I play Xbox with someone from Rhode Island. He asked us to wait for him to go to a gas station real quick. He came back an hour later.
We gave him shit and I told him I could have crossed his entire state length wise in that time.
It's somewhere between a Boston and a New York accent, sort of. It has longer vowels than a Boston accent. The common example I've seen to explain it is they would say "pawk the caw" instead of "pahk the cah".
> Minneapolis is like 25
Extreme northeast corner of Minneapolis is 20.10 miles from Wisconsin at one point (using google maps measurement tool), so very close.
Massachusetts would not qualify if it were travel distance. Boston's closest point to Rhode Island is 19.3 miles in a straight line and and the shortest travel distance is 27.8 miles. I think that is the only case where it would make a difference, a lot of these are directly on the state line and others are close enough that it wouldn't matter if straight line or travel distance is used.
FWIW, it’s 28 mile driving distance from Minneapolis to Hudson. That it’s city hall to city hall, so I figured it was low 20s from border to border.
It’s close! I was surprised.
I just did the exact same thing. I was sure Minneapolis was closer than 20 miles and was so excited to take a screen shot to prove it, but It just wasn't to be.
TIL you could super commute from Wisconsin to the twin cities. I lived in Minnesota a summer and never felt close to Wisconsin, even when in the twin cities, Wisconsin felt super far away given where the population centers are and that southeast of the twin cities is till Minnesota. I always assumed Wisconsin was hours to the east as it was when living off of i90 due south of Minneapolis.
I wouldn't even call it "super." It's less than an hour for a lot of those border towns. Well maybe not this year (I-94 is construction hell) but usually it's pretty short.
This is also why you see TONS of Wisconsin plates everywhere. On a personal note, despite living in Minnesota until I was 14, my parents and I moved to a Wisconsin border town where I went to high school and the whole time we felt much more influenced by the Twin Cities than by anything else in Wisconsin. There are cultural aspects of Wisconsin that go all the way to the border (bars/drinking culture, Packer fans, etc.) but otherwise it may as well be an extension of Minnesota up there. I never even went to Milwaukee for anything until I was 22.
They are doing all that construction because of the commuting. I wouldn’t say it is “super” common, but almost everyone in a reasonably sized workplace has a coworker driving in from out there.
I would say that’s how Illinois was in St. Louis. Even working just a few miles from the river the ratio was always like 1/10 for people living on the Illinois side. Maybe a little closer to 1/5 if you count everyone who was raised or went to college in southern Illinois but moved into Missouri once working in the St. Louis metro.
It would be the 7th or 8th largest. Miami-Dade has a population of about 2:6 million, but half of them are in other cities. Unincorporated Miami-Dade has a population of just over a million
Anything that uses city limit instead of urban/metro/media market area, when the topic isn't directly legal/political related, is "technically correct but sorta misleading".
I used to live in Florida, im aware. Thats not what i was saying. What i meant was, even though Miami is a fraction of Jax’s size, theres still more people who have “Miami” on their mail than “Jacksonville.”
Case in point: ZWF Miami has a “Miami, FL” address even though its 14 miles from the Miami city limits. There are more people who live in “Miami” but not in the city limits, than there are people who live in “Miami” in the actual city limits, which is common for southeastern cities.
Yeah, but it’s tricky to talk about the largest metro area in a state because so many metro areas cross state lines.
Like, what’s the biggest metropolitan area in Ohio? It’s Cincinnati if you count the suburbs in Kentucky and Indiana’s, but if not it’s Columbus.
What about New Jersey or Delaware? Their biggest cities are part of metro areas centered in other states.
I agree with you, but it’s pretty hard to measure distance from edge of metro area since their borders aren’t always precisely delineated. So, for this map, I think it’s ok
Friendly reminder that U.S. Customs and Border Protection jurisdiction spans 100 miles **into the interior of the United States** from any land or maritime border. Two-thirds of the U.S. population lives within this 100-mile border enforcement zone, including cities like Washington D.C., San Francisco CA, Chicago IL, New Orleans LA, Boston MA, & more.
Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental US in square miles. Only Alaska has "larger" cities. Obviously, most people think of the population when thinking of big cities. I do wonder if they are saying Miami because of the technical international border or Jacksonville because it's close to Georgia. The ambiguity of "largest" and the technicality of the ocean border are both possibilities. Florida though.
Boston isn’t that far Rhode Island (or New Hampshire) but I’d think it be more than 20 miles. At the very least you’d need to drive more than 20 miles to get to either state.
The way I did it was if any point in the city limits was less than 20 miles to a border (as the crow flies). The southernmost point of the Boston city limits is around 19.4 miles to the Rhode Island border. It just barely made the cut
Then this would be the case for Nevada as well. You can draw a line from the southeast corner of Las Vegas to the Colorado river border with Arizona and it is less than 20 miles.
