State Shapes Quiz

Oklahoma

Oklahoma has a distinctive narrow panhandle extending west between Texas and Kansas, giving the state its recognizable saucepan-like outline.

Kansas

Kansas has a rectangular outline typical of the Great Plains states, its long north and south borders following straight lines drawn by early surveyors.

Georgia

Georgia has a compact outline with a straight northern border with Tennessee, an Atlantic coastline in the southeast, and a long southern boundary with Florida.

North Carolina

North Carolina stretches from the Appalachian Mountains in the west to a jagged Atlantic coastline marked by the Outer Banks barrier islands in the east.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire narrows sharply toward the north, squeezed between Vermont and Maine before reaching a short strip of Atlantic coastline in the south.

West Virginia

West Virginia has an unusual outline with two narrow panhandles, one pointing north between Ohio and Pennsylvania and one pointing east.

Virginia

Virginia has an irregular outline shaped by the Chesapeake Bay and a narrow eastern peninsula, plus mountainous terrain in its far southwest.

Ohio

Ohio's southern border follows the winding Ohio River, while its other sides are drawn more as straight lines, giving the state an irregular five-sided outline.

Missouri

Missouri has a distinctive "bootheel" projecting from its southeastern corner, a small rectangular extension into the Mississippi Delta.

Texas

Texas is known for its distinctive northern panhandle, a long Gulf of Mexico coastline, and a winding Rio Grande border in the south.

Nevada

Nevada is shaped roughly like a triangle, with a straight northern border and diagonal lines converging toward its narrow southern tip near Las Vegas.

Maine

Maine's coastline is deeply indented and rocky, dotted with countless bays, peninsulas, and offshore islands along the Atlantic.

Kentucky

Kentucky's northern border follows the winding Ohio River, giving the state an irregular, curving edge along its entire northern side.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin sits between two Great Lakes, with Lake Superior along its north and Lake Michigan tracing its long eastern shoreline.

Vermont

Vermont narrows toward its southern end, forming a rough triangle wedged between New York's Lake Champlain shoreline and the New Hampshire border.

North Dakota

North Dakota is nearly rectangular, with straight survey lines on three sides while the winding Red River forms its eastern border with Minnesota.

Arkansas

Arkansas has a fairly compact, roughly rectangular outline, with its eastern edge following the winding course of the Mississippi River.

Louisiana

Louisiana's coastline is deeply cut by the marshy delta of the Mississippi River, giving its southern edge an irregular, fragmented look.

Illinois

Illinois is a long, roughly rectangular state stretching north to south, bounded on the west by the Mississippi River.

Connecticut

Connecticut is a small, roughly rectangular state on Long Island Sound, its southern coastline curving gently along the water.

Idaho

Idaho has a distinctive shape, with a narrow northern panhandle squeezed between Washington and Montana that widens into a broader southern block.

Mississippi

Mississippi has a fairly compact, elongated shape running north to south, with the Mississippi River forming most of its western border.

South Carolina

South Carolina fans out from a narrow inland border toward a wide, curved Atlantic coastline in the southeast.

Alaska

Alaska's outline features the long, narrow Alaska Panhandle stretching southeast along the Pacific coast, plus the Aleutian Islands arcing far into the ocean.

California

California stretches long and narrow along the Pacific coast, with a straight northern border with Oregon and a long diagonal line running southeast along Nevada.

Michigan

Michigan is split into two separate peninsulas, the Lower and Upper Peninsulas, joined only by the Mackinac Bridge across the straits.

Washington

Washington's western half is deeply cut by Puget Sound, while the Columbia River traces much of its southern border with Oregon.

Montana

Montana has a mostly rectangular outline, but its northwestern border with Idaho turns jagged and irregular as it follows the crest of the Rocky Mountains.

New Jersey

New Jersey sits on a peninsula between the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean, giving it a long coastline relative to its small land area.

Maryland

Maryland has an unusually fragmented shape, split by the wide Chesapeake Bay and narrowing to a thin strip along its western panhandle.

Delaware

Delaware's northern border with Pennsylvania traces a nearly perfect 12-mile arc centered on New Castle, one of the few circular state boundaries in the country.

Massachusetts

Massachusetts is a roughly rectangular state whose Atlantic coastline curls into the hook-shaped peninsula of Cape Cod in the southeast.

Hawaii

Hawaii is an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, the only US state with no land border shared with any other state.

Colorado

Colorado is one of the few US states with a perfectly rectangular outline, its borders drawn entirely along lines of latitude and longitude.

Oregon

Oregon’s southern and much of its eastern border are straight lines, while the Columbia River shapes its northern edge and the Snake River cuts part of the Idaho border.

Florida

Florida forms a long peninsula extending south between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, with a panhandle stretching west along the Gulf coast.

Indiana

Indiana has a compact, roughly rectangular shape with a short shoreline on Lake Michigan tucked into its northwestern corner.

Utah

Utah is close to a perfect rectangle, except for a small notch in its northeastern corner where the border with Wyoming shifts west.

New Mexico

New Mexico's borders are drawn mostly as straight lines, forming a near-rectangle except for a small notch called the bootheel in its southwest corner.

Arizona

Arizona is nearly rectangular, but its western border bends along the Colorado River, and its northeast corner touches the Four Corners, the only point where four states meet.

Iowa

Iowa's borders are set almost entirely by rivers, with the Mississippi forming its eastern edge and the Missouri and Big Sioux forming its western edge.

Wyoming

Wyoming is one of the few states with a nearly perfect rectangular outline, its borders drawn entirely as straight lines of latitude and longitude.

New York

New York has a jagged eastern border along New England, plus Long Island extending far out into the Atlantic from its southeastern corner.

Tennessee

Tennessee is long and narrow, stretching over 400 miles from east to west while remaining relatively shallow from north to south.

Minnesota

Minnesota's northern border includes the Northwest Angle, a small detached tip that is the northernmost point in the contiguous United States.

South Dakota

South Dakota is divided roughly in half by the Missouri River, which runs diagonally across the state's mostly rectangular outline.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is largely rectangular, but a narrow strip in its northwest corner gives it a small stretch of shoreline on Lake Erie.

Nebraska

Nebraska's eastern border follows the winding Missouri River, while its western and southern edges are drawn as straight survey lines.

Alabama

Alabama's shape is a wide, blocky rectangle with a short notch of coastline in the far south around Mobile Bay, its only outlet to the Gulf of Mexico.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island's coastline is deeply cut by Narragansett Bay, which splits the small state into a mainland section and several bay islands.