I’ve just seen a map of the United States.
HOW
WHY ARE YOUR COUNTIES/STATES SO NEATLY DIVIDED!?
IN ENGLAND IT IS WIGGLY LINE WORLD:
AND THEN YOU LOOK AT AMERICA AND IT’S LIKE
BAM
BOXES
WHY
HOW
WHEN!?!?!?!??
Really only the west is neat. The east coast, especially New England are all a bit odd.
I am going to work on the assumption that the borders in England are based on physical landmarks such as rivers or ridges. I would also guess, from my extremely limited knowledge of English history, is an artifact of the feudal system (look, I’m throwing out words. We were discussing historical American views of wildlife as being a result of feudal England’s land laws in class earlier this year and I know fights over land can lead to changed borders). Essentially, hundreds of years of history leads to wigglier borders than in the United States, where state lands were purchased and divided up in squared off patches, instead of following the natural flow of the land.
As a side note, I’ve always thought it stupid to use rivers as edges. They’re kind of the major center of their system. It would make more sense to use the borders of the watershed.
Most of the straight lines were based off of latitude and longitude lines decided upon either when the land was parceled off (the midwest, the west), when the original land ownership by European colonizers was decided (Pennsylvania), or during treaties and land sales (the northern border of the U.S. from Lake Superior to the west coast, the parts of Texas that were originally Texas but became parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming).
As for the watershed comment… I know, it’s unfair. But no one will ever listen to environmental scientists on the efficacy of using watershed boundaries as political boundaries.
(via rieweb)
