50 Insane facts about US Geography | You won't believe it Let's Watch

did you know that there's a part of the us that experiences nighttime for months
how about the fact that Kentucky sits on a sea or that there's a land mass in the
US that's actually expanding US geography is full of bizarre facts and surprises you would never imagine so get
ready we're about to explore 50 more insane facts about us
geography kicking us off with number 50 Florida is home to thousands of sink
holes the sunshine offers so much golden beaches diverse Wildlife retirement
homes and of course Florida man but it's also apparently a great place to fall
through the surface of the Earth a substantial part of Florida sits on top of limestone which is easily dissolved
by water and because of this several sink holes have opened up under the surface these include sink holes off the
coast like the giant sinkhole 50 Mi Southwest of Sarasota called the green banana this monster lies around 150 5 ft
under the Gulf of Mexico's surface despite the prevalence of sink holes Floridians seem to take it in stride
nicknaming Central Florida s Cole Valley fact 49 you can stand in four states at
once at the appropriately named four corners monument you can do something pretty surreal stand in four states at
the same time this is the only spot in the US where four state borders meet
Arizona Colorado New Mexico and Utah all thanks to their largely Square shapes
fact number 48 the Rocky Mountains are still growing the appalation mountains
stopped growing around 220 million years ago but the Rocky Mountains are geologically speaking youngsters only 65
to 35 million years old and they continue to grow even today that's why the main mountain range of the US West
Coast is much taller than the Appalachian Mountains with the tallest mountain reaching up to
14,44 ft while the tallest mountain in Appalachia only reaches up to 6,684 Ft fact 47 Kentucky is almost
evenly split between two time zones many large states are split into different time zones but Kentucky is unique
because it is practically split down the middle the western part of the state including important cities like Bowling
Green sits in the central time zone while the eastern part of the state sits in eastern Time or EST next up fact 46
the us has the largest island in the largest lake in the largest island in the largest lake in the world the US
side of Lake Superior the largest of the Great Lakes includes the Apostle Islands a group of 22 Islands known for kayaking
hiking and other Outdoor Adventures in the area and is Royale the largest island in the lake by far Isle Royale
has several Lakes on it the largest of which is Lake cisit and that lake has a few tiny Islands the largest of which is
Ryan Island all this is a result of the glacial activity that originally formed
the Great Lakes leaving plenty of bodies of water and eyelets Scattered behind fact 45 Nevada has over 600 ghost towns
Nevada has over 600 abandoned towns many of them boom and bust towns left over
from the gold rush and railroad construction Heyday of the state the most famous ghost town by far is riy
which was founded in 1905 and sits on the eastern border of Death Valley National Park
fact 44 Minnesota does not have 10,000 Lakes Minnesota is known as the Land of
10,000 lakes but that nickname isn't actually true in fact Minnesota has
around 11,800 lakes with some sources claiming over 14,000 throughout the state that
leads us into our next fact number 43 Minnesota doesn't have the most lakes of
any state despite its reputation Minnesota is not the most Lake covered state in the country
that honor goes to Alaska with a whopping 3.2 million Lakes throughout
its territory although only around 3,200 of them have been named the sheer number
of lakes is mostly due to past glacial activity rainfall and the current Arctic climate which causes glaciers and
permafrost to melt creating Millions upon millions of lakes fact number 42
the US has the only territory in the utc-12 time zone in addition to the 50 main
states the US has many territories abroad mostly in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean most of its
territories in the Pacific with the exception of Guam fall under the US minor outlying Islands these include
Howland and Baker Islands which have the distinction of being the only land masses in the world that fall within the
rarest Time Zone on Earth UTC minus 12 though other countries and islands in
the area like Tonga Fiji and Samoa fall within similar longitudes they've decided to stick with neighboring time
zones instead to facilitate easier communication and working relationships with their neighbors however Howland and
Baker islands are uninhabited functioning mostly As Wildlife refugees and nature preserves today keeping with
the theme of Separation fact number 41 one state capital can't be accessed by
Road Juno Alaska is surrounded by mountains and Glaciers making driving into it almost impossible for that
reason people have to get to Juno by sea or air making it the only state capital
that can't be accessed by Road okay technically Honolulu can't be accessed
by Road from the rest of the Mainland us either but it does have roads leading to it from the rest of the island so we
won't count it here fact number 40 the US Canada border is the longest
undefended border in the world maybe it's because of the friendly relations between the two Nations or maybe it's
