  Given the centrality of regions in social movements, politics and public
administration we aim to quantitatively study inter- and intra-regional
communication for the first time. This work uses social media posts to first
identify contiguous geographical regions with a shared social identity and then
investigate patterns of communication within and between them. Our case study
uses over 150 days of located Twitter data from England and Wales. In contrast
to other approaches, (e.g. phone call data records or online friendship
networks) we have the message contents as well as the social connection. This
allows us to investigate not only the volume of communication but also the
sentiment and vocabulary. We find that the South-East and North-West regions
are the most talked about; regions tend to be more positive about themselves
than about others; people talk politics much more between regions than within.
This methodology gives researchers a powerful tool to study identity and
interaction within and between social-geographic regions.
