50 個你沒聽過的美國地理冷知識！

你知不知道英國仍然擁有美國的一部分 或是在愛爾瓦城市 它在河流的反面附近 如果我們告訴你大湖不是國家最深處的湖 那麼為什麼那麼有名呢? 我們將為你解釋這一切 所以準備50個令人震驚的美國地理事實 你可能不知道的 從事事實開始 美國最長的地區名稱是 Stay with me here Lake Chagagag Manchagag Chabanagangamag With 45 characters within its name Lake Chagagag Manchagag Chabanagangamag located in Massachusetts is the longest place name in the country and the third longest in the world And it took me all morning to practice it It's a Nipmuc name from the language of the indigenous people who used to live in that area So what does Lake Chagagag Manchagag Chabanagangamag translate to? English knife men and Nipmuc Indians at the boundary or neutral fishing place Of course It's now nicknamed Webster Lake so people can make picnic or fishing plans without sounding like they're having a medical emergency But locals take pride in its extra long title and have fought to keep it the lake's official name to this day Fact 49 Texas is even bigger than you think Did you know that the distance from El Paso to Houston and El Paso to Los Angeles is almost the same? Turns out Texas is really big El Paso is 700 miles or about 1100 kilometers east of LA and almost 670 miles or just under 1100 kilometers west of Houston In total, Texas is around 770 miles wide just north of 1200 kilometers making it almost one-tenth the entire diameter of Earth So now that we've gone really big let's go really tiny Fact 48 The smallest park in the world is a leprechaun colony in Oregon Mill Ends Park is a tiny circular park in Portland, Oregon that measures just two feet wide and has just one lonely tree growing on it It's on the charming, picturesque Median Strip of Southwest Naito Parkway In 1948, it was just a patch of dirt meant for a light pole Local journalist Dick Fagan whose office overlooked the patch of land saw weeds growing over time but there was no light pole in sight so he planted flowers and named it Mill Ends after his column But where do the leprechauns come in? Well, Fagan claims he saw one digging in this patch of grass He grabbed the leprechaun who granted him one wish Fagan asked for a park of his own so that's what Mill Ends became On St. Patrick's Day 1976 Portland signed off on this wild story by dedicating the park as the only leprechaun colony west of Ireland Fact 47 The U.S.'s deepest lake was formed by a volcanic eruption In the stunning wilderness of Oregon you'll find Crater Lake It's over 1,900 feet deep making it the deepest lake in the United States Six Statues of Liberty stacked foot-to-torch could fit in it Given the name, it's perhaps unsurprising that the lake was formed by a volcanic eruption Mount Mazama, part of the Cascade Range erupted for the last time around 5700 B.C. and collapsed in on itself from the strength of the eruption It lost 2,500 to 3,500 feet of height because of that eruption This formed a caldera that slowly got filled in with water The symmetrical base of the caldera is why Crater Lake is considered the 10th deepest lake in the world when measured at its deepest point However, it does hold the title of the deepest lake in the Western Hemisphere based on average depth just over 1,100 feet or 335 meters Fact 46 Over half of America's population lives in 10 states These 10 states are New York, California, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan It's no coincidence that these states include some of the biggest cities in terms of population in the country Major centers like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Diego, Jacksonville, Atlanta, and others give these regions a big population boost The population of the 10 states mentioned previously adds up to around 170 million people while the total U.S. population is approximately 345 million That's not the craziest U.S. population fact though Leading us to fact number 45 Los Angeles County has a bigger population than 40 U.S. states L.A. County has 9.7 million residents making it the most populous county in the United States This also makes it bigger by population than a whopping 40 other U.S. states Placing it right between Michigan with 10 million people as of 2023 and New Jersey with around 9.3 million people A state like Wyoming on the other hand is 24 times as large as L.A. County yet only has about 580,000 people within its borders Speaking of that state Fact number 44 Wyoming is named after an area near Scranton, Pennsylvania It takes almost 24 hours to drive to Cheyenne, Wyoming from Scranton, Pennsylvania So why in the world is Wyoming named after an area near this East Coast town Well, the name Wyoming actually comes from the Delaware Indians which may be derived from their word Wyomic or Wyomic meaning end of plains And there are two possible reasons it ended up so far west One is that there was endless debate over what to name this new territory to the point where Congress got fed up and just randomly gave it this Native American name that fit the new state's geography The second and more favored explanation is that since indigenous people from Delaware were forced west through Ohio, Kansas and then ended up near and in Wyoming they took this name along with them To this day, the area around Scranton is still named Wyoming Valley Fact 43 Driving south from Detroit takes you into Canada It's easy to forget that many of Canada's major population centers sit at latitudes that also run through northern states We often think of Canada as being above the U.S. after all but one of Canada's most populated peninsulas dips south and west toward Michigan This means that if you drive