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How the States Got Their Shapes

3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 · rating details · 1,050 ratings · 305 reviews

Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities--the entire state of Maryland(!)--have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where t...more

Hardcover, 332 pages

Published May 27th 2008 by Smithsonian (first published 2008)

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Oct 26, 2010 Nathan James rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: any geography geek

Shelves: history, 2009

read half of it in one sitting. I'm so not cool. Toward the end though, it got pretty repetitive. The strategy of covering every border one state at a time is good in theory, but if read from cover to cover, could be done in about 25 pages. Things I learned from the book:
1. There was a whole lot of bad surveying going on.
2. Panhandles are the most telling of the political atmosphere back then. Oklahoma has a panhandle because Texas wanted to be a slave state. Florida has a panhandle because it w...more

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Oct 07, 2008 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is divided into 50 short chapters, each detailing how a U.S. state acquired its shape. Easy to understand.

This book at first fascinated me. I love history, and I love maps even more. I can just sit and look at a map for hours, running my mind over the lay of the land. So, I was hooked. How did West Virginia get that little finger of land that reaches toward Pittsburgh? Why aren't Vermont and New Hampshire just one regular-sized state? Why did Wyoming take a bite out of Utah, and not th...more

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Aug 13, 2008 The other John rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, curiosity, history

Here's an intriguing book of trivia--a tome of a very specific historical niche. Have you ever looked at a state map and wondered why the border runs like it does? No? Er, well, trust me, there are weirdoes like me who love maps and sit and gaze upon all the little quirks and details. And there are some, like me, who have wondered why the heck Michigan has an upper peninsula or why Utah has that notch. Such secrets are revealed in this book, as the logic (or politics) behind each twist and turn...more

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Apr 08, 2009 Robin added it

I have found your Father's Day gift.
You can thank me later. On the other hand, if he becomes completely annoying over dinner and long car rides, I accept none of the blame.

6 likes · like · see review

Apr 10, 2012 Beth Cato rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: in, 2011, nonfiction, history, geography

The title IS a summary of the book, which is an ideal read if you're a history and geography geek like me. It's 304-pages of maps, historical notes, and outright warfare between states. I've always wondered why many East Coast states remained small; yes, they may have been colonies originally, but why not combine eventually? That question and many others are addressed. Sometimes it can get confusing because of the sheer amount of terms, but Stein set aside a special section at the front called D...more

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Jan 19, 2009 Aaron rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2009

My wife and I read several portions of How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein while we drove to and from Kansas over the Christmas Holidays. The book is a state-by-state description of how the 50 states, plus DC, obtained their current boundaries. The book can be rather repetitive, if you read it straight through (after all, the states all share borders, and if each chapter of the book tells the story of every boundary of one state, there has to be repitition, with the exception of maybe...more My wife and I read several portions of How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein while we drove to and from Kansas over the Christmas Holidays. The book is a state-by-state description of how the 50 states, plus DC, obtained their current boundaries. The book can be rather repetitive, if you read it straight through (after all, the states all share borders, and if each chapter of the book tells the story of every boundary of one state, there has to be repitition, with the exception of maybe Hawaii and Alaska). But if you read only the chapters on the states you are interested in, it is a very fun and interesting read.

The book provided many little-known anecdotes and history lessons about the way our United States were formed. Based on what we read (not the entire book), it seemed to my wife and I that there were several things that impacted how a state's boundaries are formed: where resources lie (coal, forest, good soil, etc.), access to water and/or lakes, Congress's efforts to create states of roughly equal size, Britain's, and then the U.S.'s, relations with Spain and France before the creation of the U.S. as we know it today. Not surprisingly, slavery was a very important factor in the creation of many states, determining where north-south boundaries would lie to maximize the number of citizens, either pro- or anti-slavery, that resided within the state (e.g., Kansas, Missouri). More surprising was the role that incompetent surveyors, prideful politicians, and bribing landowners played in many of the quirky anecdotes (e.g., Idaho, Tennessee). I was also surprised to read that Georgia and North Carolina actually fought a war over a several-mile-wide strip of land along Georgia's north border. I also learned things about the shape of states that I had never known before. For example, there is a little bubble of Kentucky in the southern tip of Missouri created by a north-ward bend in the Mississippi. Delaware's northern end is a semi-circle.

