Geography Quiz

My friends and regular readers of this blog know that I am a natural skeptic. I question most everything, trust only fact not rumor, and abhor unfounded opinions. Blind faith -- "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" -- just doesn’t work in my book. If it’s not admissible in court, I disregard it.

That tendency kicked in on December 31 as I watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin ring in 2013 in Times Square. A few minutes before mid- night they cut away to Easton, Me., which a reporter claimed is the eastern-most point in the country and thus the first U.S. location to welcome the new year. I thought, “Really? Is that true?” 

I got out my atlas to find out, and then I started thinking about other geographic oddities. As a result, I have this quiz for your cartographic amusement. Feel free to suggest other questions in the comment section. Here is your quiz:

 

    (a) If you go south from Detroit what is the first foreign country you come to?

    (b) How many U.S. state capitals are west of Los Angeles?

    (c) What is the eastern-most piece of U.S. land?

And the answers are --

    (a) If you were trying to imagine some place in South America, you were way off. When you drive south from downtown Detroit you cross the Detroit River into Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

    (b) Folks who haven’t lived on the left coast seldom get this one, and even those who live in California often miss it. The answer is: six. West of LA lie the state capitals of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. For extra credit, name those cities.

    (c) Finally, the eastern-most piece of U.S. land is not in Maine, it’s in Alaska. Yes, that’s right. The Aleutians stick out across the International Date Line, and at 179° East Longitude lies Semisopochnoi Island, Alaska. Alaska, therefore, contains both the western-most and eastern-most bits of U.S. territory. But to give CNN its due, nobody lives on those small volcanic islands at the end of the Aleutians, so Easton, Maine is the first inhabited spot in the U.S. to see a new year.  

Here are some shots of Semisopochnoi Island. I guess you can figure out why nobody lives there.

As this map shows, the Aleutians (red dot) straddle the date line, the meridian that goes straight down from the North Pole in this picture. Semisopochnoi is the first green spot to the left of the date line.