south of Detroit you'll end up in the Canadian city of Windsor In fact, you don't even have to drive that far The tunnel that separates the two cities is just under a mile long However, thanks to border checkpoints the drive is a lot longer than you'd think It's not the only time the Canadian border was deceiving, though Fact 42 Some Californians live north of the Canadian border Most people wouldn't believe this is possible since we associate California with surf and sand and Canada with moose and polite tundra-dwelling people But it's true California's northern border is at 42 degrees latitude while Canada's southernmost point is at 41.7 degrees latitude found at Middle Island in Lake Erie Then again, some insane geographical phenomena show that borders can always change Fact 41 The San Andreas Fault swallows almost two inches of land in California every year If you've ever visited California you've likely heard of the San Andreas Fault This massive fracture in the earth marks the boundary where the Pacific Plate shifting westward toward Japan and the North American Plate grind against each other shaking the ground beneath our feet These plates consume roughly two inches or five centimeters of land each year At that pace, in 15 million years San Francisco and Los Angeles could practically be neighbors Fact number 40 The U.S. has some of the most navigable waterways in the world One of the reasons the U.S. became so successful is thanks to its huge waterways Not only do they reach deep into the country's interior which has some wild hidden features that we'll get to soon but they are also navigable meaning deep, wide, and calm This is unlike other rivers in northern countries that generally freeze over preventing ships from sailing on In total, the U.S. has anywhere from 17,600 to 25,000 miles of such waterways that reach 38 separate states The count varies depending on the source These waterways allowed trade to flourish in areas far from the coast with cargo ships making their way up and down the Mississippi, Missouri, and other rivers in the early days of the country They supplied new cities and created new economic centers A lot of the rivers are also interconnecting enabling people to move through several regions of the U.S. without too much effort How long are these rivers exactly? Well, that takes us to fact 39 It takes 90 days for one drop of water to travel the Mississippi River The Mississippi River is over 2,300 miles long If you spilled a drop of water in the river's source in Minnesota it would reach the Gulf of Mexico in 90 days just about three months That's about how long a person averaging 30 miles an hour would need to walk from New York to Los Angeles Fact 38 Yellowstone National Park is home to a supervolcano Ever wonder why Yellowstone has so many geysers and hot springs? Turns out it's because the park is an active volcano Sorry, excuse us, supervolcano Supervolcanoes are named not for their size but rather for the amount of material they spew in the air In this case, more than 240 cubic miles or about 1,000 cubic kilometers The first major eruption 2.1 million years ago covered an area of almost 5,800 miles with ash an area about half as big as all of Hawaii If you have a visit planned the bad news is that the supervolcano is not extinct The good news is that the last eruption was 640,000 years ago Yellowstone is currently dormant and scientists would have several months of warnings if an eruption were to occur again Speaking of places with volcanoes Fact number 37 It snows in Hawaii Though it's known as a tropical destination Hawaii gets a fair amount of snow every winter thanks to its incredibly tall mountains The tops of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Haleakala Mountains on Maui reach over 10,000 feet or 3,000 meters into the atmosphere and get covered with snow in the winter months Mauna Kea actually means white mountain because the top is so often snow-capped Hawaii also has another cool distinction Fact number 36 Hawaii is the only state with borders defined by natural features Many states have some borders defined by natural features Rivers, for example But Hawaii is the only state bordered exclusively by natural features Every other state has at least one straight line Which makes sense since, well, Hawaii is a bunch of islands otherwise known as an archipelago It's hard to draw a line when the ocean draws the border for you Unlike many older European countries whose borders are usually drawn by mountain ranges, rivers, and other natural features many U.S. states, especially those in the West and Midwest were more recently and artificially drawn to follow the lines set by treaties, contracts, and other agreements That's why the Rocky Mountains barrel through the middle of states like New Mexico and Colorado which doesn't make much sense as it divides the land instead of neatly forming a border Fact number 35 The tallest tree in the world is in California but its location is off-limits Somewhere deep in California's Redwood National Park lies a 600 to 800-year-old redwood named Hyperion that towers 380 feet or 115 meters over everything around it However, you can't go take a photo of it because you'll be fined No formal trail led to the tree itself as it was kept in a closed area to minimize the amount of damage people could do to it However, nature and Instagram enthusiasts found it anyway and rangers started seeing human waste and trash near Hyperion So, Hyperion is now strictly off-limits and anyone who tries to