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 The summary tables in the 1860 census publication presented a different approach to large-area combinations. Map B in shows the standard grouping as a general-purpose arrangement into five divisions, which appeared in a number of statistical tables on agriculture and manufacturing. Two of the divisions, New England and the Middle States, were identical to the official Great Divisions of 1850 (see ). One innovation of this publication was the use of the word Western (in the Western Division) instead of Northwest to designate the interior part of the Nation; another was the name Pacific, appearing for the first time to designate a combination of States.

Another grouping of States (Map C in ) appeared in a specialized table of railroad mileage and costs. This arrangement made some changes to the framework of the five 1860 divisions. It combined Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee into Interior South; it retitled much of the Western Division as Interior North; and it subdivided the remainder of the Southern Division into Southern Atlantic and Gulf. New England and the Middle Divisions did not change.

The 1850 and 1860 censuses involved a general enumeration of annual deaths; the compilations appeared in several tables of mortality statistics that featured various kinds of large-area summary units. One table on mortality statistics used seven natural divisions for comparing 1850 and 1860 information. This approach summarized information on the basis of the physical aspects of the country (see ). The geographic coverage is selective and includes only part of the Nation. Some categories represent groups of entire States (Pacific Coast, Northeastern, and Northwestern States), while others refer to groups of counties or parts of States. This regional categorization reflected a continuation of DeBow’s attempts to divide the Nation into natural regions, albeit from a different perspective. The use of counties as building blocks cumulating to larger geographic areas foreshadowed later efforts in statistical and map presentations in the 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900 censuses. Statistical Groupings6-9