This is a good book, but I would not recommend reading it cover to cover. My wife and I simply read about whatever state we were currently driving through, as we travelled to Kansas for Christmas, and then a few other states that we wanted to learn about, like states we have lived in, or states that simply seem wierd. By limiting the chapters we read in the book to those that we were actually interested in, I think we ended up enjoying the book more than we otherwise would have. (less)

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Jan 07, 2009 Dave rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ok, if you're into interesting facts, ramdom ways to make conversation (that may not go anywhere), or just want to surprise yourself with your own level of ignorance about the actual shape of states (including the one you live in) then this is the book for you.

If, however, despite all that is written above you find repetitveness, poor organization, and failed attempts at grandiose statements and/or humor, perhaps you should pass. This was a pretty poorly written book. It was organized alphabeti...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Eugene S. rated it 5 of 5 stars

How the States Got Their Shapes
by Mark Stein
304 pages

This book tells us how the states got their borders. Sometimes, States fought for land. Other times, rivers were good borders. There were also states that were made from other states. But there are still some questions about the states. Why does Michigan have the peninsula that should have been Wisconsin’s? And why are some states like Texas and California so big. Shouldn’t every state be equal? The reason why California and Texas are so bi...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Jill Manske rated it 2 of 5 stars

I picked up this book on a whim; the title intrigued me. I like learning how things function and why they are the way they are. One of my all-time favorite books is "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I figured this book would be written in the same manner. Then there's the dust cover, full of reviews with quotes including words like, "fascinating", "engaging", "comedy", and "wonderfully entertaining". And then take into account that Mark Stein is a playwright and screenwriter...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Brigid rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, geography

The information within the book - and for the most part the style in which it is written - is very good. The primary fault is the organization. There are two introductory sections, one laying out the point of the book and the other giving some important information that will be referenced in almost every state history. Then the book goes through each state's border history. The states are listed alphabetically which is handy if you only want to look up a few. If you only want to look up, for exa...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Pierce rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This useless brick is, unfortunately, one of several self-inflicted literary infections I got by whipping out my Amazon.com iPhone App two hours deep into a happy hour. GOOD friends don't let friends do that. I need better friends, it would seem.

This book is about as compelling and forgettable as those "Brain Quest" trivia cards, and poorly written. I gritted my teeth through the first several chapters that Professor Stein begins with "How come...?" Why not "why?" Or better still, why not acknow...more

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May 29, 2012 Tiffany rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a very fascinating book for anyone interested in the subject at hand, namely, the states and how their borders became what they are. In fact, this would easily be a four star book at least, if not five, for its thoroughness on the subject, except for one issue that I need to agree with reviews I've read on. The book is very repetitive. The layout being what it is, going through all the states (and the District of Columbia) alphabetically, and dealing with each of their borders individual...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Nicholas Whyte rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1880268...

A popular history of the building blocks of US political geography (NB the author is not the wingnut Mark Steyn). I learned a number of things from it, including the importance of the 1790 Nootka convention and why Hawaii has more interesting borders than one might have thought. I had not really taken in that the block shapes of Colorado and Wyoming reflected a general aspiration to create states covering seven degrees of longitude and four of latitude (th...more http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1880268...

A popular history of the building blocks of US political geography (NB the author is not the wingnut Mark Steyn). I learned a number of things from it, including the importance of the 1790 Nootka convention and why Hawaii has more interesting borders than one might have thought. I had not really taken in that the block shapes of Colorado and Wyoming reflected a general aspiration to create states covering seven degrees of longitude and four of latitude (three for the four states immediately to the east). Some boundaries are set by landmarks which may be ephemeral - the circle in the Delaware/Pennsylvania border, centred on a spire in the town of New Castle; the Texas/Arkansas border running due south from a point 100 paces west of the southwest corner of the Fort Smith garrison building; the section of the Maryland/Virginia border which was supposed to align with Watkins Point, which had however been eroded into oblivion by the time the surveyors got there. And a lot of the colonial-era boundaries were badly surveyed, with mutterings that local settlers bribed or confused the surveyors with moonshine.

