Category: U.S. Counties
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The Smallest Largest US County
Every one of the fifty United States has a largest county[1]. Of that collection of counties, which is the smallest? Providence County – 436 Square Miles Providence County, Rhode Island is the smallest of those largest counties (map). That’s not too hard to believe, right? After all, Rhode Island is the smallest state and one…
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USA Time Zone Anomalies, Part II
I outlined a couple of odd time zone anomalies within the United States in Part I. So here I continue the effort with several more examples. While none of these are quite as extreme as the Idaho instance discussed in the last installment — although one comes pretty close — they all represent places where…
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Bibb-Monroe Border War in Georgia
I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of the citizenry of the State of Georgia. They just don’t seem comfortable within their borders lately. They’ve been tugging, pulling, cinching and stretching their ill-fitting suit, maybe hoping to address some ancient wrongs or remove old annoyances. Certainly, plenty of opportunities exist. They’ve had the…
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Vanishing South Georgia
Recently I found myself pondering maps of the Savannah River south of Augusta. I wandered virtually among the oxbow lakes perched amid the Georgia – South Carolina border. Don’t bother asking why. By now you surely know that’s this is what passes for “fun” here on Twelve Mile Circle. Then a strange object arose as…
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Sandoval Exclave
A small wedge of Sandoval County, New Mexico hovers off its eastern edge. It is a fully disembodied and totally separated from the remainder of the county. Thus, it’s a great example of an orphaned exclave. Google Earth captures this exclave rather nicely. Roughly it’s triangular, with a right angle on the northeast corner. Santa…
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75 Years of Drinking
Today is the 75th Anniversary(1) of the repeal of Prohibition in the United States. In addition to my odd fascination with weird geography, I’m a horrible beer snob(2) and sometimes I even find ways to tie my fascination with beer and geography together. So I think of this as a big day for Twelve Mile…
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Aurora: A County Seat in Two States. Simultaneously!
Nobody lives in Aurora today although upwards of five thousand people called it home immediately after its founding in 1860. No less a luminary than Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) called Aurora his home for several months during his mining days. It was a vibrant, successful town along the Nevada / California border. Both states claimed…
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John Hardeman Walker’s Bootheel
I sometimes wonder about unusually-shaped geopolitical boundaries. Sometimes I find it’s due to specific geographic features as with The Gambia. Other times it arises from territorial clashes as with the Temburong exclave of Brunei Darussalam. Generally speaking, the stranger the shape the better the story. So I got to wondering about the Missouri Bootheel. That’s…
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Wisconsin Wrap-Up
I’ve returned from my trip to Wisconsin with tons of new material for the website. I already provided a preview of some of these on the Twelve Mile Circle (this blog). In addition, you can expect more detailed write-ups to start appearing on the permanent site over the next few days and weeks. Oddities that…
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Unusual Goes Very Local, Part II
Continuing on the theme from the previous post, I have another example of a very local anomaly in Arlington County, Virginia. Hopefully you will enjoy this one too. I encourage you to check around your neighborhood and see if you can find your own strange situations. I’d be glad to feature any that you might…