I searched for and featured the United States county with the most neighboring counties during the very early days of Twelve Mile Circle. That article appeared in May 2008, almost ten years ago, reminding me once again how quickly time flies. Then in the waning days of the old blog, a loyal reader contacted me with a fresh new way to look at the issue.
An Opportunity to Revisit Previous Assumptions
Reader “Glenn” took a different approach. He contacted me, and I intended to write something. Then I lost sight of it as I started to shut things down. My earlier article claimed that Utah’s San Juan County had the most neighbors, with fourteen. Glen wanted to think a little differently. He focused on three of those neighboring counties that intersected with San Juan at a single point. While technically those all counted as “bordering,” San Juan, did they really meet the spirit of the definition? As he said, “you should be able to walk or swim across a county border without having to squeeze down to a 2-dimensional line.“
Thus, if we modified the rules to eliminate those three single points, Nevada’s Washoe County would have the most neighbors, with thirteen. San Juan would drop down to second place with eleven neighbors, followed by several others with ten.
Please pardon my hand-labeled map. I’ve never been a great visual artist although I think this graphic gets the point across.
These are the counties that border Washoe:
- Humboldt County, NV (east)
- Pershing County, NV (east)
- Churchill County, NV (east)
- Lyon County, NV (southeast)
- Storey County, NV (south)
- Carson City, NV [independent city] (south)
- Placer County, CA (southwest)
- Nevada County, CA (west)
- Sierra County, CA (west)
- Lassen County, (CA) west
- Modoc County, CA (west)
- Lake County, OR (north)
- Harney County, OR (northeast)
Technically, Carson City qualified as an independent city, although the U.S. government classified it as a county-equivalent unit for statistical purposes. Most county counters also count their visits to independent cities, as do I. So that makes thirteen.
Challenging Crossings
A small subset of county counters actually catalog their crossing between individual county pairs. I consider that a tad extreme although I still have a lot of counties left to go. Those who track pairs generally do so because they’ve nearly run out of unvisited counties and want a new challenge. Washoe would be particularly difficult for them.
For instance, just eyeballing the map, there don’t appear to be any crossings between Washoe and Harney County, Oregon along their tiny two-mile-ish border. Plus, the landscape looked particularly unpleasant (see Street View). I’d be afraid that someone might find my bleached bones in the desert after I went missing for a few decades while trying it. I wouldn’t recommend making an attempt. Several other of the crossings looked similarly problematic.
How is This Even Possible?
The revised rules solved one set of issues although I think I’ll stick with the earlier rules. Otherwise phenomena such as the famed Four Corners wouldn’t exist. My visits there would have been in vain. Utah and New Mexico wouldn’t share a border, nor would Colorado and Arizona. The Navajo Nation would have to close its park and disperse the artisans who sell their crafts at the plaza around the marker. Thousands of visitors would need to find a new attraction or spend a few extra hours at Monument Valley or Mesa Verde instead. I’d have to delete my photos.
To be fair, I don’t think Glenn truly questioned the premise of single-point borders. Instead, he reexamined the situation as an intellectual exercise from a new perspective.
Another Washoe
I find the most interesting things while I conduct my investigations. Apparently the first chimpanzee to communicate with humans using American Sign Language was also named Washoe. She learned about 350 signs before passing away in 2007. Researchers named her Washoe because that’s where she lived for the first few years of her life.
She probably didn’t care that Washoe County shared a border with thirteen other counties. I suspect that most of her human counterparts don’t either.
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