Here’s a new “map” that I’ve designed – a cartogram of State Route or State Highway shields for each U.S. state, plus the District of Columbia. Each shield is numbered in the order that each state joined the Union, so Delaware is “1″, Pennsylvania is “2″ and so on… all the way up to D.C, which is cheekily represented with a “51?”, referencing the ongoing statehood debate there.
I originally put this together as a quick Twitter post, as I’d been discussing highway shields with a few other people. However, the overwhelmingly positive response to it convinced me to clean it up a little more and offer prints of it in my online store.
As this is a cartogram – where each state is given equal weighting and everything is arranged neatly in a grid – not everyone is going to agree with my placement of states. However, once you’ve placed your order for a print, you can get in touch with me and request your own placement. Just bear in mind that the states are arranged to fit into a 12 wide by 8 deep grid when making your request. Move Nevada underneath Utah! Move Wisconsin above Illinois to make room for the Great Lakes! It’s all up to you.