50 states / one geographic question
Watersheds
Start with the land.
Then balance the population.A state-by-state exploration of watershed-first congressional districts.
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Solid teal outlines / district colors · Alabama R01, Alaska R01, Texas R15, Virginia R04, New Jersey R07. Other states have no published districts. Research drafts, not enacted maps.
Dashed black outlines · official Census reference, not proposed watershed districts. This is not a 2026 election-map layer.
State index
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The research
A geographic basis.
Not a guarantee.
Watersheds offer a visible, physical starting point for drawing districts. This project tests whether that starting point can reduce discretionary boundary choices while accommodating population, connected geography, and local communities.
Alabama R01, Alaska R01, Texas R15, Virginia R04, and New Jersey R07 are published research drafts. The alphabetical program has moved from Alaska to Arizona. A finished technical draft is not legal certification.
The selected, technically checked research draft is published when work moves to the next state, under the owner's publication instruction. Unselected drafts, solver experiments, and private reviews stay off this site. Each published map includes its population basis, sources, and remaining limitations; publication does not clear outstanding reviews.
Map sources and limits
Navigation uses generalized 2018 U.S. Census state outlines. These are not proposed district boundaries. Alaska and the main Hawaiian islands are repositioned and rescaled. Approved district geometry is preserved without additional simplification.
The optional congressional layer uses Census 2025 cartographic boundaries, 1:500,000, for the 119th Congress (2025–2027). It shows the current Congress, not districts newly adopted for the 2026 election. Generalized shorelines may differ from the detailed research geometry; this is a visual reference, not a block-level legal comparison.
Census cartographic boundary files ↗