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This is a map of the United States
and hundreds of years of colonization
and laws has made the country's geography pretty weird
in more than just a few places.
Today, I'm going to show you a few maps
that will change your perception of how you see this country and its place in the world.
First of all, South America:
At first glance, it seems like South America is directly south of North America.
And while that's kind of the case, it's also not entirely accurate.
If we were to move South America up, you'd find that nearly the entire continent is east of Florida.
And that the western most edge would only be about 380 miles west of the Azores, which are a part of Portugal.
Next up, if you had to guess right now which US state is closest to Africa, which one would you say?
If you didn't say Maine, you're wrong but yeah, despite being in the Northeast and sharing a long border with Canada,
If you draw a straight line across the ocean, you'll see that Maine is in fact, the closest state geographically to Africa.
Moving on next to Texas, there is a couple of weird things about this state.
First of all, this town that nobody has ever heard of, called Dalhart.
This town is located 485 miles away from Texan state capital of Austin.
Which means that Dalhart is actually closer to state capitals of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado , Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming.
Six other different states.
Another way to understand
just how big
Texas actually is is by
taking a look
at the city of El Paso located
in the westernmost edge of the state.
If you a draw a line from here to the easternmost edge of Texas, and then
move that line over to a point to the west,
you'll see that the line goes past Los Angeles.
Meaning that LA is closer to El Paso
then the other side of Texas is.
But LA itself is in a deceiving geographic
location of its own.
You would think that since it's on the west coast
it would be further west than most other U.S cities.
But that's not totally true either.
Reno, Nevada is actually located further west than LA is.
Which you would see when a line is drawn from Reno southwards.
And speaking of weird senses of latitude, here's some more examples that might mess with your head a little.
Austin, Texas is roughly on the
same latitude as Cairo, Egypt.
New York City is roughly equal to Madrid in Spain.
Minneapolis is close to Venice.
Vancouver is almost equal to Paris.
And Calgary in Canada is almost equal to London.
The North American continent has much cooler temperatures on average than Europe does
at higher latitudes like this.
Which is why this is a little confusing.
But perhaps equally confusing is what happens when
you look at a globe and flip it on its side.
If you start at Mexico City and draw a straight line out of this direction,
you'll be amazed to find how many other cities the line roughly matches up with.
For Mexico City, the line also goes through Atlanta,
Washington D.C, New York City,
Paris, and eventually Izmir in Turkey.
The perception is weird because we usually
think of the world in terms of a map and not in terms of its true spherical shape.
The final geographic oddities in America that I'll be discussing
in this video are located around the northern most parts of the country.
First up in this region is Detroit.
Where if you start to the downtown region and travel south,
you'll end up pretty quickly in Canada.
If you head east you'll also end up in Canada.
If you go north, you'll end up in Lake Huron
and then eventually, Canada again.
It's easy to end up in Canada while in Detroit,
but it's even easier while in Point Roberts.
An ex-slave of the United States south of Vancouver.
The only way to get from this part of America to the other part of America
is by driving 25 miles through Canada.