Citizens of the U.S. regularly complain about their government, being corrupt and so on. While citizens of the Netherlands also complain about their government, we do not perceive them as corrupt. We tend to think that corrupcy gets no chance in a small country where almost everybody knows almost everybody.
Today I thought: 'How many people live in the federal states?' Each has its own government. Is it comparable with ours? Well, what do you think? Holland would be the 5th largest state of the U.S., if we were the 51th. We have appr. 16 million inhabitants.

Now I assume that the populations of the individual states do have opportunity for close contact with their federal governments. Does this help fight corrupcy?

Alabama		 4,530,182
Alaska		   655,435
Arizona		 5,743,834
Arkansas	 2,752,629
California	35,893,799
Colorado	 4,601,403
Connecticut	 3,503,604
Delaware	   830,364
DC 		   553,523
Florida		17,397,161
Georgia		 8,829,383
Hawaii		 1,262,840
Idaho		 1,393,262
Illinois	12,713,634
Indiana		 6,237,569
Iowa		 2,954,451
Kansas		 2,735,502
Kentucky	 4,145,922
Louisiana	 4,515,770
Maine		 1,317,253
Maryland	 5,558,058
Massachus.	 6,416,505
Michigan	10,112,620
Minnesota	 5,100,958
Mississippi	 2,902,966
Missouri	 5,754,618
Montana		   926,865
Nebraska	 1,747,214
Nevada		 2,334,771
New Hampsh.	 1,299,500
New Jersey	 8,698,879
New Mexico	 1,903,289
New York	19,227,088
North Car.	 8,541,221
North Dak.	   634,366
Ohio		11,459,011
Oklahoma	 3,523,553
Oregon		 3,594,586
Pennsylvan.	12,406,292
Rhode Isl.	 1,080,632
South Car.	 4,198,068
South Dak.	   770,883
Tennessee	 5,900,962
Texas		22,490,022
Utah		 2,389,039
Vermont		   621,394
Virginia	 7,459,827
Washington	 6,203,788
West Virg.	 1,815,354
Wisconsin	 5,509,026
Wyoming		   506,529

Total U.S. 293,655,404

See http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0004986.html