Why are Western states so durn big? nt

[raccoon]

[seabeyond]

1. would you want another 20 states to memorize in elementary school

wink....

[raccoon]

2. Nope, 50 are enough. nt

[bigwillq]

11. LOL!

:)

[steve2470]

3. lazy cartographers FTW

:silly:

[kayakjohnny]

4. To fill up all that space.

[progressoid]

5. Kind of a cool show about this on the History Channel

http://www.history.com/shows/how-the-states-got-their-shapes

Surprising since so much of the History channel isn't history related.

[raccoon]

7. Thanks for the link! nt

[zanana1]

6. Because they're uninhabitable? nt

[kentauros]

8. We need more room for our big egos

}(

[Angry Dragon]

9. They were running out of lines

[alphafemale]

10. The cool squiggly ones anyway. Long straight ones were the only ones left. nt

[dimbear]

12. As the tree of Liberty grew taller, it grew bigger and better fruit. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. They had more dirt than the Eastern states.

[pokerfan]

14. It's not the size that matters

It's how many national parks you have!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. because all the little ones were taken.

[jmowreader]

16. Because of the Northwest Ordinance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance

A territory needed 60,000 inhabitants to become a state.

The western states' economies were based on farming, logging and mining; when one family needs hundreds or thousands of acres to make a living, it'll take a LOT of land to get enough people together.

[jmowreader]

17. Because of the Northwest Ordinance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance

A territory needed 60,000 inhabitants to become a state.

The western states' economies were based on farming, logging and mining; when one family needs hundreds or thousands of acres to make a living, it'll take a LOT of land to get enough people together.

[struggle4progress]

18. It's a result of the great migrations: as people left to move west, eastern dirt clung

to their horses' hooves and wagon wheels, falling off later in places like utah and colorado; also, some farmers would take a pocketful of the topsoil from their old farm to dump wherever they settled. So the eastern states gradually lost land and shrunk. That's why, if you look at history, America used to be only thirteen states but now those original thirteen states have all shriveled up along the Atlantic coast

[Kali]

20. !

:spray: :rofl: :thumbsup:

[KamaAina]

19. Hawai'i: a measly 6,423 square miles of land

that's smaller than Massachusetts, for Pete's sake!

[LeftinOH]

21. They could've utilized a few more rivers & mountain ranges to define the borders-

The farther west you go, it's mostly a bunch of straight lines, as if they got lazy with staking out territory.

[Tikki]

22. All the better to see what's going on in...

...you little States.

Tikki

[dimbear]

23. OK. Serious answer for the history minded. California, Texas, Utah, Hawaii

all started out as freaking foreign countries. Naturally they're big. Rhode Island? Started out as a plantation. Georgia? Penal colony. Naturally not so big. It's all in the history books.

BTW, ever wonder why Idaho looks so funny? It's because it's what was left over. History, my friends.

[Throd]

24. To compensate for our tiny peenies.

On DU, anything large or powerful is to compensate for a small penis.