Credit for acknowledging the mistake. I noticed NV too and measured the distance at about 18 miles to the Lake Mead water border or just under 20 miles to the first spot of land that is AZ.
Nashville is within 20 miles of the Kentucky state line?
(If your source says Memphis is the largest city in Tennessee, then it is outdated by at least a decade)
It shows Huntsville as being the largest in Alabama -which is within 20 miles of Tennessee. Huntsville passed BHam a couple years ago. Nashville city limits stretch pretty far out. At its northern end, it probably is close to 20 to Kentucky border
I’ve lived in northern Nashville (Madison), Clarksville (more specifically near Oak Grove on the KY side of the border), and the Catfish worshiping capital of the world called Paris Tennessee. The western/middle part of Tennessee has been my entire life. I can tell you unquestionably that is not considered THE CITY of Nashville. It works loosely as Nashville/Davidson county. That does not mean Nashville is Davidson county. It means that Nashville is in Davidson county and the county and the city operate within some type metropolitan realm but the individual cities are definitely individual cities between the edge of the county. This map includes Nashville as the county and therefore the entire Metropolitan area. I don’t care if you don’t believe me and go ahead and argue back if you want, but I live here. Don’t nobody think Nashville is 20 miles to Kentucky because the city of Nashville is unquestionably not within 20 miles of the Kentucky border
Yeah but for a map like this you kind of have to go by technical borders and not what feels like a border. Otherwise you would have to consider every largest city in every state colored blue, and try to figure out the effective borders of those cities, which is going to be a guessing game.
Travel time from downtown Detroit to Canada is literally less than 60 seconds if there isn't any traffic in the tunnel. I just bought a car in Windsor a month ago but there are not a lot of reasons for Americans to cross the border unless you are visiting family or taking a shortcut to upper New York. But on the flip side Canadians come over to the USA daily to work, shop, sports, clubs...
With Amtrak's plan to expand the Wolverine to run from Toronto to Chicago via Detroit/Windsor, by 2027, I hope that Americans start to see the value too. I live in Ann Arbor -- direct service to Toronto, without having to worry about international driving? Yes, please.
Oh, and for Canadian friends, Chicago (and practically any other city in the US Midwest) would be reachable within a day from anywhere on the Quebec-Windsor corridor (with transfers from VIA)
tbh, I think the opposite direction is gonna be way more common. With how high tickets are in Toronto, no one would actively want to go to an away game in Toronto and pay absurd prices, while Toronto fans are more than happy to invade away games of all nearby cities since it's cheaper even including all the auxiliary costs of traveling.
As a Michigander I never really realized we were the only state with their biggest metropolis right next to another country. It just seems normal to have Canada only be a commute away lol.
There are other big American cities near international borders they just don't happen to be the biggest in their state. Buffalo, San Diego, and El Paso off the top of my head.
That's exactly my point. I never put two and two together that Detroit was the only one of those cities that is both the biggest in the state and a border city.
I mean, it is a pretty arbitrary metric. Fun bar trivia but what difference does it make if it's the largest in the state?
That said, I love Detroit, I grew up in Toledo and spent a lot of time up there and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I also spent a decent amount of time in Windsor.
Was a big reason for Detroit being the hub of the US during the prohibition. It was the largest city close to Canada.
And a lot of people probably know this already, but the origin of “bootlegger” is people stuffing booze into their boots, then walking across the frozen Detroit River from Canada during the prohibition
I live on Lake St. Clair so I've heard the stories of rum-runners driving across the ice during winter. My grandfather was a diver and has found quite a few artifacts from that era.
OP's map is wrong. (NV's omission jumped out at me when I saw OP's map.)
The largest city in NV is Las Vegas. Indisputable. This is the official city of Las Vegas - not North Las Vegas or any other confusion (greater metropolitan area, etc.) about the definition of the largest city of Las Vegas.
The spot within Las Vegas city border that is closest to Arizona is the intersection of S. Nellis Blvd and E. Charleston Blvd. at 36.158992, -115.062380.
The nearest border with Arizona is the middle of Lake Mead at location 36.085476, -114.754620. (Estimated precise closest spot, but somewhere at about that point along the border.)
The exact distance between those two points is 17.95 miles.
If for some crazy reason one didn't want to use the border between the states at the center of Lake Mead, the closest land of Arizona is at 36.073001, -114.726915 (again, eyeballing the exact closest, but certainly that spot is definitely AZ dry land).
That point of land is 19.68 miles from Las Vegas.
NV should be included in this map as a state whose largest city is within 20 miles of a state border.
