Earlier I crudely redivided the USA into states the size of California, its most populous state. This results in eight states. But what if old England, having abandoned Europe and been abandoned by Scotland and the other bits of its shabby island hegemony, somehow ended up in the Union?
Leaving aside all the actual important and interesting social and demographic consequences of such a near-future scenario, here’s a dumb map of what America would look like if the current states were kept, but glommed together to form larger ones with the population of England—roughly 55m each.
Now you have six (not including England itself.)