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I'll give one example of what I mean. Driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio quite a bit I'm sort of surprised to hear the PA has a higher population than OH. Perhaps the mountains hide the people. Ohio is much more urban/suburban drive and it just feels much more populated, the interstates will take you through all it's cities in a way the Pennsylvania does not.
You got any other examples of states that kind of feel different than the total count of humans would show?
California doesn't feel like 40 million people imo. So much of the state is almost empty, including some long stretches of major highways, e.g. I-5, US-101 between San Jose and San Luis Obispo, CA-1, and US-395. And some of the metros (especially the Bay Area) feel smaller than they are because the mountains force the developed areas to be more condensed. The Bay Area CSA and the Chicago CSA are both ~10 million but the Bay feels more like 6-7 million. The Sacramento MSA and the Portland MSA are both ~2.5 million but the Sac area feels like less than half the size of the Portland area. The state as a whole feels to me like ~25 million, somewhere between Florida and Texas.
I found Oregon to be surprisingly low in population, only 4 million residents, with 2 million living in the Portland area alone. Once you leave Oregon crossing over the bridge into Washington, all along i-5 from Vancouver to Bellingham you can notice the drastic increase in population and density. Oregon is a very rural state that pretends to be urban, always tripped me out.
I found Oregon to be surprisingly low in population, only 4 million residents, with 2 million living in the Portland area alone. Once you leave Oregon crossing over the bridge into Washington, all along i-5 from Vancouver to Bellingham you can notice the drastic increase in population and density. Oregon is a very rural state that pretends to be urban, always tripped me out.
Yep, Washington and Oregon are great examples. They seem big thanks to Portland and Seattle, but there’s not much outside of those cities.
I'll give one example of what I mean. Driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio quite a bit I'm sort of surprised to hear the PA has a higher population than OH. Perhaps the mountains hide the people. Ohio is much more urban/suburban drive and it just feels much more populated, the interstates will take you through all it's cities in a way the Pennsylvania does not.
You got any other examples of states that kind of feel different than the total count of humans would show?
With regards to PA (having been born and raised in NEPA-Northeastern PA, but no longer live in the commonwealth), like you mentioned, if you travel on I-80 from NJ to OH or vice versa, there are no large cities like Columbus along the way or even medium sized cities, it's pretty much rural as far as the eye can see, just trees and mountains and farms.
Likewise on I-76 (PA Turnpike), it goes north of Pittsburgh, south of Harrisburg and ends/begins in Philly, another very rural route, until you get to Philadelphia.
I don't think people realize places like Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin are top 20 states in population. I think people assume that flyover country means nobody lives there.
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