If you’re a geocacher, you’re probably a geography buff.
The 50 U.S. states contain a wealth of puzzle opportunities. There are so many different pieces of data available about all 50 states that making brainteasers and puzzles based upon them is fairly easy. There are a number of brainteasers in the widget on the right that deal with the U.S. states.
Listed below are the 50 U.S. states in order – in twelve different orders, that is! The first five and last five states in each list are shown, and it’s up to you to figure out what rule determines the ordering in each case. For example, one of the lists is ordered by population, another by land area.
This puzzle was originally published in Games Magazine, October 2002.
List 1 |
List 2 |
List 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Alaska 2. California 3. Colorado 4. Washington 5. Wyoming … 46. Rhode Island 47. Mississippi 48. Louisiana 49. Delaware 50. Florida |
1. California 2. Texas 3. New York 4. Florida 5. Illinois … 46. South Dakota 47. North Dakota 48. Alaska 49. Vermont 50. Wyoming |
1. Hawaii 2. Florida 3. Texas 4. Louisiana 5. Mississippi … 46. Minnesota 47. Montana 48. Washington 49. North Dakota 50. Alaska |
List 4 |
List 5 |
List 6 |
| 1. Delaware 2. Pennsylvania 3. New Jersey 4. Georgia 5. Connecticut … 46. Oklahoma 47. New Mexico 48. Arizona 49. Alaska 50. Hawaii |
1. Alaska 2. Texas 3. California 4. Montana 5. New Mexico … 46. New Jersey 47. Hawaii 48. Connecticut 49. Delaware 50. Rhode Island |
1. New York 2. California 3. Illinois 4. Texas 5. Pennsylvania … 46. Delaware 47. Maine 48. West Virginia 49. Wyoming 50. Vermont |
List 7 |
List 8 |
List 9 |
| 1. Alaska 2. Alabama 3. Arkansas 4. Arizona 5. California … 46. Vermont 47. Washington 48. Wisconsin 49. West Virginia 50. Wyoming |
1. New Jersey 2. Rhode Island 3. Massachusetts 4. Connecticut 5. Maryland … 46. South Dakota 47. North Dakota 48. Montana 49. Wyoming 50. Alaska |
1. California 2. Louisiana 3-24. (22 states tied) … 46. Montana 47. Utah 48. New Mexico 49. Wyoming 50. Colorado |
List 10 |
List 11 |
List 12 |
| 1. New York 2. Maryland 3. Georgia 4. Maine 5. Texas … 46. New Mexico 47. Illinois 48. Florida 49. Kansas 50. New Jersey |
1. Alaska 2. Florida 3. California 4. Hawaii 5. Louisiana … 23-50. (28 states tied) |
1. Nevada 2. Arizona 3. Colorado 4. Utah 5. Idaho … 46. Maine 47. Connecticut 48. Pennsylvania 49. West Virginia 50. North Dakota |
- Highest elevation. The highest elevation in the U.S. is Alaska’s Mount McKinley (20,320 feet above sea level). Outside Alaska, the highest point is California’s Mount Whitney (14,494 feet). The highest point in Florida (which was actually misidentified for many years) is only 345 feet above sea level.
- Population
- Southernmost latitude. Hawaii lies south of the Tropic of Cancer. Outside Hawaii, the southernmost point in the U.S. is Key West, Florida. The southernmost point of Alaska is farther north than the northernmost point in any other state.
- Order of admission to the union.
- Land area.
- Population of largest city. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia. The smallest “large city” is Burlington, Vermont, with fewer than 39,000 people.
- Alphabetical by two-letter postal abbreviation. This is not quite the same as simply sorting the list alphabetically: here Alaska (AK) precedes Alabama (AL), Arkansas (AR) precedes Arizona (AZ), and Wisconsin (WI) precedes West Virginia (WV).
- Population density. New Jersey has 1,135 people per square mile; Alaska has 1.1 people per square mile.
- Lowest elevation. The lowest point in the U.S. is 282 feet below sea level, in California’s Death Valley. The only other state with land area below sea level is Louisiana. The lowest elevation in 22 states is precisely at sea level. The lowest point in Colorado is 3,350 feet above sea level – higher than the highest point in 18 states.
- Alphabetical by state capital. Albany comes first, Trenton is last.
- Length of coastline. Alaska has more than 6,600 miles of coastline on the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Twenty-eight states have no coastline at all (lakes are not included). There are many ways to measure coastline; the rankings here are based on figures from The World Almanac.
- Growth rate. From 1990 to 2000 the population of Nevada increased by more than 66%. The population of the slowest-growing state, North Dakota, increased by only 0.5% during the same decade.
