Okay, I finally got the mapped variable figured out!

map $uri $site_folder {
~^/(?P<folder>[a-zA-Z]+)/.* $folder ;
}

Now, I just need to figure out how to use it in the location block???

This is what I am trying:

location ^~ /$site_folder/ {
#rewrite ^/$site_folder/(.*) /$1;
}


Is it okay to use the named variable in the location like that? It's not picking it up...

If I use this:

location ^~ / {
return 301 $scheme://www.google.com?q=$site_folder;
}

It DOES redirect to google with the proper variable in there.