It struck me that there were several cases of states voluntarily giving up territory, on the grounds that it was impossible to control from the state capital due to geography and therefore would be better handled by a neighbouring jurisdiction - this is the explanation given for Washington shedding the gold fields which became part of Idaho, and for the trimming of the town of Boston Corner from Massachusetts to New York. That's rather different from the approach to territoriality I am used to elsewhere - it speaks to a trust that neighbouring jurisdictions could handle one's own troublesome citizens better. Armed conflict over territorial aggrandisement was very rare, the 1836 Toledo War between Ohio and Michigan being the most recent example.

Though I do wonder if it's true if, as reported here, those of the original colonies with claims west of the Appalachians surrendered them to the new federal government fairly smoothly, apart from the westernmost bits of Virginia and Connecticut's Western Reserve (now in Ohio). I also wished Stein had gone into more detail on the secession of Vermont from New York and of West Virginia from Virginia - I know that he left out some interesting details from the latter and I had hoped to learn more than I did about the former.

Since Stein covers all fifty states, and the Dictrict of Columbia, in alphabetical rather than historical sequence, there is a fair bit of repetition (the Watkins Point story is told in the chapters on Virginia, Maryland and also Delaware). But it's all lucidly done and nicely illustrated with clear maps. (less)

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Nov 10, 2011 Frank Stein rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is an odd bird. It's a fairly straightforward book on American geography published by the Smithsonian that is written by a playwright, whose bio on the back notes most prominently his authorship of the 1992 film "Housesitter" with Goldia Hawn and Steve Martin, that somehow became a New York Times bestseller and even a History Channel series. The now former playwright, recognizing where is bread is buttered, recently came out with a sequel, "How the States Got Their Shapes Too." It's be...more
This book is an odd bird. It's a fairly straightforward book on American geography published by the Smithsonian that is written by a playwright, whose bio on the back notes most prominently his authorship of the 1992 film "Housesitter" with Goldia Hawn and Steve Martin, that somehow became a New York Times bestseller and even a History Channel series. The now former playwright, recognizing where is bread is buttered, recently came out with a sequel, "How the States Got Their Shapes Too." It's become a franchise.

That franchise is even stranger when you look at the organization of the book. 50 states and the District of Columbia are organized by alphabetical order, like an encyclopedia, and each state's chapter deals then with that state's Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western borders in a four separate sections. You can't get much more staid and dull than that. The organization also ensures that numerous borders are mentioned numerous times (at least twice for most states), which, at least according to the Goodreads reviews, becomes repetitive for most anyone.

Still, I really enjoyed it. There was so much in here that I didn't mind it being repeated most of the time, and the book does show that every border has a story. Take Nevada, which looks about as dull as dishwater shapewise, but Congress twice moved its Eastern border over one degree of longitude, in 1862 and 1864, when gold was discovered in those areas, mainly to cut off more territory from the burgeoning Mormon colonies in Utah. The territory itself was created in 1861 to cut off the Comstock Lode of silver from those same Mormons. Or take Ohio. The original line specified in the Northwest Ordinance said the state should go from the Southern-most point on Lake Michigan due East, which unfortunately would cut off the growing city of Toledo from the state. So Congress in 1835 put the line on a slant. Michigan, still a territory, objected and sent its militia to seize the lands in question, resulting in the Toledo War. In response to this provocation, Congress gave Michigan the big chunk of land of Wisconsin on the other side of Lake Michigan, which explains why Michigan is divided oddly in half. Those states then battled over that line. The ramifications echoed outward.

There's dozens of such little stories, but a few constants keep coming up. One is how important water access was to these states, in a time when states were more like little countries. Toledo ensured Ohio access to Lake Erie and the mouth of the Maumee River. Pennsylvania's nub on the Northwest ensured it access to Lake Erie too, creating the town of Erie. Likewise the little nubs at the bottom of Mississippi and Alabama, taken from Spain in 1810 and 1813, ensured each state got equal access to the gulf. Also, I had no idea how important the principle of equality of state size was to Congress when it was creating them, enough so that they often looked forward for decades in planning the states. The odd bend between Alabama and Mississippi was drawn to ensure almost complete equality of land between the two. When Congress created Kansas's Southern border on the 37 parallel in 1861, it did so so that it could create exactly three more states of exactly three degrees height each, a process that would take another thirty years to complete (Nebraska, South and North Dakota). Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana were also started on the 37th parallel for the same reason. Many of these same states also have exactly 7 degrees of width, another attempt to ensure equality of size if not population. Finally, I had no idea how many of these disputes carried over from the 18th or 19th century into the 20th, and how many had to be settled by the Supreme Court. It took til 1901 for the Court to settle the Tennessee/Kentucky borderline due to some surveyors' errors over a hundred years before. New Jersey in 1993 won a Supreme Court case against New York for the parts of Ellis Island that had been created by dredging the muck which Jersey had a right to. Some states like Michigan and Wisconsin have never officially agreed to a borderline, even today.

