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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6927251" data-attributes="member: 37579">The continental United States is pretty huge. It's comparable to Europe, and should have a similar number of nations/cultures. Look at medieval Europe and all the various kingdoms and empires. Here's one from 1092.&nbsp; <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Europe_map_1092.PNG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Prior to the invention of trains, long distance travel was hard. A hundred miles would be a long journey of multiple days.Medieval empires are very different than modern nations. Empires are really unions of smaller kingdoms that owe fealty to a central authority. (The USA is basically an empire of 50 small states.) Anything more than a couple days travel (60 miles, give or take) needs it's own government or local ruler. They had to be able to stand on their own against invaders or problems, because help was days or weeks away. And the areas around the borders of empires tend to be very loose, with ownership in dispute. Lines of maps were much more fluid. Keep in mind that all of written human history covers 7000 years. The oldest civilizations were in Ancient Mesopotamia in 5000 BCE. Even then, cities and empires were small. 4000 years isn't that &quot;young&quot;. That period would cover all of modern history and back to 2000 BCE, which was still the Bronze Age in certain regions. (As a point of reference, the Great Sphinx of Giza was built around 2500 BCE.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 6927251, member: 37579"] The continental United States is pretty huge. It's comparable to Europe, and should have a similar number of nations/cultures. Look at medieval Europe and all the various kingdoms and empires. Here's one from 1092. [IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Europe_map_1092.PNG[/IMG] Prior to the invention of trains, long distance travel was hard. A hundred miles would be a long journey of multiple days. Medieval empires are very different than modern nations. Empires are really unions of smaller kingdoms that owe fealty to a central authority. (The USA is basically an empire of 50 small states.) Anything more than a couple days travel (60 miles, give or take) needs it's own government or local ruler. They had to be able to stand on their own against invaders or problems, because help was days or weeks away. And the areas around the borders of empires tend to be very loose, with ownership in dispute. Lines of maps were much more fluid. Keep in mind that all of written human history covers 7000 years. The oldest civilizations were in Ancient Mesopotamia in 5000 BCE. Even then, cities and empires were small. 4000 years isn't that "young". That period would cover all of modern history and back to 2000 BCE, which was still the Bronze Age in certain regions. (As a point of reference, the Great Sphinx of Giza was built around 2500 BCE.) [/QUOTE]

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