About · Field & Compass Press
The Survival Atlas grades every U.S. state and Canadian province against twenty-five factors, through a single lens — freedom, self-reliance, and resilience. Here's why it exists, how the grading works, and who's behind it.
They're born somewhere, take a job somewhere, and the most consequential decision of their lives gets made by default. But the ground beneath you decides how much of what you earn you keep, how free you are to live as you choose, how safe you'll be, and how well you'd weather a real crisis.
The Survival Atlas exists to turn that default into a deliberate choice. Not with opinions or vibes, but with a transparent, repeatable method that grades every place on the things that actually determine whether you can live free, self-reliant, and secure — and then lets you weight those things to your own life.
It's built for the person who'd rather choose their ground than be assigned it.
The Method
Each place is scored 0–100 on twenty-five factors, grouped into five clusters. The clusters average into a single letter grade — A to F — computed the same way for every state and province, so the grades are comparable, not editorial.
The printed grade weighs all twenty-five factors equally — an honest baseline that describes no one in particular. Your real grade is the one you get after you turn the dials to match your own priorities. The facts stay fixed; what changes is the order, and who lands at number one.
Our Principles
Every state and province earns an honest letter grade — including the popular ones, including the ones we'd personally choose. Favorites don't get rounded up.
We won't tell you what to value. We tell you how each place scores, then hand you the dials. Two honest people weigh the same data and get different #1s. Both are right.
Scores come from the record — law, cost, climate, risk — not reputation. And because the record changes, the grades are built to move when a tax passes or a reservoir drops.
This is a reference to think with, not advice to follow. It is not financial, legal, or relocation advice. The decision — and the responsibility for it — stays yours.
Start here
Turn the dials, watch all sixty-three places re-rank to your life, then read the full grade in the book.