Size doesn’t necessarily matter (when it comes to states)

The popular saying goes, “things are always bigger in Texas.” And while the state of Texas has both the population and land area to back up those claims, more often than not, states with more acreage can’t necessarily boast more population.

Mapping out states by region and population uncovers that most regions account for roughly the same proportions of the U.S. population. Certain larger land mass states have corresponding populations in their given region: states like California, New York, Florida, and (you guessed it) Texas. But mostly, whether the Pacific states (red), the Northeast (green), South East (purple), South Central (yellow) or Midwestern (blue) regions all carry their share of the US population.

But go west, young reader, and you will find a different story. Of the states with the most land mass, half of them are in the area designated as the Mountain region (orange). These states include Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, South Dakota and North Dakota. In total, the mountain states account for nearly a third of of the area of the United States. But as you can see above, they are just a sliver of the US population.