>>2711655Western US is comparable to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland except with a fraction of the population density and significantly more variation in climate and habitats (sub-tropical desert to summer firn snow banks and tundra in 50 miles/80km). Eastern US is more like Germany outside of the alps with slightly lower population density, some east coast states on the coast are actually worse than Netherlands tier. Central US is a mix, states like AR, OK, and MN are fairly good tier, while states like KS, NE, IA and ND are quite literally about 90-97% hilly plains, urban settlements, or agricultural land with not much to see or do (let alone places to hike and camp), even with low population density, Europe doesn't really have an analog to the great plains. Western states can be insanely diverse, it is a focal point for research on biomes (also where the concept of biomes came from), climates (especially micro, but also macro time sequenced and paleo studies as well, some locations are the coldest and snowiest of their latitudes in the world or just outright in the world, also has the hottest locations in the world as well and the wettest outside of island climates), biology (plant, mycology, animal, and ecology studies), and topographic and geological morphology studies. In some places you can walk a certain distance and it is like flipping a switch as you change biomes (20%+ humidity rise 10C cooling in mere hundreds of m walked).
