borders, mentioned earlier on this blog: C. Etzel Pearcy's 38-state proposal
(#5).
[2] 50 states and 3,143 counties or county-equivalents, to be exact. The latter denomination includes the 64
parishes of Louisiana and the 18 boroughs of Alaska.
[3] For more on the history of the Panhandle’s separateness, see #84.
[4] The only part of Missouri extending below 36˚30’N, at one time called ‘Lapland’, because it is where
“Missouri laps over into Arkansas”. It was included in Missouri rather than Arkansas on the lobbying of a local
planter, who argued that the area had more in common with neighbouring Missouri river towns than with the
Arkansas hinterland.
[5] The German opening move for the First World War. See #138.
Subscribe (RSS)
11 comments | Leave a comment
Previous Post
521 - Cartography’s Favourite Map Monster: the Land Octopus
Telecom Business 7 Mega
Con Impresa Semplice Internet 7Mega hai l'Adsl Business Gratis 3 Mesi!
www.impresasemplice.it/promozione
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or Register
Chrisc Volinsky on July 11, 2011, 11:59 PM
You mention IBM and MIT, but AT&T Labs-Research was a third collaborator (as you can see on the bottom of
the map). There is a nice interpretive writeup of the map at the AT&T site:
http://www.research.att.com/articles/featured_stories/2011_06/201106_connected_states_America_project.html
Derek Lyons on July 12, 2011, 1:46 AM
Some of the oddities are easily explained. The ‘dip’ into NC from Virgina is the influence of Norfolk. Ditto the
incursion of Florida into Georgia, where the cause is Jacksonville being the nearest Big City.
keith david tyler on July 12, 2011, 11:39 AM
Actually what’s more strange to me is how many of these “phone zones” DON’T cross state borders (or stay very
close to them). Alabama-Mississippi, Ohio-Indiana, Virginia-West Virginia are all very strikingly sharp along the
borders.
While this map is based on probability, you would likely be very interested in the map the phone companies
themselves have devised for most cost-effective distribution of the actual phone networks — the LATA map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LATAs.png . It follows a very similar pattern of communication-trend-based
delineation.
LEROOOY JEEENKINS on July 12, 2011, 1:44 PM
The divide at the western tip of Texas is nearly where a time zone boundary cuts through the state. This was a
really cool map idea. Neat to get a concept of what parts of the nation are slightly more insular.
James A. Lancaster on July 12, 2011, 2:26 PM
Correction – 4th bullet: extends into southeastern corner of Tennessee, not Kentucky.
A neat follow-up would be to analyze the land-area of each zone, the population and density of each zone, and
find the mean, median, mode, and range. It would be particularly interesting if each measurement (land area,
population, and density) were within a standard deviation (except Texas, Hawaii, and Alaska, as those are at least
the obvious out-liers).
Trystan Sterling Goetze on July 12, 2011, 4:28 PM
I would love to see an international version of this map. Though I imagine that would be much more difficult to
produce, having to coördinate many different, often competing telephone companies.
Robert Carvalho on July 12, 2011, 6:31 PM
Some of the cross-state areas can be explained by major cities. It is interesting to see how Illinois is split primarily
between Chicago and St. Louis. I’m a little surprised at how isolated the greater NYC area is from the rest of the
Northeast, but not at all surprised about the division between northern and southern California. However, I agree
with Keith that the monolithic nature of some states is more surprising, and not what I would expect with the
major city approach that explains some divisions.
Paolo Gangemi on July 12, 2011, 7:05 PM
@Trystan: very good idea! But generally speaking the main obstacle at the international level is the borderdivision between different languages.
Don Hargraves on July 15, 2011, 1:08 AM
One thing I notice about Michigan is the upper portion that joined with the Wisconsin-Illinois section includes the
remaining Central Time Zone section of Michigan.
Andrew Filer on July 15, 2011, 1:21 AM
The US actually is divided into zones called LATAs, which are different from area codes. LATAs are smaller
than the zones on this map, but do cross state boundaries (unlike area codes (1)). For example, the Texas and
Oklahoma panhandles form one LATA, the parts of Minnesota and North Dakota abutting the Red River form a
single LATA, and Vancouver, Washington is part of the LATA of Portland, Oregon, just across the river.
http://doc.mar.cx/http://www.latamaps.com/Maponics_LATA_11x17.pdf (this links to a web-viewable version of
the PDF).
(1) To my knowledge there are two exceptions, where area codes actually do cross state (and national!)
boundaries (mostly to simplify network engineering). Estcourt Station, Maine, is basically a portion of the
community of Estcourt, Quebec, and so gets all its utilities (including phone) from the Quebec side of the border.
Hyder, Alaska is in the British Columbia area code 250 and shares a telephone exchange with Stewart, BC, a few
miles away. Finally, Point Roberts, Washington (known to many readers here, I’m sure) used to be part of the
British Columbia area code 604, when they received phone service from then-BC Tel.
Ruth H on July 15, 2011, 3:43 AM
It looks like Alaska and Hawaii are the same blue as Washington, Oregon, and northern Idaho. I’d guess a major
factor binding that region is the migration of students, based on the calls I make from home in Alaska to friends I
met while at college in Washington, and to friends from here who went and stayed Outside. Climate,
transportation, and the Western Undergraduate Exchange (reduced out-of-state tuition rates for qualifying students
moving between Western states) mean a lot of Alaskans wind up at WA, OR, and ID universities. Student
migration and distribution of universities seem like potentially important factors shaping this map — four years or
so of people calling between college towns and hometowns, followed by years of calling friends from college
after that new community disperses at graduation.
The Hawaii/Alaska exchange probably has more to do with warm beaches and long winters.
About Strange Maps
528 Posts
Since 1970
Frank Jacobs loves maps, but finds most atlases too predictable. He collects and comments on all kinds of
intriguing maps—real, fictional, and what-if ones—and has been writing the Strange Maps blog since 2006, first
on WordPress and now for Big Think. His map "US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs" has
been viewed more than 587,000 times. An anthology of maps from this blog was published by Penguin in 2009
and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Frank can be reached at [email protected].
Sign up for the Strange Maps Newsletter
Enter your email address Submit
Recent Posts
7/11522 - Calling America: Phone Zones as Alternate States
7/04521 - Cartography’s Favourite Map Monster: the Land Octopus
6/26520 - Taftography, or: a Conventional Portrait of the Candidate
6/20519 - Kergolus, the World’s Loneliest Geo-Mascot
6/13518 - Mapping Bloomsday
6/06517 - The Best of States, the Worst of States
5/30516 - Northwest Angles: One Exclave May Hide Another
5/25515 - Good Ship or Bad Boat? France as Naval Metaphor
5/16514 - Britain Telling Off Ireland
5/09513 - Then We Take Berlin: When East Ate West
www.LoveToJournal.com
Enter your email address
Ads by Google