Joel Garreau in his ground breaking 1981 book, the " Nine Nations of America" suggests that there are nine regions with distinctive political and cultural features in the United States, Canada and to some degree Mexico and the Caribbean islands. Garreau is a writer and editor for the Washington Post.

Garreau's regions are New England, The Foundary, Dixie, Ecotopia, MexAmeria, The Breadbasket, Quebec, The Empty Quarter and The Islands. His regions often cut across existing state and provincial boundaries.

If we look at the intergovernmental arrangements of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) we find these 10 regions and the following map (A picture is worth a thousand words)

The National Institute of Health division of the U.S. has merit. It's shortcoming is, of course, that it doesn't address the north half of the continent.

The following 11 regions could provide the basis for a North America Union: Arctica, Cascadia, Heartlandia, Lakelandia, Quebec, Atlantica, Sealandia, Southlandia, Texlandia, California and Pacifica. (See list of states & provinces in each below)

The advantages of this model over the Garreau model is that it gives the regions names that can more easily be "adopted" by the populations they include. Who would want to have their regional government called - The Foundary or the Empty Quarter?

The state and provincial governments would also provide "legitimacy" and administrative foundations for the unification of the regions. Provinces (Alberta & B.C.) and states (Oregon & Washington) need not necessarily have to have the approval of the "national government" to merge since legitimacy flows from the people upward.(Constituent Assemblies and plebisites might be a vehicle)

Arctica

Composed of Northern Alaska, the North West Territories, and Nunavut - Dene & Inuit lands bordering on the soon to be largely ice free Arctic Ocean. (The Polar Bear State)

Cascadia

Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Washington State, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon (The Sea to Sky State)

Heartlandia

Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Manitoba, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska (The Big Sky State)

Lakelandia

Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Ontario and Wisconsin (The Great Lakes State)

Quebec

(Viva La difference)

Atlantica

Newfoundland, P.E.I., New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Maine, Massachusetts, Upper New York state, New Hampshire, and Vermont Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

Sealandia

New York (city), Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia

Southlandia

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee

Texlandia

Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas

California

Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah

Pacifica

Hawaii, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau

The Caribean and Mexico are too big a leap culturally and economically for a unified and politically integrated United North America - for the time being.

Garreau recognized that there where areas of North America that were "aberations", that one would question whether they should be placed in one region or another.

For the most part the old province and state boundaries "around" the defined regions could be retained. This would simplify moving from the current structures to the new. The existing states and provinces would form the transitional bridges to the new "states" unifying one after another via plebiscites. At later dates, plebiscites could be held in some regions were affinities were in doubt.

Garreau's proposal has a cultural and a south east bias. Economics and physical placement of "regions" needs to account for more. For example, the Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWR) does not adhere to the narrowly defined regions of the coast. The issues of governance involve common infrastructure and shared interests that need to "trump" simple cultural commonality - which continues to evolve rapidly. At the same time, culture needs to be acknowledged - including Quebecois culture, the Polynesian culture and the Inuit culture.