How good is yr geography?

I was just wondering, what's up with US states having so many straight line borders? I can't think of anywhere else in the world where there are so many straight borders.

Many of the borders are setup at latitude and longitude lines.

The land was also eventually split up into blocks by the Federal government, which is why you go across many midwest states there are roads every mile on a grid but in some of the older states you don't as many lands were already in private hands and the roads developed differently.

I think you can see this even today if say comparing driving across the country side in Illinois or Ohio or Indiana then say going to Virginia or Kentucky, which were developed out a bit earlier. My dad collected maps and always found some of this fascinating.

Many of the borders are setup at latitude and longitude lines.

or were until the surveyors fucked it up: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/colorado-is-not-a-rectangle/

There is plenty of weirdness galore out there. The Kentucky Bend is one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Bend

I always figured there was a TC Boyle novel probably out there to be made about that place.

related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811%E2%80%931812_New_Madrid_earthquakes

what's up with US states having so many straight line borders?

A combination of things. The Enlightenment loved regularization, neat categories and logical units, and the gentry who ran the government were all in on this philosophy. As the USA expanded and claimed new territories for itself, those territories were rapidly surveyed into one mile square units by the USGS. This was seen as one of the crucial preliminary steps toward extending 'civilization' and the rule of law into the unruly wilderness.

Also, when you get into the prairie states, the general lack of rivers and mountains imposes very few natural boundaries, so drawing state and county borders along these survey lines was both easy and obvious.

what's up wit that little nub of MN that sticks up into Canada?

what's up wit that little nub of MN that sticks up into Canada?

_what's up wit that little nub of MN that sticks up into Canada?_

🕸

Wow I had no idea that existed

There’s an interesting thing about the Sask/Manitoba border from USA up to Flin Flon— as you go north, the border jogs to the east sporadically (and regularly). It is very strange and I don’t fully understand why they didn’t just make it a direct line

The jogs are so small you can’t see it unless you use Googlemaps… start at Flin Flon and scroll south

That's really weird.. the steps seem so aritrary

arbitrary

I've been interested in this island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killiniq_Island

It's the only part of Newfoundland/Labrador that shares a border with Nunavut
Except that this area of Newfoundland/Labrador has been since 2005 an autonomous region (Nunatsiavut)
Except that the province of Quebec does not recognize the established border between itself and Newfoundland/Labrador, and claims Killiniq Island entirely as its owen
Except that this area of Quebec is at present under application to become its own autonomous region (Nunavik)

Also, the island has been uninhabited since 1978

Also off Newfoundland are the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, which are French, not Canadian.. that's pretty weird in itself

Why the zigzag between Sask. and Man.?

start at Flin Flon and scroll south

hott

This book to thread. There's a companion TV show, but the book is better.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71M5eHFp6OL.jpg

It always looks to me like as the US expanded westward, mapmakers just got lazier, like "fuuuuuuck this is a lot of land, fuck it"

That's actually not too far off. The CLUI had a great exhibition called INITIAL POINTS - ANCHORS OF AMERICA’S GRID

THERE IS AN initial point to the USA. In fact, there are 37 of them. They are the original land anchor points for the first federal surveys that mapped and claimed the nation’s lands from its previous owners (the Indians, Spanish, French, Russians, etc). These Initial Points were established by surveyors dispatched into the field, usually soon after treaties and other agreements were signed, to tie the new territory to the Public Land Survey System, the rectilinear grid that covers more than two-thirds of the landscape of the USA, as mandated by the Continental Congress of 1785.

Each survey of new federal land had to begin from a single, precisely measured starting point. In 1785 the initial Initial Point was established, and it took more than a century for the process to play out. Finally, by 1881, the last of 32 Initial Points in the contiguous continental United States was set. Between 1905 and 1956, the final five in Alaska were completed, bringing the total to 37.

Starting in 2010, working with the Institute of Marking and Measuring, the CLUI began putting together an exhibit about these Initial Points as they look today, believing that it would reveal much about the often arcane process of surveying, as well as provide a new kind of historical portrait of the American land. The exhibit opened at the Center’s Los Angeles display space in late 2011, and was shown until February, 2012, after which it traveled to the National Museum of Surveying, in Springfield, Illinois.

These surveying points, located in places such as swamps, under manhole covers in roads, and on top of mountains, are the physical locations that tied the conceptual grid to the ground. Though many of them were made obsolete by subsequent surveys, they all remain as important overlooked historic sites. Looking at them in a contemporary context explores the process and importance of the endeavor of surveying, and reveals a latent cadastral history of the nation, as it expanded westward.

One of my great-uncles was a pilot and surveyor in North Africa during the 1920s. Somehow, I ended up with his equipment and I can't even begin to break down the task of surveying something like all of Libya with just pencil, paper, protractor, and a couple of survey scopes the size of my middle finger.

I wonder if they pointed out that simile to him before sending him to survey Libya

lack of input from pleasant plains has me worried about him

While we’re talking about US/Canada weirdness and exclaves, how about Point Roberts? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington

Point Roberts has been in the news a fair amount lately, due to the covid entry/exit restrictions

enjoyed this random geography fact

The Northernmost part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the Southernmost part of Brazil pic.twitter.com/wj5wRtuiFA

— Amazing Maps (@amazingmap) January 17, 2023