the miles of snow covered forests and ice cold Lakes acting as a natural barrier either way neither country has
felt the need to build much in the way of Border defenses that makes the US Canada border which adds up to almost
5,525 Mi the longest undefended border in the world fact 39 10% of the world's
freshwater is in Lake Superior everyone knows that the Great Lakes are huge but did you know that Lake Superior the
largest of them all is so large that 10% of the entire world's freshwater Supply
is held within it it's the largest freshwater lake by surface area in the
world it covers 31,700 Mi with an average depth of 483
ft fact number 38 the Florida keys are partly made of coral the Florida keys
made up of over 1,700 named islands and many extra minor ones expand off the
southern tip of Florida into the Gulf of Mexico in addition to being home to North America's only coral reef the keys
themselves are partly made of coral as well specifically the upper keys are made of the remains of ancient coral
reefs that thrive during the Pline Epoch 125,000 years ago when sea levels were
much higher meanwhile the Lower Keys are mostly made of sandb bars fact 37 the US
had a city larger than London in 1100 the Cahokia Mounds are a popular tourist
attraction in Illinois and are the largest pre-colombian site north of Mexico they're also the remains of a
massive Native American city that was flourishing all the way back in the 12th century the Mounds cover around 4,000
Acres or 1600 hectares and based on the findings there archaeologists estimate the population to have been around
20,000 people in 1100 at that time the city of London had just over 15,000
people details about the civilization including why it ended up disappearing
remain unknown to this day though fact 36 the sultan sea was the result of poor
construction and led to its abandonment in 1905 an irrigation canal was being
built in the Imperial Valley near the then Sultan sink that had formed thanks to the San Andreas fault activity in the
area during the construction the Colorado River breached a shotty Canal leading to water pouring in into the
sink making it the saltan sea though this would soon make it a premier destination within California the way it
was formed would also lead to its downfall the salt and sea kept getting replenished by the irrigation runoff in
the area but there was one big problem the water flowing in had nowhere to go
over time it kept depositing salt until the sea became 50% saltier than the
ocean this killed off most of the fish and other living things in the sea leading leading to dead animal bodies
washing up on shore and a stench that remains to this day local hotels had no
way to put a positive spin on that and eventually the salt and sea was mostly abandoned fact 35 there's only one
tropical rainforest in US Territory elun National Forest is on the Caribbean
island of Puerto Rico most of the Mainland us with the exception of the very tip of Florida doesn't have the
climate to support a rainforest making elun the only tropical rainforest on US
Territory even at a massive 29,000 Acres it's still one of the smallest forests
within the US it's also one of the most diverse when it comes to plants and Wildlife that being said the US does
have plenty of temperate rainforests in the Pacific Northwest and Appalachian Mountains one of the most famous being
in Washington's Olympic National Park fact 34 water flows into three oceans
from one mountain in Montana's Glacier National Park lies the triple divide
Peak though most water in the US flows toward one ocean depending on which Watershed it's located in water from the
triple divide Peak flows into the Pacific Ocean Atlantic Ocean and even the Arctic Ocean that's because three
massive river systems come together at this point water can either go into the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers ending
up in the Gulf of Mexico the Columbia river that empties into the Pacific Ocean or the Saskatchewan river that
winds up into Hudson Bay and eventually the Arctic Ocean fact 33 Niagara Falls
is not the tallest waterfall in the US the honor of the tallest waterfall in the country goes to Yos Falls in Yos
National Park water at the top of the waterfall plunges 2400 ft toward the base below Niagara
Falls is famous partly because it provides a very scenic view but mostly because it's the largest waterfall by
width and volume at Peak flow more than 700,000 Gall per second Rush towards its
base at 25 M an hour number 32 St Augustine is the oldest continuously
inhabited town in the US Spanish explorers founded St Augustine florum in
1565 making it the oldest continuously inhabited town in the US older Native
American settlements unfortunately can't lay claim to that title as most of them were forcibly abandoned fact number 31
Oklahoma has a panhandle because of slavery take a look at a US map and you
might spot something unusual a narrow strip of land stretching across the top of Texas but belonging to Oklahoma this
Panhandle is just 34 Mi wide making it one of the most distinctive quirks of the state's shape originally it belonged
to Texas who wanted to enter the Union as a slave owning State thanks to the Missouri Compromise slavery wasn't
allowed north of the 36° 30-minute latitude so Texas gave up a small sliver
