My take on mapping Panem

Hello all! I know I've been dead, but I promise I'm still here. And I think I've slipped back into my Hunger Games hyperfixation, because I've been having a lot of nightmares about dying in the arena lately. But this post isn't about that!

I've been giving a lot of thought into the geography of Panem, and since their own version of a map, I was inspired to show my take on the districts as well!

I've also included a few mildly eerie postcards as a brain break between paragraphs. Cheers!

Map:

First things first: the black areas represent land buried by rising sea levels. All the maps I saw projected sea levels going down around Oregon and Washington, so I left those coasts alone.

Next, District 12 is said to be in Appalachia. The mountain range spans from Maine to Georgia, but the best-known mining regions are in southwest Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and since 12 is a small district, I didn't want to stretch the area to be much larger than the Capitol. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is well-known for its steel industry, which requires mining and technological development; I figured that could involve either District 6 or District 12, so I situated the two over that border for me to think about later.

District 6 is positioned over Michigan and Indiana because of Detroit's history with car manufacturing and Indiana's culture around the Indianapolis Speedway. Ohio is famously part of the former Steel Belt as well.

District 13 is north of 12, though I'm not sure how far. I thought it would be interesting to incorporate more of Canada rather than only using the U.S., so I included some of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick between 13 and 6.

Postcard:

As many have pointed out, minor characters Bonnie and Twill went through District 12 from 8, which suggests that the two are near one another if not bordering. Furthermore, the former Cotton Belt of the United States was centered around North and South Carolina and eastern Georgia, so I thought it would be appropriate for the textile district to cover that area.

Coal can only really be used for energy, so I thought it'd make sense for 5 to be near District 12. Similarly, manufacturing and powering transport requires a lot of energy, so 5 would naturally be near 6 as well. Plus, Oklahoma is part of Tornado Alley, and Chicago, Illinois is known as the Windy City, so including those two states allows for a lot of windmill use.

Above 5 is the grain region, District 9. 9 is made up of the states that are best known for growing wheat and corn. District 9 is also known for being very large in area, so I included a lot of states from the Midwest.

Postcard:

On the other side of 5 is District 10. I picked areas that are known for cowboy culture and ranching. The east side of Texas has more lush plant life than the west, so I used the desert climate of the west side as the starting point. Similar to how I included Canada in Districts 6 and 13, I also wanted to include Mexico in Panem, and the most convenient way to do so was in 10. I didn't do as much research for this district since cattle farming is ubiquitous in the U.S., so there is room to move things around.

Naturally, District 4 is on a coast as the fishing district. At first, my headcanon was that it was on the Gulf of Mexico, but that leaves little space for the vast expanse that makes up 11, so I situated it in California instead. California is the ideal place for pretty much every industry besides snow-based recreation, so fishing isn't too far off.

Above that, I put District 7, because Oregon, Washington and British Columbia are all known for their forests. Again, adding Canada because I like it.

Postcard:

Interestingly, most of America's diamond deposits are located in Arkansas. However, that doesn't line up with District 1 being near the Capitol, since the easternmost points of the Rocky Mountains are in Wyoming and New Mexico. Thus, back to the drawing board.

There are several diamond mines in Wyoming and northern Colorado, and if the Capitol is situated at or around Denver like many assume, this would be a solid place for District 1.

Nevada and Utah are pretty much desert and mountains, which I think would be a good place to mine for stone and set up Peacekeeper training facilities. Reduce the land to nothing and fill the nothingness with cop camps.

District 3 is the runt of the litter — whatever was left over after plotting out the rest. Which kinda makes me want to try again, but after writing so much, I'm definitely going to post this and save that endeavor for some other time!

That's the end of the line!

Thank you all for reading my post! I hope you enjoyed it and agree with some of my ideas. And a special thanks to Clove for inspiring this post by sharing their own perspective!

If you have any other ideas for posts I could make, drop them in the comments! I'd be happy to get active around here again.