You Are Living in One of America's 12 Secret Nations

Discover 12 cultural nations within America—and the history behind the map. Why can New York, New Orleans, and Hawaii feel worlds apart?

Time Branches explores the United States through migration, language, trade, and regional identity. This episode uses a twelve-region adaptation of Colin Woodard's American Nations framework, whose original book described eleven. Here, “nations” means cultural regions within one country. Boundaries are approximate, identities overlap, and Indigenous nations have their own living identities and governments.