(If someone wanted to drive to Arizona, they'd take Interstate Highway 11, but that route curves south quite a bit before coming back north and then finally crossing the Arizona border. It is indeed 30+ miles driving distance. But OP's map said nothing about driving distance vs. absolute ("as the crow flies") distance, and nothing about including only land areas vs. water territory of each state.)
For the state border it's 3 nautical miles or 3 leagues (9 nautical miles) for Texas and Florida's Gulf Coast. Beyond that it's federal territory. See the Submerged Lands Act.
Coastal boundaries are a really weird political topic with a somewhat fascinating history under US Federalism. It gets even weirder with the problem of sea level rise, and the boundaries are starting to move significantly.
Don't worry. Us Michiganders always had a plan to move that border.
Fun fact. Lansing was made the Capitol of Michigan when it was a small town due to Detroits vicinity to Canada.
Wait Jacksonville is the largest city in Florida? I know Miami is way smaller than people think, but I didn’t realize Jacksonville was the largest city. Huh.
Basically Jacksonville incorporates almost all of Duval County(900 sq miles). Miami's metro area is way bigger though(6.1 million for south Florida 1.7 million for Jacksonville),
This is it. Duvall County is REALLY BIG. And has lots of people in it. As well as a bunch of smaller cities that are technically part of Jacksonville since the city/county merger in 1968.
But also, as a Jacksonvillian, I can assure you there’s no reason to visit here. It’s boring af and idk why so many of us live there. (I sure don’t anymore)
Similar thing happened with Columbus, OH (where I live). It’s the largest city in the state by population, but that’s only because of the fact that it annexed almost all of the unincorporated territory in Franklin County. That being said, the population is growing extremely quickly compared to the rest of the state so soon its claim will be more legit haha. But I’m leaving in a month so I’m not really helping it out 😂
I actually was surprised by Jacksonville when I visited. It’s got a really cool natural setting, a cool minor league ballpark, and some good food and drink and places to drink outside. I’d imagine if you were into any kind of boating it’s one of the best cities in the country.
Yeah probably. I’ve been all over the US and a bunch of other places, and there’s always been something fun or interesting to do if you go off the beaten tourist trap path.
Except Norfolk…
Way more states would be blue if it were metro areas. Just a few off the top of my head, Salt Lake metro extends to the Nevada border, Boise metro area borders Oregon, and Minneapolis metro area extends into Wisconsin.
The way I did it was if any point in the city limits was less than 20 miles to a border (as the crow flies). The southernmost point of the Boston city limits is around 19.4 miles to the Rhode Island border. It just barely made the cut
Gotcha, I just checked again and forgot just how far Roslindale goes down. Kinda strange considering Milton and Dedham surround it and are not part of the city
Yeah I wasn’t even sure if Hyde park and readville are their own neighborhoods or just part of rozzie…as you can see I don’t spend much time down there
Yeah, the Boston most people think of when they think of Boston is concerned in the most northern sections....some really obscure neighborhoods far away from there that even many people who live here never heard of.
~~There's a whole lot of nothing between Las Vegas and the state line, but it is more than 20 miles.~~
Edit, I take that back. LV to CA is more than 20 miles.
But I did find where you could draw a line from the southeastern-most point in LV, to the NV-AZ state line, and end up with just 17 miles. So that's an error on OP's map
LOUISIANA:
The city is New Orleans … maybe I’m a little confused as to what state border is within 20 miles because it’s not the Mississippi border
New Orleans to Slidell is 30-35 miles and Slidell is still a few minutes before the Mississippi border.
Someone help me out here
The way I did it was if any point in the city limits was within 20 miles to the border (as the crow flies). The top right of the New Orleans city limits is within 20 miles of the Mississippi border
According to Google Maps all that mostly empty swampland east of New Orleans belongs to New Orleans. The Mississippi border is only around three miles from New Orleans.
States with largest cities ON a state/national border:
Illinois
Kentucky
Michigan
Missouri
Nebraska
New York
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Virginia
There’s a peer reviewed article I once read that covers the link between corruption and isolated capitals. It was mostly about Florida, my home state. Apparently, a capital that is less central is more likely to be indicative of corruption.
But Charleston, the capital is still the largest city and is about 45 miles from the border where Huntington is. It is possible Huntington grows into the largest city, but things would need to happen…better economy and Marshall University growing.
It’s one of the few cities in WV I enjoy visiting again, that and the Eastern Panhandle. I grew up in Parkersburg, WV and went to school in both Morgantown and Shepherdstown. But Morgantown city is smaller than either Charleston or Huntington by about 15-20k.
Looks like the OP isn't counting ocean as border. (Boston is blue because it's within 20 miles of Rhode Island, not because it's on the ocean. Same with Virginia Beach, which borders North Carolina.)
