While most Americans view the United States as a politically unified landmass, a geographic perspective reveals a different story of proximity. This map uses the Voronoi Principle to partition the U.S. into regions based strictly on the "as-the-crow-flies" distance to the nearest national capital, ignoring borders and politics. The results highlight how our standard flat-map perspective often betrays the reality of global distances.

One of the most striking revelations comes from the "Curvature" Factor affecting Alaska and Hawaii. Because the Earth is a sphere, the western tip of the Aleutian Islands is significantly closer to Tokyo, Japan, than to Washington D.C.. Similarly, Northern Alaska finds a closer neighbor in Reykjavik, Iceland, while Hawaii is geographically tied to Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Even the eastern portions of Alaska share a closer bond with the Canadian capital, Ottawa, than with the U.S. capital.

In the southern regions, the Caribbean Proximity reshapes how we view the "Deep South". For residents in cities like New Orleans or Tampa, Havana, Cuba, is hundreds of miles closer than Washington D.C.. Most of Florida is likewise closer to Nassau in the Bahamas. Meanwhile, Mexico City exerts a massive geographic pull across the American West and Southwest. A vast swath of territory, including California and Texas, is closer to the Mexican capital than the American one; for example, Los Angeles is roughly 750 miles closer to Mexico City than to D.C.. This map serves as a powerful reminder of the sheer scale of the United States and our place in a 3D world.