Can you name the longest states (those with the greatest distance between the farthest points within each of them)? by dancastro

Can you name the longest states (those with the greatest distance between the farthest points within each of them)?

created by dancastro

Enter a state in the box below
Correctly named states will show up below
Answers do not have to be guessed in order
Extreme points must be on mainland (excludes adjacent islands or keys and borders on water).
This quiz has not been verified by Sporcle

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Maximum distance	State	Distance measured between
2,388 km (1,484 mi)
1,334 km (829 mi)
1,298 km (807 mi)
1,015 km (630 mi)
949 km (590 mi)
907 km (564 mi)
906 km (563 mi)
859 km (534 mi)
840 km (522 mi)
802 km (498 mi)

Maximum distance	State	Distance measured between
802 km (498 mi)
786 km (488 mi)
779 km (484 mi)
769km (478 mi)
767 km (476 mi)
752 km (467 mi)
745 km (463 mi)
734 km (456 mi)
729 km (453 mi)
723 km (449 mi)

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Longest states Quiz

by dancastro

Created Aug 11, 2010 in Geography
Game Plays 737

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	themanintraining:	Aug 12th, 2010 at 03:54 GMT	3 points
	great game - less time for sure though. i definitely only got north carolina because of random guessing for the last minute.

	thedpr:	Aug 12th, 2010 at 14:45 GMT	3 points
	Instead of listing the 20 or so longest states, put all 50 there and make us list them in order. Otherwise we're just listing biggish states and not really thinking about it.

	dancastro:	Aug 12th, 2010 at 16:23 GMT	4 points
	@thedpr: I have thought this alternative (to guess the answers in order) when making the game. But as you can see, the differences in length are sometimes very small (Nebraska surpasses Tennessee by only 1,500 feet!), and therefore to say that NE is the 10th and TN the 11th is somewhat nitpicky. And if we want to include all the states, the endless debates about islands or boundaries on water begin ("if half of Lake Michigan legally belongs to Wisconsin, why do you include only the land portion?",etc.) Like many other Sporcle games, there is a honest way to play (to figure in your head the map of the US and try to see mentally which states are longer) and a somewhat cheating way (to type fast all the states and hope to win points by sheer luck). It's in each one how he/she wants to play.

	thedpr:	Aug 12th, 2010 at 19:25 GMT	2 points
	Small distinctions in the rankings, sure, but that happens with every "rank in order" quiz and it's still fun. As far as the second issue raised, just point to your "mainland" caveat above and be done with it.

	basketm19:	Aug 13th, 2010 at 03:15 GMT	2 points
	wouldnt the longest distance for tennessee be instead the tripont with mississippi and arkansas? and wouldnt colorado's distance not matter for both diagnols because it is a square?

	dancastro:	Aug 13th, 2010 at 04:18 GMT	4 points
	@basketm19: it's exactly what appears in the answer, "tripoint with AR and MS", that is Arkansas and Mississippi. As for Colorado: I knew that someone would ask this question! Yes, in theory the borders of Colorado are the parallels of 37º and 40º and the meridians of 25º and 32º west of Washington, and therefore both diagonals should be of the same length. But this is only in theory. The surveying methods of the 19th century were only approximate and the four corners of the state aren't exactly where they should be. When you measure the actual distance with modern methods (like Google Earth) you find that the NW-SE diagonal is about 0.8 miles longer than the SW-NE diagonal.

	dancastro:	Aug 13th, 2010 at 04:36 GMT	3 points
	I meant the parallels of 37º and 41º.