[DarronWyke]

Not the OP, but my take on it would be that every State is different from each other, and even within the State there's differences. Take a look at where I live, Texas. Dallas will be different than Austin which will be different than Houston. Any metropolitan area, even within the same borders, will have different culture and mindset than another. Compare that to another State and the divide only widens.

Most countries are fairly homogenous, which lends itself to a singular-ish mindset and culture. The US is not really one country, it's a melting pot (remember that word from social studies?) of many different cultures and ideas. That's one of the big reasons why we can't really be compared to any other country on many topics. Every locale is different, in many cases fundamentally, and that's part of the point of the Federal-State system we have.

[ceejayoz]

> Most countries are fairly homogenous, which lends itself to a singular-ish mindset and culture.

I see this stated a lot by folks in Europe vs. the US discussions, but having visited both I'm pretty baffled by it. Switzerland has four national languages - hop on a train for an hour or two and you may go from French to German areas. The folks in Paris would laugh at the idea that they've got the same culture as Provence. Same with northern vs. southern Italy, Moscow vs. Siberia, etc.

[rhino369]

America may be made of up people with anncestry from all over the world, but we have a very homogenous culture. The only major differences are urban, suburuban and rural, but rural people in California are pretty similar to rural people in Virigina.

[DarronWyke]

I'd disagree. I've been to both. Rural California has a very different mindset than say the rural parts of the Appalachians. Out there, there's a fierce push for independence and self-sufficiency. A lot of that comes from just regional outlooks on life, government, rights, and more. Having been from California, the whole "Southern Hospitality" thing surprised me and just the general way people treat random strangers, as a very simple example.

[bryanlarsen]

Stockholm and Lapland have significantly different cultures, infrastructure requirements, populations et cetera. We can argue which has the bigger difference, but we should be able to agree that the differences are similar in kind.

[mcguire]

Lapland (Sweden) is about 100,000 km^2, about the same as Kentucky, although if you add Finland's Lapland, you something much more comparable to Wyoming, which is a good match density wise, too: about 2 / km^2.