I agree with Joe Offer about Pennsylvania being the most diverse eastern state.

Physically - plain, piedmont, mountains and hills, and a Great Lake. (New York can also claim this) North Carolina has an ocean the PA doesn't have.
PA ranges from forests and farms to major cities and "Megalopolis" and sprawl (SE PA)

Culturally - vernacular architecture ranging from New England style clapboard houses and stone walls in the north to Georgian stone houses and bank barns, as well as the lagrgest concentration of eighteenth century houses in America in Philadelphia.
music traditions that encompass both the Northern and Southern traditions as well as PA Dutch traditions.
PA is in between the two dominant cultural regions in America and borders the great lakes and the midwest. I can't htink of any other East Coast state that is similar.