I don't believe this at all. Who did they ask?
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
103 points (97.2% liked)
Map Enthusiasts
4961 readers
244 users here now
For the map enthused!
Rules:
-
post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
-
be nice
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
clearly not me, I couldn't get out of N Carolina fast enough
Alaska makes sense as the most popular in perception I suppose
Edit: I didn't even see Hawaii there! Just popular due to tropical features judging by comparison to other politically aligned states, and those with similarly extremely racist backgrounds
NC let's fucking gooooo!
RAISE UP
This is actually one of the best maps on here in a while. If you know the US discourse, you can clearly read the stereotypes, political bubbles and straight-up ignorance of the various different people that were surveyed.
Illinois gets dinged because of racist narrative around Chicago. Montana does better than the rest of the midwest because it's romaticised. The people who hate California are a different bunch than the ones who hate Illinois or, for the most part, Alabama. NJ is mainly known from jokes at their expense by media-powerhouse New York. Few people know enough about South Dakota to care. DC just absorbs opinions of the feds.
I don't get the love-on for North Carolina and Pennsylvania, I guess.
I *don't* get the love-on for North Carolina and Pennsylvania, I guess.
Not sure about Pennsylvania, but I think North Carolina is rated so favorably because conservatives like it because it's part of the South, and liberals like it because it sucks less than most of the rest of the South due to the Research Triangle. (Georgia gets a similar boost because of Atlanta, but lesser because it gets extra hate from conservatives because of civil rights / Black culture.)
Montana does better than the rest of the midwest because it's romaticised.
So, folks, are we just gonna gloss over this guy calling Montana "Midwest?"
Is it not? What would you call it? It doesn't even end at the Canadian border, really, although we start calling it "prairies" to be distinct.
Source: Live here, have seen that border.
In the US, the "Midwest" means the area from Ohio to the Dakotas (and with a southern limit along the Ohio river and southern border of Missouri and Kansas).
Montana is full-blown "West" (or sometimes "Mountain West" or a member of the "Mountain States," if you want to distinguish it from the "West Coast" or "Pacific Northwest.")
I've never seen or heard Montana called Midwest. It's more Rockies or Northwest. Eastern half could be considered Great Plains-ish.
People like the outer banks and It's Always Sunny. Midwesterners also HATE Chicago/Illinois since that's the biggest city in the area.
My biggest ahock is that Texas polls so high. Most people who don't live there absolutely despise Texas in my experience.
What about the Twin Cities? They're also a major center, and in a "more" midwestern area in some sense, although Chicago is probably bigger.
What are the chances Washington gets dinged for having the same name as DC?
To give them some credit, Americans know basic facts about their own geography, at least. Washington ends up with roughly the same favourability as Oregon here, and the two states do seem awfully similar.
Now, knowing that DC is actually full of ordinary, mostly black people, or that Montana isn't very different from North Dakota? Maybe not. That's beyond just map facts.
Seattle and Portland do make up the PNW hippie culture, which I'm sure plenty of respondents find unfavorable
load more comments
(2 replies)
So who was the sample group? And what what the size? Also what was the criteria? This just seems weirdly subjective.
Sample group: 2073 adult citizens Question was just "do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the following states"
Yeah I'm not particularly impressed, but also NC LETS GO
As a Californian, you're all just jealous. I will sit atop my pile of avocados and wildfires and functional economy.
The scenery is the only thing keeping TN green i assure yall
and Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton is a national treasure.
Dolly Parton is a gift to humanity.
Midwesterners absolutely love Nashville for some reason. It's where everyone wants to have the bachelorette parties these days
Charleston get too expensive?
Finally a map that isn't just a population distribution.
I'm surprised Jersey is rated so low relative to Texas having lived in both states.
Georgia deserves its score. Georgia is great aside from the Atlanta traffic design.
aside from the Atlanta traffic design.
Atlanta (the city proper) is getting better, despite GDOT's best efforts to sabotage it. It's the metro Atlanta suburbs that really suck.
I'm still butthurt the Atlanta suburbs managed to block the MARTA expansion that was voted for and funded.
I'm surprised Texas is so high, but I'm not surprised that NJ is low, isn't there an old meme to the effect that New Jersey smells bad/ is full of toxic industrial chemicals or something?
Texas may have some crap politics statewide, but the major cities are top notch and Hill Country is a national treasure, same goes for the brisket and the old style country music.
One of these days I’ll get down to Big Bend and up to the mountains in the west.
I recently got down to Austin and was lucky enough to see the bats fly out from the bridge downtown. Millions of bats, was a sight to behold.
There is! They even joke about it in Futurama.
load more comments
(1 replies)
New Jersey's negative reputation is almost entirely due to people from NYC jeering at an outgroup
People from Philadelphia and the whole of Delaware also routinely dunk on NJ for many reasons.
- Can't pump their own gas.
- Can't turn left.
- Gotta pay a toll to get out.
- It's a literal swamp.
- Every single aspect of the Meadowlands.
- It's a literal swamp.
- Every single aspect of the Meadowlands.
Pine Barrens: Am I a joke to you?
Seriously though, NJ has some seriously varied ecology from the Delaware basin to the Piedmont, the Skylands, and more. People from outside just don’t think much about it because their experience of NJ is the clusterfuck that is flying into Newark Airport and driving to Manhattan through the meadowlands sprawl.
All I know is at least when the world ends I’ll at least make for a good Warboy; if I can drive in this mess unscathed then I can definitely handle the wasteland.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
As someone who used to live in NC but no longer does because of the car dependence and horrible state politics, how the heck is it one of the highest ones? I didn't think the other states even thought about NC very much outside of election season tbh.
- States north of it vacation in the OBX, famous lighthouses
- Asheville
- Highly rated beer
- Highly rated universities
- whole triangle area is fantastic place for nightlife, culture and raising a family
- Basketball
- Mountains - mount mitchell highest peak in the east, waterfalls
- Great Smoky National Park, most visited in US
- AT goes through it
- Blue Ridge Parkway
- National white water center
- NASCAR HOF
- Middle of the road politically, not too red, not too blue
- lot of soldiers roll through Fort Liberty
- a cacophony of “Carolina ___” songs.
I’ve traveled a lot of places. This one’s home.
Asheville
Asheville was great 10 years ago, now its overridden by Florida retirees (and the builders who cater to them) who have driven home prices far past what most people can afford.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
At least we can all agree that Hawaii is awesome
Ohio is way too high. I moved there for a year, first time I talked to the cashier at the local grocery store, I said I moved here from so and so and her knee jerk response was a snarky “why?”
Cleveland is the best hidden gem about that state and that’s saying something.
Also, I’ve oddly had a few good ventures out in Alabama. Fairhope on the bay in particular was much nicer than my preconceived notions had expected. There’s a few good fancy restaurants in downtown Montgomery that are cheaper than equivalents in other states. And Auburn’s campus is a dream, hate what happened to those trees on Toomer’s corner though.
Said many times that Alabama is way nicer than it's given credit for. And yeah, the whole Fairhope/Daphne/Spanish Fort area is stunning. Too rich for my blood though.
I kinda see where that cashier was coming from though. I grew up in Indiana (not terribly different than Ohio), and we knew it was a garbage state. Its motto is “Crossroads of America”, which we always said just means “you have to go through here to get to somewhere better”.
Ohio os the most average state. Make a bell curve comparing states and Ohio is right there at the top every time. The weather is pleasant, rent is cheap, and jobs aren't too hard to come by.
view more: next ›