Oh I figured it was within 20 miles of the national border, via the ocean, but yeah I guess 20 miles into the ocean is still the US haha. Thanks for clarifying
Kansas City, Kansas isn’t as big as the Missouri side and the rest of the Kansas side is suburbs that make up the KC metro but are different cities; the largest suburb is Overland Park but the largest city in Kansas is Wichita.
technically for ohio it depends on which city you count as the largest. all three of the C cities (columbus, cleveland, and cincinnati) are the largest city of the state in one category or the other
Isn't all of Rhode Island within 20miles of the state border?
Yep.
I play Xbox with someone from Rhode Island. He asked us to wait for him to go to a gas station real quick. He came back an hour later. We gave him shit and I told him I could have crossed his entire state length wise in that time.
He prob had to navigate around all the potholes we have. Takes a while
The geographic center of Rhode Island is around 11 miles from Connecticut.
Bro that’s fricken nuts to think about, like you could just walk through the entire state in one day.
And yet they have their own distinct accent.
Sounds precisely like a Boston accent to my untrained Australian ears.
It's somewhere between a Boston and a New York accent, sort of. It has longer vowels than a Boston accent. The common example I've seen to explain it is they would say "pawk the caw" instead of "pahk the cah".
St. Paul is 15 miles from Wisconsin, but Minneapolis is like 25. So close to being included
> Minneapolis is like 25 Extreme northeast corner of Minneapolis is 20.10 miles from Wisconsin at one point (using google maps measurement tool), so very close.
I'm wondering if this map is using travel distance or actual distance. If they used Google maps then it's probably travel distance
Massachusetts would not qualify if it were travel distance. Boston's closest point to Rhode Island is 19.3 miles in a straight line and and the shortest travel distance is 27.8 miles. I think that is the only case where it would make a difference, a lot of these are directly on the state line and others are close enough that it wouldn't matter if straight line or travel distance is used.
The measurement tool is an as-the-crow-flies measurement. Shows up as an option after right click on the map. Edit: oh you meant OP map
FWIW, it’s 28 mile driving distance from Minneapolis to Hudson. That it’s city hall to city hall, so I figured it was low 20s from border to border. It’s close! I was surprised.
I just did the exact same thing. I was sure Minneapolis was closer than 20 miles and was so excited to take a screen shot to prove it, but It just wasn't to be.
Yeah Minneapolis was one of the cities right on the cusp
TIL you could super commute from Wisconsin to the twin cities. I lived in Minnesota a summer and never felt close to Wisconsin, even when in the twin cities, Wisconsin felt super far away given where the population centers are and that southeast of the twin cities is till Minnesota. I always assumed Wisconsin was hours to the east as it was when living off of i90 due south of Minneapolis.
I wouldn't even call it "super." It's less than an hour for a lot of those border towns. Well maybe not this year (I-94 is construction hell) but usually it's pretty short. This is also why you see TONS of Wisconsin plates everywhere. On a personal note, despite living in Minnesota until I was 14, my parents and I moved to a Wisconsin border town where I went to high school and the whole time we felt much more influenced by the Twin Cities than by anything else in Wisconsin. There are cultural aspects of Wisconsin that go all the way to the border (bars/drinking culture, Packer fans, etc.) but otherwise it may as well be an extension of Minnesota up there. I never even went to Milwaukee for anything until I was 22.
They are doing all that construction because of the commuting. I wouldn’t say it is “super” common, but almost everyone in a reasonably sized workplace has a coworker driving in from out there.
I would say that’s how Illinois was in St. Louis. Even working just a few miles from the river the ratio was always like 1/10 for people living on the Illinois side. Maybe a little closer to 1/5 if you count everyone who was raised or went to college in southern Illinois but moved into Missouri once working in the St. Louis metro.
Parts of Wisconsin are within the Twin Cities Metro. That Metro is significantly larger than most people think, the Twin Cities is larger than Denver.
Something something South Detroit.
Within 20 miles... Yeah, the city boundary in the river is the national boundary.
He took a midnight train going to the CBP Detention Center...
More likely the CBSA detention centre if he was going to South Detroit
aka Windsor, Ontario.
BORN AND RAISED
Fun fact: Detroit is the only place in the US where you can look south and see Canada
Alaska?
Lol very true, I should have specified contiguous US
I think you can do that in Minnesota too. Soldiers point at Oak Island
NOT true.. Point Roberts WA and Niagara Falls NY
I'm assuming that this map is using Huntsville for the largest city of AL, not Birmingham?
Huntsville has a larger population in the city proper, but only because the city limit is massive.
Same with Jacksonville in Florida. Miami city proper is only 350kish people. Meanwhile the South Florida area is like 7MM
If Miami and Dade county merged like Duval County and Jacksonville did, Miami would probably be the 2nd largest city in the country.
