Fun fact#606
Alaska is the widest state
Alaska crosses the 180th meridian, making it both the westernmost and easternmost state in the United States.
United States
A country you cannot see in one trip, and should stop trying to.
38 entries · 17 stories, 21 fun facts
United States at a glance
The practical numbers, before the stories.
- Capital
- Washington, D.C.
- Currency
- US dollar (USD)
- Official language
- English (no official language at federal level)
- Climate
- Everything. Subarctic in Alaska, desert in the Southwest, subtropical in Florida, temperate in the northeast.
- Best time to go
- May–June and September–October for most of the country
- Time zone
- UTC−5 to UTC−10 across six zones
- Driving side
- Right
- Plugs and voltage
- Type A / B, 120 V
Worth knowing: Arizona does not observe daylight saving, but the Navajo Nation inside it does.
Planning a trip to United States
A day-by-day itinerary, and the guides that cover the decisions you make before you go.
The United States is less a destination than a shelf of them. The distance from Miami to Seattle is greater than London to Baghdad, and the country contains the hottest recorded air temperature on Earth, the deepest lake in North America, and a supervolcano that runs more than half the planet's geysers.
The entries below skew towards the parts that surprise people: the national park that was the world's first, the rocks that move across a dry lake by themselves, the state that is simultaneously the westernmost and easternmost in the union. If you are planning a route, the useful lesson is that Americans measure trips in driving hours, not kilometres, and they are usually right to.
Entries from United States
Fun fact#608
Denali is taller from base to peak than Everest
Measured from its own base, Denali rises higher than Everest does above the Tibetan plateau.
Fun fact#610
Yellowstone sits on a supervolcano
Yellowstone's caldera is roughly 55 by 72 kilometres, and its heat drives more than half the world's geysers.
Fun fact#612
Yellowstone was the first national park
Established in 1872, Yellowstone is generally recognised as the first national park anywhere in the world.
Fun fact#614
The Grand Canyon exposes two billion years
Rock at the canyon floor is nearly two billion years old, roughly half the age of the Earth.
Fun fact#616
Death Valley holds the heat record
A reading of 56.7 degrees Celsius in 1913 remains the highest reliably recorded air temperature on Earth.
Fun fact#618
Death Valley's rocks move by themselves
Stones leave long trails across the playa, pushed by thin ice sheets breaking up in light wind.
Fun fact#620
Route 66 no longer officially exists
Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, but much of it survives as Historic Route 66 signed by individual states.
Fun fact#622
New York has more languages than any city
Researchers have identified over 700 languages spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city ever recorded.
Fun fact#624
The Statue of Liberty was a gift and a kit
France gave the statue, which arrived in 350 pieces packed in 214 crates and was assembled on site.
Fun fact#626
Central Park is entirely designed
Every hill, lake and outcrop arrangement in Central Park was landscaped. Almost nothing there is natural.
Fun fact#628
Chicago reversed a river
Engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River in 1900 so sewage would drain away from Lake Michigan.
Fun fact#630
San Francisco's fog has a name
Locals call the summer fog Karl, and it has its own devoted social media following.
Fun fact#632
Hawaii is the youngest US state and still growing
Kilauea keeps adding land to the Big Island, and a new seamount is forming offshore for a future island.
Fun fact#634
Hawaii has almost every climate zone
The Big Island contains most of the world's recognised climate zones, from tropical beach to alpine tundra.
Fun fact#636
Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain from base
Measured from the seafloor, Mauna Kea rises over 10,000 metres, taller than Everest above sea level.
Fun fact#638
Louisiana uses parishes
Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes rather than counties, a leftover from its French and Spanish past.
Fun fact#640
New Orleans buries above ground
High groundwater made underground burial impractical, so the city built tombs above ground in walled cemeteries.
Fun fact#642
Alaska was bought for two cents an acre
The United States paid Russia 7.2 million dollars for Alaska in 1867, mocked at the time as Seward's Folly.
Story#690
The ferry through the fjords
The state ferry takes three days and you sleep in a tent taped to the deck. It costs less than a flight and you see four hundred kilometres of coastline nobody photographs.
Story#692
Grand Canyon at the wrong rim
We drove to the North Rim by accident, found eleven cars in the car park instead of a thousand, and had a viewpoint to ourselves for forty minutes.
Story#696
Descending is harder
Everyone warns you that going down is easy. On the way back up, in the last mile, a ranger handed out salt tablets and said the same sentence to every single person.
Story#700
Diner coffee refill
The waitress topped up the cup four times without being asked and called everyone honey. The pie was better than any restaurant we ate at that month.
Story#704
A town of eleven people
The sign said population 11. The bar was open, the man behind it was also the postmaster, and he knew exactly where we were headed before we said it.
Story#706
Route 66 remains
Half the towns on the old road are closed and half are museums about being closed. One motel owner has been repainting the same neon sign for thirty years.
Story#710
Yosemite in the dark
We hiked out under a full moon without torches because the granite reflected enough light. A ranger told us afterwards that this was either wonderful or irresponsible.
Story#714
Fog rolling into the bay
It came over the hill like water going down a drain in reverse. Ten minutes later the bridge was gone and it was ten degrees colder.
Story#716
Getting off at the wrong stop
We got out at 125th instead of 116th and ended up eating the best food of the trip while waiting for the next train, which we deliberately missed twice.
Story#720
Bluegrass on a porch
Four people, four instruments, no sheet music and no audience except us and a dog. It went on for two hours and nobody announced a single song title.
Story#724
Second line
A brass band came down the street on a Sunday afternoon and the crowd behind it grew from twelve to two hundred in four blocks. We never found out what it was for.
Story#726
Hurricane season lesson
The hotel put tape on the windows and everyone stocked up on ice. It missed us by ninety kilometres and the next morning the beach was covered in shells nobody had ever seen.
Story#730
The border crossing at midnight
Two hours in a queue of stationary cars with men selling churros between the lanes. By the time we crossed, we had eaten dinner without leaving the vehicle.
Story#874
Waiting out the storm at altitude
Afternoon thunderstorms arrive almost daily in summer. A ranger said the rule is simple: summit by noon, and if you cannot, do not summit.
Story#876
Trail magic
A stranger had left a cooler of cold drinks at a road crossing with a note. Nobody took more than one, and somebody had refilled the ice that morning.
Story#880
The desert night sky
We drove twenty minutes from the town and the difference was absurd. A ranger explained dark sky certification and then turned off her own torch to prove the point.
Story#884
Slot canyon rain rule
The guide checks the forecast for the whole watershed, not just the canyon. A storm eighty kilometres away can fill a slot canyon in minutes and there is nowhere to go.
Fun fact#952
The world's smallest park is a circle
Mill Ends Park measures about 60 centimetres across and is officially recognised as the smallest city park.
Fun fact#997
Some trees are older than writing
Great Basin bristlecone pines in the White Mountains have been growing for more than 4,800 years, predating the earliest known written records.
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United States is one of 36 countries in the library. Read straight through a continent, or start from the map of everywhere we have written about.