Our own research, state by state: how crowded a place is, how long you can grow food, what the law says about collecting rainwater and drilling a well, gun law, homeschooling rules, what farm land costs, which disasters to plan for, and which bases and nuclear plants are nearby. Every fact carries its source; anything we couldn't verify is marked, never filled in.
Research rounds completed October 22–23, 2026. All 50 states and all 13 Canadian provinces & territories are now profiled — see “How we research” for sources and the gaps we left marked.
Map — population density
Islands & territories
The Bahamas and Turks & Caicos plus the US territories (U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands): maps with tunnels, caves, closed bases and restricted areas. Island pins for the states are on each state's map.
The federal framework — applies in every province & territory
Provinces & territories
Every province and territory below now has a full profile — tap one for its density, growing season, water rules, provincial firearms specifics, farmland values, hazards, and a map of its Canadian Armed Forces bases and nuclear plants. The federal rules above apply everywhere in Canada, including the handgun transfer freeze and the PAL licensing system.
Human trafficking & missing children — Canada
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The eight questions we ask about every state
Each state profile answers the same eight questions, from public sources we name on the card. We publish the fact and its source together — if a fact has no source yet, the card says “not verified yet” instead of guessing.
1 · People & spacePopulation density (2020 Census) and the largest metro area.
Hardiness zones: USDA zone ranges via The Spruce’s zone guide.
Homeschooling: HSLDA regulation tiers as mapped in the 2026 state-law guide.
Maps (Ready & Rooted version): state and province outlines are Natural Earth admin-1 boundaries (public domain), drawn offline as SVG — no map tiles or outside map servers are used.
Mountains, caves & tunnels: public named places from USGS GNIS DomesticNames (public domain), Natural Resources Canada CGNDB (Open Government Licence – Canada) and Wikidata (CC0). Locations are approximate; unmatched items say “official gazetteer match: not verified yet.”
Canada trafficking & missing children: Public Safety Canada, Statistics Canada, RCMP, Canada’s Missing, Cybertip.ca, Missing Children Society of Canada, Indigenous Services Canada and the Province of British Columbia — each item names its source and the date we checked it.
Disaster risk: FEMA National Risk Index hazard types.
Building codes: IBHS building-code roundup — ibhs.org (PDF) — plus state code pages where cited on a card.
Completion round (Oct 23, 2026): 2020 Census densities via the US Census / Maryland State Data Center table; USDA hardiness zones from the PRISM 2023 map; Canadian densities from Statistics Canada 2021 (Table 98-10-0001-01); Canadian precipitation from Environment and Climate Change Canada climate normals; Canadian farmland from Farm Credit Canada’s Farmland Values Report 2024 (regional values, published Mar 2025); Canadian bases from Canada.ca and nuclear plants from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Site maps: facility lists from Military.com base guides, the US Air Force installation list, NEI / NRC nuclear-plant lists, NNSA/DOE nuclear-enterprise site lists, and Canada.ca’s base directory. Coordinates are the approximate public installation locations (nearest city, two-decimal) published alongside those lists.
Honest caveats — read these before quoting a number
FEMA rates counties, not states. The National Risk Index scores 18 hazards at county and census-tract level; FEMA publishes no official state ranking. Each card’s hazard list is a synthesis of county-level hazard types — indicative, not an official state score.
Rainfall is a statewide mean. Values are NOAA climate-division averages (1971–2000). A verified min–max rainfall range across a state could not be sourced for any state, so we don’t show one.
Density figures vary slightly by source. A Census Bureau table gives different land-area figures for some states (Alabama 99.2 vs. 99.0 shown here; Florida 401.4 vs. 399.4; Kentucky 114.1 vs. 113.4). The difference is land-area vintage; the conflict is disclosed, not hidden. (Census table, PDF)
Gun-law preemption: individually verified only for CT, HI, MA, NJ, NY (no express preemption statute), NM (constitutional), NV, CO and NE. Other “yes” entries follow the general rule that roughly 42–44 states have some form of preemption; the exact scope in those states is not yet verified.
“Approx.” metro figures are index-level approximations, marked ≈ on the card.
US average density could not be verified from an official table in this round, so the guide doesn’t state one.
The site maps are not a target list. Each state and province map plots the publicly listed installations themselves — military bases, operating nuclear power plants, and nuclear weapons/research facilities — because those public facilities are what open-source “target” references name. No classified or predicted target list exists or is implied, and no point is inferred beyond the public lists. Locations are approximate (nearest city, two decimals). Dispersed Minuteman missile fields in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming are plotted at their host base only; individual silo coordinates are not listed.
Well rules are the most common gap. Private-well permit detail could not be verified from an official source for many states and most provinces in the completion round; those cards say so instead of stating a rule. The same applies to a single official statewide frost-free range for most states — station ranges are shown and labelled as such.
Two live legal conflicts are flagged, not hidden: Oregon’s Measure 114 magazine ban (upheld on appeal in 2025, enforcement reported paused under injunctions in mid-2026) and New Jersey’s assault-firearm/magazine provisions (struck down by the 3rd Circuit on Jul 17, 2026, mandate stayed pending the Supreme Court — still in effect). Rhode Island’s 2025 assault-weapon law status could not be verified.
Coverage
Complete: all 50 states and all 13 Canadian provinces & territories, each answering the same eight questions and each with a site map of its publicly listed bases and nuclear facilities. Within that, individual facts that could not be sourced are still marked “not verified yet” on the card — well-permit rules for many states, exact 2021 city populations for Moncton, Charlottetown, Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit, Cheyenne’s exact 2020 metro population, and homeschool regulation levels for the three territories among them.
Laws change. Gun, water and homeschool rules on each card reflect the research dates (October 22–23, 2026) and are a starting point for your own check with the state or province — not legal advice.