With all that's going on in the world, perhaps you, like me, have been mainly nestled in a bubble not really paying attention to life outside it. Here's a question for you, what U.S. state do you feel best represents the country as a whole? Do you think it's Iowa? If you're curious about this like I was, there's a new study from WalletHub that ranked all 50 states according to how 'American' they are. Iowa is on the list, but not number 1. So who was, and where did we rank?

The state the best represents the U.S. is...

Researchers looked at about 30 factors, like age, diversity, income, unemployment, religion, and party affiliation. With those metrics and others in mind, what state should be in the top spot? When the study was complete, the state that most represents America as a whole is our neighbor to the east: Illinois.

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But how did Iowa finish? Out of 50 US states, Iowa finished #17 out of 50. Iowa ranked low in religious diversity and not so well in the wealth gap. Otherwise, with a 17th ranking, Iowa's still closer to the top in terms of representing American than it is the bottom.

As far as the full top ten states to rep the country, the top ten are:

  • Illinois
  • Florida
  • Michigan
  • Arizona
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • Virginia
  • Delaware
  • North Carolina
  • Indiana

The LEAST-representative state is Vermont. It's followed by Mississippi, Utah, West Virginia, and Massachusetts.

If you are going to travel, might want to make a trip to the top breweries in the U.S.

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

Fun Facts About All of the 99 Counties in Iowa

Iowa has 99 counties, each with rich, unique history.

 

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