Category: U.S. States
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Delaware’s Border Tax
Recently I featured the Southwick Jog, a little appendage of Massachusetts that juts into the northern tier of Connecticut. Then a reader brought a recent article in the Hartford Courant to my attention. Geographically, the town of Southwick in Massachusetts includes the entirety of Congamond Lake within its boundaries. So it intends to levy fees…
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The Erie Triangle
If one ponders a map of the United State’s and focuses on one of its four Commonwealths, specifically Pennsylvania, one will notice something a bit odd with its borders. The northern, southern and western borders all form straight lines of exact longitude or latitude. However there’s an exception, a little notch at the far northwestern…
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Traveling Man
It seems I’ve done a lot of traveling as I look back across the last several months. I travel fairly frequently anyway for work and for pleasure, but this has been a particularly busy period. Here’s a recap of places I’ve visited since the Spring, as told through previous Twelve Mile Circle dispatches. If you’ve…
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Highest and Lowest, Oh So Close
California contains both the highest and lowest elevations of the continental United States. Well, the “Lower 48” more precisely. Astoundingly, they are less than 88 miles (142 kilometers) apart with an elevation change approaching 15,000 feet. Mount Whitney is the California Highpoint at 14,494 feet (4,418 meters) above sea level. It crowns the mighty Sierra…
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The Forgotten River Capital
Mortals try to control nature and generally fail. I love it when people select rivers for boundaries. Invariable rivers flood, carve new channels, and people pretend it never happened. The old boundary remains in place with a chunk of territory now sitting on the “wrong” side of the river, fully separated from its homeland. I…
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Slug Lines
Geography can influence social behavior and that’s the case with slug lines. This article has nothing to do with gastropods. Rather it’s a commuting method originating organically without any type of government involvement or sanction in the Washington, DC area. Since then it has also spread to other cities. It’s an efficient arrangement that matches…
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Arizona Monsoon
I arrived in Arizona just fine on the flight made possible by John McCain so I’m posting from Phoenix today. Arizona continues to surprise me. It’s summertime so we’re in that half of the year when the clocks align with the Pacific states. Arizona does not recognize Daylight Saving Time, as I’ve explained in a…
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In the 4th of July Spirit
With the 4th of July holiday upon us, I thought it would be good to start this post with an image of Independence Hall (map). Here, the Founding Fathers created the Declaration of Independence so many years ago. That document had a profound and abundant impact on the foundation of the United States, a fact…
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South? Carolina
I don’t have a particularly remarkable entry planned for today. However, I do have an observation. A huge chunk of the state of South Carolina extends further north than places in North Carolina. So that seems to contradict with the name South Carolina. Doesn’t it? The entire shaded area of South Carolina rests at latitudes…
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Narrowest Point in Maryland
Maryland is about 250 miles long and about 100 miles wide at its greatest extremities. However, at one point it narrows to less than two miles where it forms its western panhandle. This is due to one natural geographic feature and one artificial line determined by humans. The Maryland-West Virginia border along this stretch hugs…