List: The 'Most Country' States Ranked

The real estate website Estately recently set out with the simple mission—to determine which U.S. states have a lifestyle most similar to the themes in country music songs. 

To do this, they 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. Here’s the criteria we used to find their results…

• Pickup Trucks:  Pickup truck sales for January-April 2014. (Source: Auto experts at Edmunds.com provided analysis of Polk registrations (January-April 2014), which measures all large truck vehicles registered to a retail buyer (excluding fleet sales).
• Drinkin’:  Per capita beer and liquor consumption (source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism).
• Baby Done Left:  Percentage of men and women who are divorced or separated (source: U.S. Census).
• Most religious:  Percentage of population that says religion is an important part of their daily life (source: Gallup Poll).
• Cowboys and Cowgirls:  Since there’s no cowboy directory we simply measured the number of cattle and calves per square mile (source: CattleRange.com).
• Hall of Fame Country Musicians:  Number of country musicians in the Country Music Hall of Fame who were born in each state (source: Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum).
• Dirt Roads:  Miles of unpaved roads managed by the Federal Highway Administration (source: Federal Highway Administration). Does not include private roads or Forest Service/BLM roads.
• Supports the Troops:  Active military personnel in each state (source: Census.gov).
• Works Until the Day Is Through:  Ranked from lowest unemployment rate to highest (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics).

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