American States

[Scarlett]

Why is it that the American States are divided in straight lines??! In England, the counties' borders are all jaggedy and all over the place. Did they get a big piece of string and walk east in order to divide the land up?

[dothawkes]

Well they have state lines, not state jaggedys so I guess it is done in just such a way Scarlett.

[Clanad]

As you may notice, many of the States that came form the original colonies, don't have straight lines for their borders.  Historically, they were land grants and the grants, in the original language of the 14tth and 15th centuries described the area by reference to know land marks, i.e., rivers, mountains and in some cases, even "the large oak tree three rods east of..."  So those were fairly imprecise and changed with rivers flows, dieing oak trees, etc.  Whereas, the States added at later dates, especially those of the Great Plains, were referencing longitude and latitude deffinitions.  In my own state, for example, there were only 5 counties, originally.  These all had parallel borders running from north to south.  As population grew, it became more manageable to sub-divide those.  A lot of the original lines can still be seen however... There are many States today, that do have borders made of rivers though...

[jno]

there's only the one place where four states meet, as it happens.

[vehelpfulguy]

If you look at the history of the US you will see that the first areas developed by the early settlers were on the east cost (New York etc), and by the spanish on the west coast (California etc).

These were not states, but colonies, like individual countries. Many had their own money and their own language (bit like Europe now).

The centre of the country was owned by France (not sure how) so not divided into states, it was just one huge mass of land. 

The US then bought the land off the French in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase. see here: http://gatewayno.com/history/LaPurchase.html

But even at the beginining of the American civil war, the area was still one huge mass of land called the Territories. See here http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/elections/maps/1860.gif

Almost all the fighting in the US civil war went on at the east side of the country.

It was only after the civil war that the land was divided up into states, and because the land was so huge it was simply done using straight lines.