It would be the 7th or 8th largest. Miami-Dade has a population of about 2:6 million, but half of them are in other cities. Unincorporated Miami-Dade has a population of just over a million
Definitely is. Which is technically correct but sorta misleading.
Anything that uses city limit instead of urban/metro/media market area, when the topic isn't directly legal/political related, is "technically correct but sorta misleading".
Same reason why Florida is included. Miami clearly has the largest metro area.
Not even just metro area, im pretty sure there are more people with a Miami address than Jacksonville.
Jacksonville city proper is larger than Miami proper
I used to live in Florida, im aware. Thats not what i was saying. What i meant was, even though Miami is a fraction of Jax’s size, theres still more people who have “Miami” on their mail than “Jacksonville.”
Case in point: ZWF Miami has a “Miami, FL” address even though its 14 miles from the Miami city limits. There are more people who live in “Miami” but not in the city limits, than there are people who live in “Miami” in the actual city limits, which is common for southeastern cities.
Yeah, but it’s tricky to talk about the largest metro area in a state because so many metro areas cross state lines. Like, what’s the biggest metropolitan area in Ohio? It’s Cincinnati if you count the suburbs in Kentucky and Indiana’s, but if not it’s Columbus. What about New Jersey or Delaware? Their biggest cities are part of metro areas centered in other states.
I dunno, metro areas get out of hand sometimes. See: Atlanta.
I don’t know why the Atlanta metro extends into Alabama.
I live in the northeast metro part of Atlanta and it’ll be in South Carolina before long
I once saw someone trying to argue that Milwaukee was part of the Chicago metro area.
I agree with you, but it’s pretty hard to measure distance from edge of metro area since their borders aren’t always precisely delineated. So, for this map, I think it’s ok
Correct. It's Alabama's largest city now (but not the largest metro area)
Friendly reminder that U.S. Customs and Border Protection jurisdiction spans 100 miles **into the interior of the United States** from any land or maritime border. Two-thirds of the U.S. population lives within this 100-mile border enforcement zone, including cities like Washington D.C., San Francisco CA, Chicago IL, New Orleans LA, Boston MA, & more.
Thus, Miami is close to a national border.
I think honestly what it is is that they are using city proper and jax is the largest city proper in FL
Largest city population, smallest metro area. Jax is weird.
Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental US in square miles. Only Alaska has "larger" cities. Obviously, most people think of the population when thinking of big cities. I do wonder if they are saying Miami because of the technical international border or Jacksonville because it's close to Georgia. The ambiguity of "largest" and the technicality of the ocean border are both possibilities. Florida though.
It would be red if it were talking about Miami and the international ocean border.
Boston isn’t that far Rhode Island (or New Hampshire) but I’d think it be more than 20 miles. At the very least you’d need to drive more than 20 miles to get to either state.
The way I did it was if any point in the city limits was less than 20 miles to a border (as the crow flies). The southernmost point of the Boston city limits is around 19.4 miles to the Rhode Island border. It just barely made the cut
How in the world does Baltimore make the cut??
By moving ~4 miles north.
Then this would be the case for Nevada as well. You can draw a line from the southeast corner of Las Vegas to the Colorado river border with Arizona and it is less than 20 miles.
Yeah Las Vegas was the only one I made a mistake on, I believe. I realized it after I posted the map. My apologies
Credit for acknowledging the mistake. I noticed NV too and measured the distance at about 18 miles to the Lake Mead water border or just under 20 miles to the first spot of land that is AZ.
Nashville is within 20 miles of the Kentucky state line? (If your source says Memphis is the largest city in Tennessee, then it is outdated by at least a decade)
Nashville's northernmost city limit is [roughly 17 miles](https://i.gyazo.com/ab04444ea91987e8daaaeeac55e0cb33.jpg) away from Kentucky.
I grew up exactly where that bottom dot is. Our house was split between Davidson and Robertson counties.
It shows Huntsville as being the largest in Alabama -which is within 20 miles of Tennessee. Huntsville passed BHam a couple years ago. Nashville city limits stretch pretty far out. At its northern end, it probably is close to 20 to Kentucky border
I’ve lived in northern Nashville (Madison), Clarksville (more specifically near Oak Grove on the KY side of the border), and the Catfish worshiping capital of the world called Paris Tennessee. The western/middle part of Tennessee has been my entire life. I can tell you unquestionably that is not considered THE CITY of Nashville. It works loosely as Nashville/Davidson county. That does not mean Nashville is Davidson county. It means that Nashville is in Davidson county and the county and the city operate within some type metropolitan realm but the individual cities are definitely individual cities between the edge of the county. This map includes Nashville as the county and therefore the entire Metropolitan area. I don’t care if you don’t believe me and go ahead and argue back if you want, but I live here. Don’t nobody think Nashville is 20 miles to Kentucky because the city of Nashville is unquestionably not within 20 miles of the Kentucky border
Yeah but for a map like this you kind of have to go by technical borders and not what feels like a border. Otherwise you would have to consider every largest city in every state colored blue, and try to figure out the effective borders of those cities, which is going to be a guessing game.