of its northern border for slavery that land is now known as no man's land and
less than 1% of Oklahomans live there fact number 30 Simmeron County is the
only County to border four states speaking of the Panhandle thanks to its odd geography it's also home to the only
state to border four other states simron county located in the western end of the Oklahoma Panhandle borders Texas Kansas
Colorado and New Mexico it has a population of almost 2200 so very few
people get to experience the ease of traveling to four states from there fact
29 Allen South Dakota is the most landlocked point in the Western
Hemisphere Allen South Dakota is the most inaccessible place by sea in the
entire us 1,25 mi from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans today it's part of
the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in Bennett County number 28 Texas is bigger
than any country fully in the European continent everything's bigger in Texas
including apparently the state itself excluding Russia which has most of its land mass in Asia Texas is bigger than
any individual European country fully on the continent itself the state has an
area of over 268,000 square miles the biggest European country is Ukraine at an area of almost
233,000 Mi followed by France at an area of around 210,000 sare mil fact number
27 Maryland is the only state with no natural lakes you might think that the
dry desert covered Southwestern States would lack Lakes but no Maryland is
actually the only US state without natural lakes lake Hab and Deep Creek
Lake two known Maryland Lakes are both man-made even Arizona has naturally
occurring Mormon Lake and Stoneman Lake though they occasionally dry up during long
droughts fact number 26 Vermont was its own country for 14 years people may
think of Texas as the once independent state that also thinks of Independence again from time to time but actually
Vermont was its own country for 14 years after the start of the Revolutionary War in 1776 Vermont decided it wasn't being
treated well by either the British king or the state of New York so it may as well go in its own Direction it declared
itself independent in 1777 the newly formed country had its
own currency and its own Constitution one that abolished slavery and gave all free men the right to vote though
Vermont joined the newly formed United States in 1791 it still references its Constitution when passing and enforcing
laws today fact number 25 5 New York is south of Rome it may sound strange given New
York's brisk Winters and Rome's Sunny reputation but it's true most of Europe
is warmed by the Atlantic current making European places at the same latitude as US cities significantly warmer New York
is on almost the same latitude as Madrid that's why while the average high
temperature in Rome in January is 55° f in New York it's 39° F in
dead fact number 24 Louisiana is losing lands to the Gulf of Mexico due to
increasing water levels and Coastline erosion Louisiana is slowly but steadily
losing land to the Gulf of Mexico and more than you might expect scientists estimate that every 100 minutes
Louisiana loses the equivalent of a football field to the gulf this is
alarming news for everyone who lives in those areas including the residents of New Orleans and the surrounding regions
one prediction estimates that at this rate by 2080 substantial parts of Southern Louisiana will be underwater
completely fact 23 Oklahoma has the most tornadoes per capita Oklahoma gets the
not at all wanted distinction of being home to the most tornadoes per square mile than any other state in the US the
state gets around 50 tornadoes every year most of them in the spring months between March and may but they can also
happen anytime that's because Oklahoma is right in the middle of Tornado Alley a stretch in the
middle of the country where conditions are ripe for tornadoes to form it's one of the only such Geographic locations in
the world thanks to the clash between cold dry air moving south from Canada and warm moist air moving North from the
Gulf of Mexico fact number 22 the outer banks are migrating West scientists have
observed that the Outer Banks located on the eastern most edge of North Carolina are slowly moving West this is thanks to
the fact that the outer banks are sand bars that aren't anchored to anything every time there's a storm or strong
winds waves will pick up the sand from the lower Eastern Shores and deposit it
further west over time this is literally changing the location of the
islands fact number 21 Hawaii's big island is growing some places in the US
are steadily losing land but others are appar currently growing Hawaii's Big Island the youngest member of the
Hawaiian archipelago has gained around 500 acres of land since 1983 this is due to the Island's
frequent volcanic activity as kilaa and mount aloa still erupt from time to time
the lava flows eventually cool down and become new land deposits this isn't happening with other older Hawaiian
Islands like aahu and Kawai because they're no longer actively volcanic so their Shoreline is slow slowly eroding
instead but the big island is determined to live up to its name fact 20 Arizona
is the only state that contains all four us deserts well a part of all four of
them at least the four major US deserts are the Great Basin the Sonoran the chuahan and the Mojave deserts and all
of them come together unsurprisingly in one of the US's driest hottest
