MAPS: A Poll Asked America Which States Were The Drunkest, The Hottest And Which Had The Silliest Accents
The United States prides itself on being a union of independent states, each with their own unique reputation, personality, and aesthetic.
After seeing an excellent poll that asked Europeans what they thought of other European countries, we talked to our polling partner SurveyMonkey Audience to expand the questions and try it on Americans, to see how they felt about other states.
The results were hilarious, informative and tell you everything you need to know about the dynamic between the states.
We asked respondents — 1603 of them — to answer each question with a state that wasn't their own. The poll was carried out usingSurveyMonkey's Audience feature, which was more accurate predicting the 2012 election than numerous traditional pollsters.
The following maps show that data. Look under each map for details when it comes to the color scale. The darkest color had the highest number of votes, the whitest color had next to none.
Massachusetts has the weirdest accent. Trailing close behind are Alabama, Minnesota, New York and New Jersey.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Massachusetts, 264 of 1603 votes, 16%
New York scored around 20% of the vote for best food. California and Louisiana get honorable mentions.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: New York, 305 of 1603 votes, 19%
Hey Alaska, the rest of America thinks your food sucks.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Alaska, 85 of 1603 votes, 5%
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Alaska, 85 of 1603 votes, 5%
Besides their own state, people had the highest opinion of California. Colorado is also pretty popular.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
That's what you get, Texas, for always pulling the "We can leave America whenever we feel like it" card.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Texas, 167 of 1581 votes, 11%
California is considered the craziest state...
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: California, 403 of 1581 votes, 25%
...but California is also the hottest. Funny how things always seem to turn out like that. This question wasn't even close, it appears that Katy Perry was right.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: California, 713 of 1411 votes, 51% (!)
America had trouble deciding which state was the ugliest. We know it's in the south somewhere, with Alabama in the lead.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Alabama, 113 of 1442 votes, 9%
Colorado has the most beautiful scenery in the country, followed closely by Hawaii. Honorable mentions to Alaska, Montana and California.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Colorado, 228 of 1545 votes, 15%
Kansas has the worst scenery. People also went out of their way to pick on Jersey on this one.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Kansas, 174 of 1487 votes, 12%
Louisiana go home, you're drunk.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Louisiana, 174 of 1568 votes, 11%
People love to vacation in Hawaii, Florida, and California.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Hawaii, 498 of 1568 votes, 32% (!)
New York is the most arrogant.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: New York, 612 of 1568 votes, 39% (!)
New York is also the rudest. Who could have guessed.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: New York, 680 of 1545 votes, 44%
Georgia is the nicest, followed by Minnesota. The South gets high marks here, potentially because the rest of the country doesn't understand that "Bless your heart" is facetious.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Georgia, 104 of 1545 votes, 7%
Massachusetts is the smartest. All those colleges probably.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Massachusetts, 342 of 1442 votes, 24%
Mississippi is believed to be the dumbest.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Mississippi, 237 of 1442 votes, 16%
New York is the home of the best sports fans.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: New York, 193 of 1442 votes, 13 percent
Most likely due to the fact that most Americans have never been to Philadelphia, the rest of the country believes New York also has the worst sports fans. I blame John Rocker.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: New York, 158 of 1442 votes, 11%
America is pretty down to mess with Texas on anonymous surveys.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Texas, 301 of 1422 votes, 21%
All the usual suspects are considered overrated.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: California, 394 of 1422 votes, 28%
While this was the most competitive category by far, people seem to believe that Oregon, Alaska and Maine are the most underrated.
Walter Hickey / BI, Poll by SurveyMonkey
Max: Alaska, 78 of 1422 votes, 5%
Great job, America.
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Comments
trooble on Aug 20, 10:22 AM said:
Rudest, most arrogant, smartest. Go NY Go NY Go.
Show non-Insider comments earlier in this conversation
Walter Hickey on Aug 20, 10:40 AM said:
@interesting:
Thanks! If you're interested, using the basic calculation for sample size, ~1,400 full responses is more than enough to get a 95% confidence interval with like a ±3 MoE given the U.S. population. We'd always want to get more, but that takes time and hitting ~1,600 respondents with ~1,400 full replies was statistically satisfying for our purposes.
Where's the love for Idaho? It should be at the top of the list for scenery at minimum.
rbw on Aug 20, 11:10 AM said:
Holy generalizations, Batman! And I'm sure Texas would love to be on their own.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-how-americans-feel-about-the-states-2013-8#ixzz2cWZJ8hax