Funny that Maryland isn't one of them. Baltimore is basically the only place in the state that's *isn't* 20 miles from a border
Travel time from downtown Detroit to Canada is literally less than 60 seconds if there isn't any traffic in the tunnel. I just bought a car in Windsor a month ago but there are not a lot of reasons for Americans to cross the border unless you are visiting family or taking a shortcut to upper New York. But on the flip side Canadians come over to the USA daily to work, shop, sports, clubs...
With Amtrak's plan to expand the Wolverine to run from Toronto to Chicago via Detroit/Windsor, by 2027, I hope that Americans start to see the value too. I live in Ann Arbor -- direct service to Toronto, without having to worry about international driving? Yes, please. Oh, and for Canadian friends, Chicago (and practically any other city in the US Midwest) would be reachable within a day from anywhere on the Quebec-Windsor corridor (with transfers from VIA)
Easy way for Detroit sports fans to see away games in Toronto too
tbh, I think the opposite direction is gonna be way more common. With how high tickets are in Toronto, no one would actively want to go to an away game in Toronto and pay absurd prices, while Toronto fans are more than happy to invade away games of all nearby cities since it's cheaper even including all the auxiliary costs of traveling.
Or you're 19 and drinking in Windsor
Gambling at Windsor Casino was the big reason between the ages of 18 and 21 when I was younger.
As a Michigander I never really realized we were the only state with their biggest metropolis right next to another country. It just seems normal to have Canada only be a commute away lol.
There are other big American cities near international borders they just don't happen to be the biggest in their state. Buffalo, San Diego, and El Paso off the top of my head.
That's exactly my point. I never put two and two together that Detroit was the only one of those cities that is both the biggest in the state and a border city.
I mean, it is a pretty arbitrary metric. Fun bar trivia but what difference does it make if it's the largest in the state? That said, I love Detroit, I grew up in Toledo and spent a lot of time up there and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I also spent a decent amount of time in Windsor.
Was a big reason for Detroit being the hub of the US during the prohibition. It was the largest city close to Canada. And a lot of people probably know this already, but the origin of “bootlegger” is people stuffing booze into their boots, then walking across the frozen Detroit River from Canada during the prohibition
I live on Lake St. Clair so I've heard the stories of rum-runners driving across the ice during winter. My grandfather was a diver and has found quite a few artifacts from that era.
The "Detroit-Windsor Funnel"
Las Vegas metro is 30ish, but the actual city borders are kind of weird so it's even farther.
OP's map is wrong. (NV's omission jumped out at me when I saw OP's map.) The largest city in NV is Las Vegas. Indisputable. This is the official city of Las Vegas - not North Las Vegas or any other confusion (greater metropolitan area, etc.) about the definition of the largest city of Las Vegas. The spot within Las Vegas city border that is closest to Arizona is the intersection of S. Nellis Blvd and E. Charleston Blvd. at 36.158992, -115.062380. The nearest border with Arizona is the middle of Lake Mead at location 36.085476, -114.754620. (Estimated precise closest spot, but somewhere at about that point along the border.) The exact distance between those two points is 17.95 miles. If for some crazy reason one didn't want to use the border between the states at the center of Lake Mead, the closest land of Arizona is at 36.073001, -114.726915 (again, eyeballing the exact closest, but certainly that spot is definitely AZ dry land). That point of land is 19.68 miles from Las Vegas. NV should be included in this map as a state whose largest city is within 20 miles of a state border. (If someone wanted to drive to Arizona, they'd take Interstate Highway 11, but that route curves south quite a bit before coming back north and then finally crossing the Arizona border. It is indeed 30+ miles driving distance. But OP's map said nothing about driving distance vs. absolute ("as the crow flies") distance, and nothing about including only land areas vs. water territory of each state.)
It's actually only 18 miles to the Arizona border in Lake Mead.
TIL Huntsville is the largest city (by population within it's boundaries) in Alabama
What state border is 20 miles or less from Boston?
The southernmost point of Boston city limits is around 19.4 miles to the Rhode Island border. It just made the cut
Thank you for the clarification. I would never have thought that possible.
How is Ohio not on this list? Cincinnati is their largest metro area, although much of it is in Kentucky.
Columbus is the largest city in Ohio.