Despite all these interesting facts and stories the question is why this geography book remains so popular. Clearly it is answering a need. The map of the United States is both so ubiquitous in our daily lives and also so inexplicable that people wanted to put some order and narrative into it, and this book does that, in a solid, workmanlike fashion. I'm glad I read it.

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Mar 18, 2011 Aaron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Did you know that Connecticut once went to war with Pennsylvania over land? Did you know we almost had a state called Jefferson out west? Stein does a great job of presenting all the quirks of history and politics that defined the borders of each of the states and the District of Columbia.

The book is presented in a series of 52 chapters with one for each state and the district as well as an introductory chapter that highlights some major events and agreements that defined the borders of a large...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-history, history, non-fiction

In conjunction with Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It, I also heartily recommend How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein. It details the crazy journeys our wonderful 50 states took in order to end-up in the shapes that we know and love today. For example, did you know that Washington (before it got the D.C. moniker) was supposed to be a square city, made up of equal parcels of land donated by both Maryland and Virginia? Well, the cit...more

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Dec 15, 2010 Mitchell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating book. I will never look at a state map ever again. It's a little repetitious because the states, after all, border each other so you get some of the same information over and over again. Still, in case you ever wondered how states got some of the weird little boundaries and jags that they have, this is the book to read. Some of the stories, especially Maryland and Delaware are quite comical. There are reasons how Maryland got to be as odd looking as it is. Great factoids -- Delaware'...more

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Jun 07, 2010 Mauri rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Got this from the library after catching an episode of the TV show. Turns out the TV show is the better of the two. I give the author kudos for the idea and the research, but the book is poorly presented - each state is addressed alphabetically, giving this book the same problem as Sperm Wars - you have to flip around because the borders of Arizona and Arkansas don't exactly have a lot to do with one another. The first chapter sums up a few points that are important to understanding why certain...more

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Mar 08, 2010 PJ rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was pretty excited about the idea of reading this book, but by the time I was done I was fairly disappointed. If you're curious about how the borders of the states in the USA came to be, the information is in the text, but the book is poorly organized and riddled with errors.

The book runs through all 50 states plus DC and describes why each border is where it is. Probably for simplicity, Mr Stein decided to organize the book alphabetically by state. But in constructing a narrative, this format...more I was pretty excited about the idea of reading this book, but by the time I was done I was fairly disappointed. If you're curious about how the borders of the states in the USA came to be, the information is in the text, but the book is poorly organized and riddled with errors.

The book runs through all 50 states plus DC and describes why each border is where it is. Probably for simplicity, Mr Stein decided to organize the book alphabetically by state. But in constructing a narrative, this format makes no sense. This organizational method makes for a choppy book of 51 separate anecdotes. If you're just curious about the border of one state, maybe this is acceptable. But if you want to read about every state a) the style becomes monotonous, and, more significantly, b) it's awkward to read, for example, about Kentucky before Virginia, when it was Virginia whose border determined Kentucky's. The book would have been much more readable had he started with the 13 colonies and progressed more chronologically.

Another annoying element of the book was that I was constantly flipping around looking at various maps scattered throughout the volume. I can't stand being made to turn pages to look at a diagram mentioned in the text. Given that this book is all about looking at maps, I grew increasingly frustrated being told to turn to another section of the book to look at a map. At least I should have been given a page number rather than a diagram number, but seriously the maps should have been reprinted so that I didn't have to flip around so much.

Lastly, there are many errors in the book. It doesn't require a very careful read to find multiple instances where a map contradicts the text or vice versa.

