United States

Prior to the Great War, the United States had an intermediate level of government between the state and federal powers. In the early 21st century, the nation was divided into thirteen commonwealths. It was believed that such divisions would help create legislation broad enough to affect states with common concerns, but narrow enough to leave dissimilar states alone. In reality, it created even more strife, as commonwealths typically did everything they could to promote their own interests at the expense of other commonwealths. The United States flag was changed as well. The new flag depicted 13 stars in a circle and one in the middle. The middle star probably represented the unity of the nation.

The commonwealths
The thirteen commonwealths were:


 * Columbia - Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia
 * East Central – Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee
 * Eastern – West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York
 * Four States – Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
 * Gulf – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida
 * Midwest – Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan
 * New England – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut
 * North – Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota
 * Northwest – Northern California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska
 * Plains – Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma
 * Southeast – Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina
 * Southwest – Southern California, Nevada, Hawaii
 * Texas – Texas, Arkansas

After the Great War, the remnant of the U.S. Government which survived at the Poseidon Oil Oil Rig in Pacific, became the Enclave.

Appearances in games
All Fallout games so far take place in the territory of the former United States.

Behind the scenes
The initial idea of dividing the country into thirteen zones came from Leonard Boyarsky. In Fallout Bible 8 Tim Cain reported that Leon said he used that flag because it looked cool and he didn't want to use a standard American flag with 50 stars. Eventually he planned to make up something about 13 super-states or something, but he never did. According to J. E. Sawyer, Tramell Isaac, who rendered the intro cinematic for Fallout said that they just took the old colonial flag and added a new star in the middle. It was further elaborated upon by J. E. Sawyer, who broke up the US into zones.

Number of stars
There was much misunderstanding about the number of stars on the flag and the corresponding zones, because not all of them are actually visible in the only available picture depicting it. Chris Avellone erroneously stated that there are 13 of them in Fallout Bible 8. He was "corrected" by Red, who sent him the picture with the location of 11 stars marked. Until J. E. Sawyer ultimately clarified the issue in 2005, it was belived to be the correct version.