states Fact number 19 you can mine for diamonds in Arkansas people usually
associate diamond mines with far-off destinations but there's a massive diamond mine right here in the US
located in Arkansas Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro is a volcanic
site that formed thousands of diamonds over Millennium not only can you visit the park to learn about its volcanic
Origins and diamond mining but you can actually look for diamonds yourself and the chance of finding one isn't as Tiny
as you might think so far visitors have found over 35,000 diamonds in the park
including the largest diamond ever discovered in the US a 4.23 carrot gem
nicknamed Uncle Sam fact number 18 and my favorite on
this list Kansas is flatter than a pancake literally there's a lot of jokes
about how flat the Midwest is but some scientists decided to test out exactly
how true those jokes were geographers from Texas State University and Arizona State University teamed up in 2003 to
discover that some parts of Kansas are quite literally flatter than your average
pancake Fact 17 11 states in the US have just one area code densely populated
cities in the United States have multiple area codes for their phone numbers out of necessity since they have
to distribute numbers to millions and millions of people on the flip side 11
states in the US have such small populations that the entire state has only one area code they include Alaska
at 9007 Wyoming 307 Delaware 302 New Hampshire 603 Maine 207 North Dakota 701
South Dakota 605 Vermont 802 Montana 406
Hawaii 808 and Rhode Island with 401 fact number 16 Arizona has one of
the best preserved meteor craters on Earth while the famous meteor that killed the
dinosaurs landed in what is today the Gulf of Mexico meteors have left other craters all over the world in fact one
of the best preserved meteor craters in the world is located in Arizona the bearinger crater was formed over 50,000
years ago and now sits around 40 m east of Flagstaff you can walk to the crater's rim but going into the crater
itself is not allowed scientists think that the asteroid that formed it was only 98 ft to 164 ft wide but it hit
with such an enormous force that it left a 570 ft deep wound in the Earth's
surface fact number 15 Utah is home to the largest natural bridge in the US the
US has its fair share of engineering marbles including iconic Bridges like the Golden Gate and the Brooklyn Bridge
however it's also home to some enormous Natural Bridges fittingly located in
Arch's National Park landscape Arch in Utah spans 290 ft in total others claim
it extends over 300 ft but the official measurement maxes out at 290 it's also a
relatively thin delicate looking Arch only 6 ft wide at its narrowest point a
portion of it actually fell down in the 1990s making it even thinner but the arch is still hanging on today fact
number 14 only Maine shares a border with exactly one other state Maine is
the only state in the US to share its border with just one other state New Hampshire to the north it borders Canada
if you were to take a road trip through the contiguous 48 states and had to only cross each state once you would
inevitably start or end up in Maine fact number 13 Michigan has a
floating post office if you need to send your mail to a ship worker on the Detroit River you'd better address it to
zip code 48222 known as the only floating zip code in the United States it belongs to
the postal ship JW westcot II it goes up and down the river delivering mail to
workers on nearby vessels this is the only floating post office and zip code in the country fact number 12 Wisconsin
has an official state microbe many states have state plants state motto or
state birds but Wisconsin is the only state to have an official state microb
but for Wisconsin the microb lactococcus lactus is incredibly important to both
its population and its economy that's because lactococcus lactus is used in
cheese making arguably Wisconsin's most important industry the state is the biggest cheese producer in the US making
2 to 3.5 billion pounds of cheese every year and its dairy industry makes up 6
and 1 12% of the state's entire economy fact 11 one town in the US experiences
full polar night utav formerly known as Barrow experiences a full 64 days of
polar night from mid November to mid January the sun doesn't rise at all and
the town is bathed in darkness between 4,300 and 5,000 people live in UK kavic
actually making it the 12th most populated city in Alaska the population seems to deal with polar Knight just
fine perhaps because they also have 2 months of full 24/7 summer days to look
forward to after that fact 10 no one can agree on which state is the most
mountainous Alaska Colorado West Virginia and Nevada all claim to be the
most mountainous state in the country how is it that with all our knowledge of geography today the winners still can't
be decided Well it's because each of them is correct in their own way Alaska
claims the title because it has the most mountains of any state with over 4,000 of them named but is also enormous so a
fair amount of it is covered by lowlands as well Colorado lays claim to the title because as we said before it has the
highest mean elevation of the US on the other hand West Virginia is the only state to be contained within the
Appalachian mountain range however most of the Northwestern part of the state sits on a plateau and the mountains in
