Category: U.S. States
-
All Ways – Every Cardinal Direction
I put a little throwaway comment at the tail-end of my recent All Ways South article. There I demonstrated that someone could travel due south from Missouri into each of its eight neighboring states from at least one point along their shared borders. As I thought about it I noted, “Come to think of it,…
-
All Ways South
I noticed a claim on the Intertubes, primarily because someone using a search engine landed on Twelve Mile Circle seeking more information. It asserted that one can travel due south from Missouri to enter each state that borders it. That doesn’t seem logical so that’s why the claim attracts attention. Missouri and Tennessee are the…
-
Mardela to Delmar
I’ve expressed my enjoyment of geographic portmanteaus previously. These are place names created by mashing together two or more other place names. Delmarva is a perfect example. The Delmarva Peninsula on the east coast of the United States is bound on the east by the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the west…
-
Alternate Rhode Islands
Something has to be the smallest. Most of us, or at least those of us in the 12MC audience from the United States, probably know that Rhode Island (map) claims this honor for the U.S. So exactly how small is it though? One hears frequently of individual counties within the United States as being “larger…
-
Alabama Capitals
It took awhile for some new states admitted to the United States to settle down with a mature governance structure. Alabama fit that exact pattern. It had five capital cities in less than thirty years. Montgomery is the Alabama capital today (map). It has grown in size and stature to a couple hundred thousand residents…
-
Condensed Texas
I first came across Borden County, Texas in More Land than People, Part 2. It’s amongst the 63 out of 3,143 counties or equivalents where square mileage exceeds the number of its inhabitants. For Borden (map), that was 897.4 square miles for only 641 people recorded in the 2010 Decennial Census so there was plenty…
-
Political Access
No less than the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) made an interesting claim. They called it “Other Interstate Trivia, but I considered it Gold. “All but five state capitals are served by the interstate highway system. Those that are not served are: Juneau, AK; Dover, DE; Jefferson City, MO; Carson City, NV;…
-
Bad Boys Revisited
Everybody sing along! “Bad boys, bad boys / Watcha gonna do / Watcha gonna do when they come for you?” That’s right, if I’m quoting lyrics from Inner Circle then I must be talking about the long-running television show COPS again. Apparently more 12MC readers are fans of COPS than I ever imagined when I…
-
The Largest Smallest US County (population)
If the “Largest Smallest United States County” sounds fleetingly familiar, you are correct. I covered a variant of this a couple of years ago. Count yourself among the small group of 12MC devotees who have been following along and paying attention for quite awhile. Recently I was contacted by reader Ariel who wondered if I’d…
-
State Centers of Population
The concept of population centers fascinates me. In the United States the U.S. Census bureau defines the Mean Center of Population. “The point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location…