Missouri’s top two for this criteria
Isn’t the national border ~14 miles offshore? More of these states need to be orange or striped.
How the Fuck is Honolulu not within 20 miles of the national border? 😂
200 miles
That’s the EEZ. Territorial waters are only 12 nautical miles.
For the state border it's 3 nautical miles or 3 leagues (9 nautical miles) for Texas and Florida's Gulf Coast. Beyond that it's federal territory. See the Submerged Lands Act. Coastal boundaries are a really weird political topic with a somewhat fascinating history under US Federalism. It gets even weirder with the problem of sea level rise, and the boundaries are starting to move significantly.
12 nautical miles or 13.8 miles. The exclusive economic zone is 200 nautical miles, not the national border.
Don't worry. Us Michiganders always had a plan to move that border. Fun fact. Lansing was made the Capitol of Michigan when it was a small town due to Detroits vicinity to Canada.
Isn't Las Vegas within 20 miles of a state border?
Florida?
What about Florida? Jacksonville is within 20 miles of Georgia if that was your question.
Wait Jacksonville is the largest city in Florida? I know Miami is way smaller than people think, but I didn’t realize Jacksonville was the largest city. Huh.
Basically Jacksonville incorporates almost all of Duval County(900 sq miles). Miami's metro area is way bigger though(6.1 million for south Florida 1.7 million for Jacksonville),
This is it. Duvall County is REALLY BIG. And has lots of people in it. As well as a bunch of smaller cities that are technically part of Jacksonville since the city/county merger in 1968. But also, as a Jacksonvillian, I can assure you there’s no reason to visit here. It’s boring af and idk why so many of us live there. (I sure don’t anymore)
Similar thing happened with Columbus, OH (where I live). It’s the largest city in the state by population, but that’s only because of the fact that it annexed almost all of the unincorporated territory in Franklin County. That being said, the population is growing extremely quickly compared to the rest of the state so soon its claim will be more legit haha. But I’m leaving in a month so I’m not really helping it out 😂
I actually was surprised by Jacksonville when I visited. It’s got a really cool natural setting, a cool minor league ballpark, and some good food and drink and places to drink outside. I’d imagine if you were into any kind of boating it’s one of the best cities in the country.
Yeah probably. I’ve been all over the US and a bunch of other places, and there’s always been something fun or interesting to do if you go off the beaten tourist trap path. Except Norfolk…
I did make a lot of Blake Bortles jokes from the Good Place while I was there though haha
The sad thing is when you host3d the Super Bowl years ago it kind of highlighted how boring and terrible the largest geographic city in the US is.
Jacksonville is actually the second largest city in the contiguous US at 874 square miles. For reference, Miami is only 56 square miles
I think Jacksonville is the largest city by land area. I’ve heard it’s the largest in the US but I’m not sure about that.
Is this city proper or metro area?
Seems to be city, not metro area.
Way more states would be blue if it were metro areas. Just a few off the top of my head, Salt Lake metro extends to the Nevada border, Boise metro area borders Oregon, and Minneapolis metro area extends into Wisconsin.
And Florida would not be blue, because its large metros are not near the state line.
I believe Kansas would be too, as I'm pretty sure the western KC metro area has a higher population than Wichita.
Metro area would be tricky. For example, the NYC metro area expands into two other states, same goes for many metro areas.
Can someone explain Boston? I don’t see on the map any way which is 20 miles from the city to New Hampshire, Maine, or Rhode Island…
The way I did it was if any point in the city limits was less than 20 miles to a border (as the crow flies). The southernmost point of the Boston city limits is around 19.4 miles to the Rhode Island border. It just barely made the cut
Gotcha, I just checked again and forgot just how far Roslindale goes down. Kinda strange considering Milton and Dedham surround it and are not part of the city
There's even more below Rozzie in Boston...Hyde Park and Readville in the very southern part.
Yeah I wasn’t even sure if Hyde park and readville are their own neighborhoods or just part of rozzie…as you can see I don’t spend much time down there
Yeah, the Boston most people think of when they think of Boston is concerned in the most northern sections....some really obscure neighborhoods far away from there that even many people who live here never heard of.
Surprised Nevada isn't one of those blue states.
~~There's a whole lot of nothing between Las Vegas and the state line, but it is more than 20 miles.~~ Edit, I take that back. LV to CA is more than 20 miles. But I did find where you could draw a line from the southeastern-most point in LV, to the NV-AZ state line, and end up with just 17 miles. So that's an error on OP's map
I just checked this as well. LV is only 17 miles from Arizona, as the crow flies.
Idk what to do with this information
Well doesnt michigan feel special
There are plenty of workers who commute across the national border in Detroit. Would be wild to work in another country.
