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A recreation of the Jesusland map      "United States of Canada", Canada plus blue states      "Jesusland", red states

The Jesusland map is an Internet meme satirizing the red/blue states scheme, created very shortly following the 2004 United States Presidential election. It has been cited throughout American and global media since its creation.

The original image was created on November 3, 2004 by G. Webb, a poster on yakyak.org, an Internet message board for fans of the work of Jeff Minter (see the original discussion). Its creation has been incorrectly attributed to many different individuals, most notably Michael Moore.

The meme is in the form of a map of North America which depicts a new hypothetical national border between the United States and Canada. The "blue states" from the 2004 election have been merged with Canada to form a single contiguous nation, which is labeled the "United States of Canada". The remaining "red states" are labeled as "Jesusland".

The map's appearance highlights the fact that the "red states" (except Alaska) are all contiguous with one another, whilst the "blue states" (except Hawaii) are also contiguous when combined with Canada. Adding the Canadian province of Alberta, which usually leans the most conservative among the provinces, to "Jesusland" does not break the contiguity of either "country" (see below).

Similar maps give different labels to the geographically separated blue states. The northeastern states are referred to as "Eastern Realitania", "Northeastistan", "Western France", or "New America" [1]; the central blue states near the Great Lakes are labeled "Central Realitania" or "Minniwillinois"; and the blue states along the Pacific Coast are called "Western Realitania", "Pacificstan", "Southern Canada" or "Baja Canada" (with Hawaii being separately labeled "The Tropic of Canada"). Another has chosen the overall name "Realistan". The red states in these variant maps are called "Jesusistan", "Redstateistan", "Redneckistan" [2], the "United States of Evangelicals," [3] "the United State of Texas", or in the most extreme case, "Dumbfuckistan" (referenced by a December 18, 2004 TV Funhouse cartoon on Saturday Night Live [4]). Some maps purport to show a capital city of Crawford, Texas, the home of U.S. President George W. Bush. One map shows Alaska as having been returned to Russia. A popular variation of the map pokes fun at the political divide in Canada by including Alberta, which tends to vote conservative in Canadian elections, in "Jesusland". Some versions replace "Jesusland" with "God's Country" or the "United States of Bad Asses" [5], or refer to the "United States of Canada" as "Soviet Canuckistan," "Godless Communists," "Douchebagistan," "Homosexualcommieland," or the "People's Republic of West France."

Also the divide between the Mexican northern and southern states is shown by expanding Jesusland to Mexico, and stressing the strong political left in the southern Mexican states. Some people could even stress the overwhelmingly leftist population in Mexico City, calling it "People's Republic of Mexico City".^{[citation needed]}

2004 United States presidential election by county, on a color spectrum from Democratic blue to Republican red.

In the context of the Jesusland map, the states in which a majority voted Democratic in the election are viewed as more socially liberal in outlook, and therefore having more cultural similarities with Canada than with the remainder of the United States. The Republican-voting red states, in common with twenty two percent of all voters nationwide, tended to vote based more on what they referred to as moral values, such as opposition to same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research. [6] Holders of these values are characterized by a high degree of faith in Evangelical Christianity, thus causing the name of Jesus to be affixed to the hypothetical country [7]; indeed, based on a comment by a Republican official in an article by Ron Suskind of the New York Times, some have characterized the divide as being one between a "faith-based community" and a "reality-based community".

The gap is seen as stark enough that some bloggers on the Democratic side have ironically or semi-seriously advocated secession, whilst some on the Republican side, such as Mike Thompson, a past chairman of the Florida Conservative Union, suggested the federal government should expel the blue states [8]. Perhaps to that end, some have also noted the similarity between the electoral map of the U.S. in 2004 (which was somewhat similar to the electoral map following the 2000 election) and a map of the United States in 1860, showing the free and slave states prior to the American Civil War. [9]

2006 Canadian election by province. Note that relative to the recent American convention, the red vs. blue dichotomy is reversed.       Conservative       Liberal       New Democratic Party (Social Democratic/Democratic Socialist)       Bloc Québécois (Souverainist)

The map has been reproduced in physical form, as postcards[10], clothes, bags, mugs and other paraphernalia.[11]

• Red state vs. blue state divide
• 2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities
• Canada and the 2004 U.S. presidential election
• Reality-based community
• Soviet Canuckistan
• Nine Nations of North America
• The Day America Told the Truth

• Ron Suskind's New York Times Magazine article "Without a Doubt"
• Parody cartoon on Ukrainian election
• Purported "official" site of Jesusland
• Dumbfuckistan
• Understanding Evangelicals: A Guide to Jesusland