West Virginia tend to be much lower than mountains in the West part of the country surprisingly Nevada is the state
most densely covered by mountains only the Carson sink and Death Valley can lay claim to being flat meanwhile Nevada has
2,000 named mountains which may be less overall than Alaska but way more per
capita plus almost everywhere you stand in Nevada you can see a mountain somewhere in front of you that makes it
the winner in our opinion fact nine South Carolina has an Island full of monkeys where humans aren't allowed
Morgan island off the state of South Carolina is home to over 4,000 Reese's monkeys oh wait actually the US
government only placed 1,400 of them but over time their population expanded if you want to see the monkeys however
you'll have to take a boat trip around the island as only approved researchers are allowed to step foot on the coast
scientists are afraid of people disturbing or harming the animal population a thing humans are prone to
doing fact number eight Kentucky has a moonbow though most people are familiar
with rainbows few know what a moonbow is perhaps because the conditions needed to
form a moonbow are quite rare but at Cumberland Falls in Kentucky the Mist at
the base of the falls sometimes reflects the light coming off an especially bright and full or nearly full moon this
creates what locals call a moonbow fact number seven Mount Washington recorded
the fastest wind speed on Earth those who live in New Hampshire know that the hike up Mount Washington is deceptively
dangerous and difficult proven by the many search and rescue missions undertaken there every year that's
partly due to the harsh weather that batters the mountain which may be why the fastest wind speed ever recorded on
Earth was noted here in 1934 on one horrific day the wind
clocked in at 231 M an hour to understand just how
fast that is think of the fact that the Porsche 911 one of the world's premier sport cars tops out at only 204 mph a
skyd falling head first towards the Earth will generally only reach 160 mph
the wind only needs to reach 120 mph to knock you down so a speed of 230 mph
would quite literally throw you off the mountain fact number six Engineers made
the Chicago River flow backwards in the 19th century the rapidly expanding town
of Chicago had a problem though it had a prime location on the Chicago River the river was actually flowing to Wards Lake
Michigan which happened to be the city's drinking water supply and what it was carrying was sewage and waste one day
William Balden wck the head of the Sanitary District of Chicago got an idea what if he just reversed the river's
flow and he was serious in 1900 after 8 years the removals of 42 cubic yards of
soil and rock and the construction of a 28m long Canal that's exactly what he
did fact number five Buford had a population of 1 up until 2012 people driving
through rural Wyoming would sometimes come across the town of Buford and do a double take when they saw the welcome
sign Buford population 1 elevation 8,000 the sole resident Don Sammons had lived
in the area since 1980 with his family after his wife died in 1992 Sammons
decided to buy the town and began operating the Buford Trading Post his son moved away in 2008 and Samons
eventually closed the store in 2012 and put the town up for auction fact number
four Kansas City has a massive underground Complex Kansas City Missouri
has one of the largest underground business complexes in the world named subtropolis over 6 million ft of space
are carved into the ground for this complex which sits 150 ft below the city's surface today the complex is
mostly used as storage for e-commerce Pharmaceuticals cars record and food distribution to name a few so the
products can be kept away from exposure to the elements fact number three you can see the Earth curve at bonnaville
Salt Flats located in Utah the bonnaville salt flats are so flat smooth
and never ending that you can literally see the Earth curve when you look out at them on a clear day the alien looking
landscape is mostly known for being a place where people set land speed records thanks to the aformentioned
flatness fact number two one Hawaiian island is
closed to the public unlike most private islands niow wasn't closed to push
locals out it was preserved to protect them niow has been owned by the Robinson
family since 1864 they maintain strict control over who can visit the island to
conserve the Island's flora fauna and the indigenous culture of niow as well
the only people allowed on niow are native Hawaiian inhabitants the Robinson family themselves and invited guests
finally fact number one the US town of Ruff and ready once declared itself an
independent republic Ruff and ready is located near Sacramento in California in 1850 frustrated over the mining taxes
and taxes on alcohol it declared its independence from the union forming the
great Republic of Rough and Ready the reason you may not have learned about this in history books is because
Independence only lasted 3 months strangely until July 4th feeling a surge
of patriotism on the rest of the country's Independence Day the citizens of Rough and Ready rejoined the United
States thanks for joining me today I hope you enjoyed the video and if you want to see more videos like this then
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