A good idea for a book, but poorly executed. (And really it wasn't even a unique idea since a similar book was written by a Jim Feldman in 1999. This book is probably even worse since the second word in the first paragraph is misspelled ("The Ordinanace of 1787...."). But that is another story.)(less)

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Nov 20, 2012 Gary Baughn rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't know when I will finish this, because I have begun to just read one state at a time--seems to sink in better that way. I think the concept is fascinating, that each state's shape is a story in itself and in the larger story of our nation's history. I also think that it is an example of how I would teach American history if I were starting over and chose History instead of English: I would teach American History as a series of clashes between rival interests. Each state's borders were dec...more

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Feb 06, 2010 James82 added it

I found the book interesting up to a point. The author took pains to describe how various parts of states were "snipped" off to avoid problems with jurisdiction. It made me curious what he would say about Point Roberts, Washington.

He didn't mention it at all. Point Roberts is a portion of Washington that requires travel through Canada in order to visit. How is a "wide" river, or a mountain range more daunting? The water route to Point Robers is approximately 20 miles across bays and inlets. What...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Virginia rated it 2 of 5 stars

At first this book was very interesting but the same stories get rehashed as it continues alphabetically through the states. The book would have been better and shorter had he taken it regionally or in order of founding.

As a native Rhode Islander, I found that his observations about Roger Williams and the founding of RI and Providence Plantations to be inaccurate. For one, Roger Williams did not set up a colony on Aquidneck Island (he founded Providence Plantations in the area north on the main...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Don added it

Shelves: z-bpl-completed-2008

Why doesn’t the northern border of Illinois neatly line up with those of neighboring Indiana and Ohio (which almost line up, but not quite)? What’s the deal with all the panhandles? Why are Texas and California so big? The state borders are permanent reminders of the many political struggles that carved the United States out of the New World, for example: Colonial Royal Deeds (the semi-circle of Delaware’s northern border), New World Diplomacy (the border between Oregon and California resulted f...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-history

I started out liking this book so much, but ...

The book starts with Alaska and then goes alphabetically through the state--logical right?

Except not really. By the time you get to Wyoming (heck, the Dakotas), you've read most of the information four other times (depending on how many states surround it), because you've read the story about their boundaries.

By O, I was off-put.

By T, I was tired.

And by W, I was weary.

I am saddened that had I written this review a few short days ago, I would have...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Lexish rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book has a lot of interesting information about how the states ended up looking like they do (and I'd never noticed before a lot of the strange little extra pieces added to or taken away from certain state borders). That said, I really can't fathom why the author chose to organize alphabetically a book that is effectively about geography. Instead of discussing, for example, the borders of New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine all in one section, the author goes alphabetically by state name. This mean...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Tom Darrow rated it 5 of 5 stars

Being a US history teacher, I think this is a great book for several reasons...

1) It focuses both on the big and small aspects of American history. There are too many books that focus on either one or the other. This book takes into consideration the big events, like the Revolution or the Mexican War, but it also focuses on the small things... like the Mormon War in Utah, the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont and the struggle over the Georgia/Florida border.

2) Even though the book probably wouldn't...more

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Sep 01, 2011 Kristine rated it 3 of 5 stars

For some time, I've been curious about how our United States got their shapes, so when I saw the title of this book, I was excited to read it. The author clearly did his research and I learned about which states were formed first and how many of the earliest states once stretched from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans. I learned that many states were first part of territories owned by Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Russia and had to be purchased or won by war. I learned that Congress o...more

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Jul 07, 2010 Molly rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a very enjoyable book. The author did a great job at making each chapter able to stand on its own if the reader is only interested in one particular state, rather than in reading the entire book, as I chose to do. You would think that reading about how Connecticut and Rhode Island got their northern borders and how Massachusetts got its southern border would be repetitive, but in each telling of the history of any one boarder, the author gives different details so that the book is reada...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

I got this book after watching the History Channel television program of the same name. Interestingly, there's some info that was on TV that wasn't in the book.

Informative and entertaining writing for a subject that could become downright mind numbing. Mark does a great service by using informative maps.

Although it may be a losing proposition of a monumental task, I would have preferred the book to be arranged a bit differently. Rather than list the states alphabetically, to make it easy to jump...more

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Feb 15, 2010 Nigel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-book-a-week

Possibly the nerdiest book I have read to date. Literally, this is a state-by-state survey of how the various state boundary lines were drawn. Parts of it are seriously fascinating. (Why is California so big? Essentially because they were a bunch of jerks who refused to have it any other way. Why does Michigan have an upper peninsula? They got it as compensation for having lost a border fight with Indiana and Ohio. Is Ellis Island part of New Jersey or New York? Technically, it depends.)

My one p...more

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