Can you name the U.S. state capitals that are farthest from the geographic center of their respective states?

Distance from geographic center	State capital	Position of geographic center
700 miles
202 miles		Fremont Co., 58 miles ENE of Lander
167 miles		Custer Co., 10 miles NW of Broken Bow
163 miles		Lander Co., 26 miles SE of Austin
161 miles
160 miles		Barton Co., 15 miles NE of Great Bend
150 miles		Madera Co., 38 miles E of Madera
135 miles		Crook Co., 25 miles SSE of Prineville
122 miles		20d 15' N, 156d 20' W, off Maui Island
118 miles		Wexford Co., 5 miles NNW of Cadillac
116 miles		Fergus Co., 11 miles W of Lewistown
115 miles		Chelan Co., 10 miles WSW of Wenatchee
109 miles		McCulloch Co., 15 miles NE of Brady
109 miles		Wood Co., 9 miles SE of Marshfield
108 miles		Crow Wing Co., 10 miles SW of Brainerd
102 miles		Sanpete Co., 3 miles N of Manti

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Eccentric State Capitals Quiz

by dancastro

Created Jan 9, 2011 in Geography
Featured May 28, 2011
Game Plays 52,490

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Archived comments: show them

	Riko:	May 28th, 2011 at 04:15 GMT	18 points
	Damn, I really need to brush up on my state capitals. Fun quiz.

	fredact:	May 28th, 2011 at 04:28 GMT	29 points
	Mostly just name the capitals of the big states. Fun still.

	pfrijiritr:	May 28th, 2011 at 04:32 GMT	91 points
	A method of calculating distance by percent of average distance of points from the center would be more representative; a raw amount clearly favors big states in terms of measuring true eccentricity.

	Navarro2814:	May 28th, 2011 at 04:33 GMT	31 points
	^what he said^

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	PAisGreat:	May 28th, 2011 at 05:05 GMT	31 points
	Now we need a quiz for capitals closest to the center of their respective states.

	nickb1603:	May 28th, 2011 at 05:24 GMT	13 points
	I had one answer left with about 15 seconds, and I felt like it was Tallahassee. Problem is, it took me about 16 seconds to get the spelling right...

	jmatt22397:	May 28th, 2011 at 05:41 GMT	2 points
	Yeah, I was about to ask the same thing as PAisGreat. Is there one of those, cause that sounds like it would be cool.

	Pogues:	May 28th, 2011 at 05:46 GMT	28 points
	sschmader: You're out of your damn mind.

	tim0786:	May 28th, 2011 at 05:55 GMT	5 points
	@pogues: I wish I could vote up your comment multiple times!

	mogron:	May 28th, 2011 at 06:50 GMT	14 points
	Is there a country capitals version of this?

	singin185:	May 28th, 2011 at 12:03 GMT	5 points
	I was surprised Albany wasn't on here.

	singin185:	May 28th, 2011 at 12:04 GMT	9 points
	When I saw the title of the quiz, "Eccentric State Capitals" I immediately thought of Austin. Still, I managed to miss that one. ::facepalm::

	Ivar:	May 28th, 2011 at 12:16 GMT	14 points
	There needs to be a country capitals version of this.

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	WCRoentgen:	May 28th, 2011 at 13:23 GMT	5 points
	Got to agree with pfrijiritr: distance and eccentricity are not the same (think Albany and Boston). The instructions are clear but the Quiz title is misleading.

	dancastro:	May 28th, 2011 at 14:50 GMT	8 points
	To several comments above: I know that self advertising is usually voted down, but seemingly some people would prefer a "Centered state capitals" game (enter it in the search box at the top right) and others a "State capitals near state borders" (similar to the present game, but including many small and/or Eastern states). It simply happened that Sporcle chose to publish this one. For those asking for a country capitals version: it wasn't made because the position of the geographic centers of countries isn't so easily available, and sometimes isn't even well defined. In France, Germany, Mexico and many other countries you'll find several towns that boast to be in the "geographic center" of the country (even with monuments supposedly marking the exact position of that center).

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	yanks1020:	May 28th, 2011 at 14:54 GMT	3 points
	of course the only time i really need to know the capital of montana, it escapes my mind.

	eab21:	May 28th, 2011 at 15:27 GMT	2 points
	The front page picture made me dizzy.

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	pirate6711:	May 28th, 2011 at 15:42 GMT	-3 points
	Of the two I missed, I don't know a thing about the location of Lincoln, other than it's the capital of Nebraska, and I forgot just how far south in the state Madison is.

	Dralcoffin:	May 28th, 2011 at 17:06 GMT	1 point
	Maybe to take into account for large states, divide each number by the square mileage in thousands of each state? (This is still a great quiz. It always struck me how lopsided some of the Western states are.)

	Margann:	May 28th, 2011 at 19:02 GMT	-2 points
	This is a great quiz. I can't believe I got them all in the time limit. I just wrote whatever came to mind. Well done!! :)

	NotBurt:	May 28th, 2011 at 19:21 GMT	6 points
	I have to agree with the others. Distance in absolute terms from the center is not the equivalent of eccentricity, which is relative. Boston is at one end of Massachusetts; Austin was chosen for its central location, yet Austin is here and Boston is not. Once I figured out that the quiz was misnamed, I just played it as "name the capitals of states more than two hundred four miles wide or long."

	Etheridge2:	May 28th, 2011 at 19:40 GMT	-3 points
	Did anyone else think there was too much time I was able to type in all the capital cities, making it a tad easy. I would think an answer in order might be a good call on this one, though as I didn't see it suggested I may be in the minority on this one. GREAT IDEA though and still a fun quiz.

	Jerdoggiedog:	May 28th, 2011 at 21:18 GMT	-4 points
	1) The total distance thing is dumb, but dancastro addressed this so I won't blame him. 2) This type of quiz might work well with the right/wrong feature so we can have more time to remember the capitals but can be penalized for wrong answers.

	johnlk:	May 28th, 2011 at 22:53 GMT	1 point
	I'm not a huge fan, because it is based on total distance. So some place like Austin, which is actually fairly close to the center of the state, is on here, but Boston, which is not at all, is not. It should be based on some ratio to total area.

	The_Dude:	May 29th, 2011 at 00:14 GMT	5 points
	Tried states instead of capitals for about 2 minutes lol

	Bretzky:	May 29th, 2011 at 01:00 GMT	1 point
	This quiz would be more meaningful (and fun) if it adjusted for the size of the states.