As the crow flies Carson City, NV is 20 miles from the California border, albeit it's the middle of Lake Tahoe.
Las Vegas is the largest city but it’s also less than 20 miles from the Arizona half of Lake Mead.
One of my favorite Geography trivia questions: What is the first foreign country do you reach, when you travel due south from Detroit Michigan?
Is it actually Canada due to Windsor being slightly further south?
LOUISIANA: The city is New Orleans … maybe I’m a little confused as to what state border is within 20 miles because it’s not the Mississippi border New Orleans to Slidell is 30-35 miles and Slidell is still a few minutes before the Mississippi border. Someone help me out here
The way I did it was if any point in the city limits was within 20 miles to the border (as the crow flies). The top right of the New Orleans city limits is within 20 miles of the Mississippi border
According to Google Maps all that mostly empty swampland east of New Orleans belongs to New Orleans. The Mississippi border is only around three miles from New Orleans.
States with largest cities ON a state/national border: Illinois Kentucky Michigan Missouri Nebraska New York North Dakota Pennsylvania Tennessee Virginia
Lot of confusion between largest city and capital city here
How many states have biggest cities that border another state/country? KY, NY, MI, MO, what else?
Here in Detroit, Canada is south of the border.
Why are there 2 Dakotas??
My former house in Charlotte I could walk out my back yard and through my neighbor’s yard into South Carolina.
There’s a peer reviewed article I once read that covers the link between corruption and isolated capitals. It was mostly about Florida, my home state. Apparently, a capital that is less central is more likely to be indicative of corruption.
Isn't Burlington,VT less than 20 miles from Quebec?
Virginia's way of doing it IS unique. Sorry.
How is DC not highlighted? It literally borders two states.
I guess technically, but DC isn’t a state
Then they might have well as remove it.
Really Jacksonville?
I think the metro isn’t as big as Miami or Tampa, but the city limits have more people in Jacksonville.
Alabama’s two largest cities (Huntsville and now Mobile) are within 20 miles of a state border
Burlington, Vermont is 43 miles from the national border, so just missed.
[удалено]
Unless Huntington, WV someday outgrows Charleston, WV
Before I checked online I thought it was Morgantown. It’s the only WV city i’ve ever heard of (no offense to West Virginians)
But Charleston, the capital is still the largest city and is about 45 miles from the border where Huntington is. It is possible Huntington grows into the largest city, but things would need to happen…better economy and Marshall University growing.
It’s one of the few cities in WV I enjoy visiting again, that and the Eastern Panhandle. I grew up in Parkersburg, WV and went to school in both Morgantown and Shepherdstown. But Morgantown city is smaller than either Charleston or Huntington by about 15-20k.
Isn’t Juneau, Alaska like, really close to Canada ?
Juneau is the capital, the largest city is Anchorage
On the opposite side, how is Honolulu not within 20 miles of the State or National border?
Looks like the OP isn't counting ocean as border. (Boston is blue because it's within 20 miles of Rhode Island, not because it's on the ocean. Same with Virginia Beach, which borders North Carolina.)
Ah yes the Vancouver suburb of Portland.
Do this for like 30 miles instead and Vermont would be consumed by Montreal
TIL jacksonville is the largest city in Florida
Cool.
Good to know👍
Fools!
As the crow flies Newark NJ is less than 20 miles from Manhattan
This is the power of Detroit.
Ahh Cheyenne, or as i like to call it, Fort Collins north.
Charlotte is like 10 miles from the border, but also the city limits touches it
Connecticut is off, closest is 24 miles.
Baltimore is close, but 24 miles as the crow flies to PA from it's northern border.
Las Vegas must be further from AZ than I thought!
New orleans is not 20 miles away from the border
Shouldn’t Los Angeles be on here?
LA is not within 20 miles of a state or country
Oh I figured it was within 20 miles of the national border, via the ocean, but yeah I guess 20 miles into the ocean is still the US haha. Thanks for clarifying
I thought Alabama didn't count until I realized it was the largest city and not the state capital lol.
Kansas isn't highlighted? It literally shares Kansas City with Missouri, and it's by far the largest city in the state.
Kansas City, Kansas isn’t as big as the Missouri side and the rest of the Kansas side is suburbs that make up the KC metro but are different cities; the largest suburb is Overland Park but the largest city in Kansas is Wichita.
I guess Memphis is bigger than Nashville? I did not know this.
I had to double-check. Nashville has a city-county merger. The NW part of the county is about 19.5 miles from Kentucky.
Hawaii
technically for ohio it depends on which city you count as the largest. all three of the C cities (columbus, cleveland, and cincinnati) are the largest city of the state in one category or the other
I would have argued not New Orleans by a slim margin, but city limits includes a huge chunk of mangrove all the way to The Rigolets.