I like your map (and I know it’s a few years old at this point), but I feel that the United States is ranked unfairly. While certainly not the oldest civilization in the world, it’s unfair to say that it lacks history.

I think it depends on which part of the United States you travel to. While you’re certainly not going to feel much of an historic presence in, say, Seattle, or Phoenix, or Los Angeles, for example, you’ll definitely find more of it on the East Coast. I live in Massachusetts and I see it every day. We have plenty of historic towns with lots of structures dating back to the 17th century, home to many notable historic events, such as in Salem, Plymouth, Newburyport, Ipswich, Concord, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard, among others. Even parts of Boston, like Charlestown and the North End, have preserved lots of colonial buildings. Similar styles of architecture can be found in abundance in surrounding states like in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine.

Going further down south, we have other historic cities that are remarkably well-preserved. In Virginia, there is Williamsburg, Leesburg, Fredericksburg, and Alexandria. In Delaware there is New Castle and Dover. Maryland’s capital Annapolis is a very quaint seaside colonial city, as are Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia.

But those are just examples of the British colonial architecture of the 13 original colonies (and there are many more examples as such, but I’ll move on). The United States is huge and was cobbled together from pieces of many different empires, all of which left their mark on the various American cities they ruled over. Check out, for example, the French Quarter in New Orleans, or the unique indigenous-styled city of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The old Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the contiguous United States, founded in 1565.

And finally, I’d say the second most iconic time period that people think about when thinking of “American history”, after the Colonial/Revolutionary period, is the Wild West period. There are many strongly preserved frontier towns in the Western USA: In Arizona, there’s Tombstone and Oatman. In Nevada, Virginia City. In Wyoming, Cody. In South Dakota, Deadwood. And in Kansas, of course, Dodge City – famous for coining the phrase “Get outta Dodge.” There are also preserved ghost towns like Bodie, California, used today as history museums.

There are plenty more examples of stunning history in the United States, but I think you get the picture! I’m sure there’s plenty of good colonial stuff in Canada as well (although I’ve only ever been to Toronto and Niagara Falls, so I haven’t personally seen it!)

I know in the USA we don’t have millennia-old ancient ruins like the kind you see in Italy, Greece, or Egypt, but we do have marvelously well-preserved historic structures that have lasted for centuries if you know where to find them. What little we have, we make sure to take care of, because we’re proud of it, even if it’s not Europe-level ancient.

Take care!