Are we really living out country songs here in Missouri? Hound dogs, pickup trucks, moonshine and the works, to the extent of being the third-most country-fried state in the nation? Armed with tons of data, national real estate site Estately challenges that it's possible. Oh, joy.
We've been burned in the past with weird data factories claiming to have the pulse of the country. Anyone remember when the Echo Nest swore that the most popular band in Missouri was the Shins? Yeah, that was kind of crazy. (We think our very scientific discovery about the least popular bands in the states was way better.)
See also: - U.S. Map Displays Most Popular Musicians By State - New Map Shows the LEAST Popular Musicians By State
But Estately really dove into the research, using its mysterious real estate connections to figure out which states' residents are most likely to have lifestyles resembling popular themes in country music. "To do this, we researched where people are most likely to drive pickups down dirt roads, have their heart broken by a cowboy or cowgirl, or sip cold beers or whiskey by the river after a long day of work," Estately says.
Estately used nine criteria to guide its research through various databases (These are Estately's categories, not ours, we swear):
- Pickup trucks: pickup truck sales for January-April 2014
- Drinkin': per capita beer and liquor consumption
- Baby done left: percentage of men and women who are divorced or separated
- Most religious: percentage of population that says religion is an important part of their daily life
- Cowboys and cowgirls: "Since there's no cowboy directory, we simply measured the number of cattle and calves per square mile" through cattlerange.com, Estately says.
- Hall of Fame country musicians: number of country musicians in the Country Music Hall of Fame who were born in each state
- Dirt roads: miles of unpaved roads managed by the Federal Highway Administration
- Support the troops: active military personnel in each state
- Work until the day is through: ranked from lowest unemployment rate to highest
Estately has a chart with how each state fared in each of the nine categories above. While Missouri was pretty average, all told, we ranked in the top ten in three of the nine categories, which was enough to land us the third-highest spot in the country-livin' poll after Oklahoma and Texas.
On page two, see a pretty chart showing which aspects of country-song life Missouri is exceptionally good at.