approach it and gets caught is looking at a $5,000 fine or six months in jail or both Park rangers say it's not that impressive anyway as you can't see the height from the ground and the trunk isn't that big But the biggest tree is also in the same state which leads us to fact number 34 The largest tree in the world is in Sequoia National Park, California named General Sherman Fitting for such a stately tree this redwood measures 52,500 cubic feet or just under 1,500 cubic meters in total volume For comparison, that's about three-fifths the size of an Olympic swimming pool The tree's circumference near the ground is a staggering 103 feet or over 30 meters It's an impressive sight and one of the main attractions of Sequoia National Park Shockingly though, this isn't the last tree record the U.S. or more specifically, California holds Fact number 33 The world's oldest living tree is in Inyo National Forest California is great at getting trees to grow In the White Mountains, researcher Edmund Schulman found a bristlecone pine he estimated to be over 4,600 years old The tree, named Methuselah, is on the Methuselah Trail But the Forest Service keeps its exact location a secret Perhaps that's because when geographer Donald R. Curry found the previous oldest living tree estimated to be 4,900 years old he cut it down to take core samples Regardless, it's cool to imagine that Methuselah was a young sapling around the same time construction started on the Great Pyramid of Giza Fact 32 The U.S. includes all major biomes One of the most amazing things about the U.S. besides its huge size is the variety of its landscapes In fact, the country includes every major biome and almost every subtype of biome except the savanna Tundra, taiga, rainforest, temperate forest, desert freshwater, marine, and grasslands are all represented in the 48 states as well as Hawaii and Alaska Almost no other country can claim the same Fact number 31 The U.S. is home to the sunniest place in the world Since it gets more than 4,000 sunlight hours per year Yuma, Arizona is the sunniest place on Earth It has an average of 13 hours of sunlight in the summer and 11 hours per day during the winter Fact number 30 Tampa, Florida is west of all of mainland South America South America sits directly underneath North America However, most of the continent is far to the east of most of North America Sao Paulo, Brazil is a full two hours ahead of New York City The continent is so far east that Tampa, Florida is west of the entire South American mainland Only the Galapagos sit west of the city Fact 29 The longest boardwalk in the world is in Atlantic City Today, Atlantic City is mostly known for its casinos But decades before the first casino was built Atlantic City was most famous for its boardwalk The structure is 5.5 miles long And in addition to being the longest It's also the oldest boardwalk in the world The plan for the boardwalk was devised all the way back in 1870 Fact number 28 Louisiana is home to the longest bridge that continuously runs across water Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is almost 24 miles long About 38 kilometers And sits on 9,500 concrete pilings The New Orleans Area Bridge connects Metairie to Mandeville It opened in 1956 to help commuters across Lake Pontchartrain Without having to go all the way around to access the big city Though residents appreciate the bridge It's so long that drivers lose sight of land for an 8-mile stretch Sometimes this panics people into a kind of freeze mode Resulting in police having to provide an escort to the other side Fact number 27 The Delmarva Peninsula keeps trying to form a new state Bordered by the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean The Delmarva Peninsula is a 170-mile peninsula Divided between Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia It was named using a combination of the three states' names and abbreviations All three states initially fought to get part of the peninsula Thanks to its coastline and fishing access They now want to keep it Thanks to the tourism its beaches and seaside recreation attract However, the residents have a lot of local pride Especially those within Maryland They've tried to form a separate state a few times The last attempt made in 1998 Though the movement has been unsuccessful Lots of local businesses, like the regional power company Still keep the Delmarva name Fact 26 Maine is south of Paris Since Paris and London seem to have comparable weather to New York City And sometimes even milder temperatures Many Americans imagine those European cities exist at a similar latitude But the fact is The entire state of Maine is south of Paris And London sits above most of the U.S. except for Alaska The only reason these European cities don't feel that far north Is because they get warmed by the Gulf Stream Speaking of London Fact number 25 A tiny part of the U.S. still belongs to England A small plot of land in the town of Ocracoke On the outer banks of North Carolina Is indefinitely leased to England It contains a cemetery Where the bodies of four sailors that died aboard the HMS Bedfordshire In World War II are buried These were the only bodies to wash ashore 37 sailors died in total The land was leased to England So the men would technically be buried in their home country You know who surprisingly doesn't own that much land in the U.S.? Fact number 24 Only 2.3% of U.S. land is for indigenous people Native American reservations occupy around 56 million acres Or 226,000 square kilometers Which translates to 2.3% of the total area of the United States Considering Native Americans once occupied all of the United States That's quite the loss of land Much of the land given to Native Americans Is also less than ideal for farming and having drinkable water You know who does get a lot of land, though? Fact number 23 Over one-third of all land in the contiguous U.S. is for cows What happens on the endless acres of empty-looking land in the U.S.? Turns out it's mostly cows munching on it The biggest use of land in the contiguous U.S. Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, of course Is as pastures for cattle A much smaller portion is used for horses, sheep, goats, and other animals It all adds up to 654 million acres Or 2.6 million square kilometers Or 35% of the total land If you add in cropland used to produce cow feed Which is an additional 124 million acres You get 41% of all land use Maybe that's why nine American states have more cows than humans These include Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming Fact number 22 Atlanta is west of Detroit People forget how much the eastern seaboard slopes inward as you go down the coast To the point where Atlanta, the biggest metropolitan area of Georgia Is actually west of Detroit, Michigan Fact number 21 Carter Lake, Iowa suddenly found itself on the other side of the Missouri River Carter Lake has the distinction of being the only Iowa town west of the Missouri River And the reason is quite strange A huge flood in 1877 Changed the river's entire flow, pushing it east of the town The residents of Carter Lake suddenly found themselves separated from their former neighbors And surrounded by Nebraska Nebraska didn't try to claim the town, though This isn't the only messed up border on our list, though Fact number 20 The New Mexico border is crooked because a surveyor drew it incorrectly New Mexico's eastern border may look like a straight line from a distance But if you look closely The state's border with Oklahoma in the north is around two miles further east Than the state's border with Texas And it's not because of some epic land or power struggle lost to history It's because of a surveyor The border was meant to follow the 103rd meridian While the Oklahoma border aligns correctly, the southern border doesn't Thanks to a surveyor who measured part of it from north to south And the rest from south to north, throwing off his final calculations New Mexico never appealed to get the land east of their border back Fact 19 The Florida Everglades is the only place on Earth where crocodiles and alligators coexist For most of us who still can't tell the difference Alligators are black with a U-shaped snout And crocodiles are lighter gray or brown with a V-shaped snout Either way, both of them are in the swamps of Florida So it's best to avoid a swim in the area Fact 18 The U.S. is one of only five countries home to polar bears Thanks to Alaska, the U.S. is home to some majestic polar bears Scientists estimate that between 4,000 and 7,000 polar bears roam the Great White North When asked for a more exact count, they reportedly replied Thanks, but we'd rather estimate from exactly this far away In case you're curious, the other four countries home to polar bears are Russia, Denmark, Norway, and Canada Fact 17 Michigan has two disconnected peninsulas because of a compromise Michigan applied for statehood in 1835 and tried to include land near Toledo, Ohio in its application Ohio, wanting to access Lake Erie, shut that down pretty quickly leaving Michiganders loud and annoyed To appease them, Congress gave Michigan what's now known as the Upper Peninsula attached to Wisconsin as a consolation prize That's why the state remains divided into two separate, disconnected landmasses today Fact number 16 Minnesota accidentally has part of Canada If you glance at Minnesota's northern border it looks like someone bumped into the mapmaker while drawing the state The border suddenly shoots up into Canada and then back down shortly after The mistake wasn't because of a shaky hand but the 1783 Treaty of Paris and the U.S. and Great Britain were working with wrong maps The two countries wanted to draw a boundary at a northwest angle through the Lake of the Woods But the lake wasn't drawn correctly so the border ended up being a mistake and to this day is still called the Northwest Angle This is far from the only weird state border formed by political bickering and mistakes So stay tuned Fact number 15 The 100 largest landowning families own enough land to fill the state of Florida The Emerson family operates Sierra Pacific Industries a business that cuts usable lumber after forest fires and sells it to other lumber retailers while John Malone, the largest private landowner in the U.S., mostly has cattle ranches The Emerson's own 2.4 million acres, or about 9,700 square kilometers and John Malone owns 2.2 million, or about 8,900 square kilometers an area about the size of Yellowstone National Park Fact number 14 There is only one state capital without a McDonald's If you're tired of seeing the Golden Arches everywhere and want a town that shies away from big corporate chains maybe you should head to Montpelier, Vermont It has the distinction of being the only state capital without a McDonald's Fact number 13 The tallest forest in the world is Rockefeller Forest in California California has the tallest forest in the world, the Rockefeller Forest Scientists believe that the type of trees that grow here, coastal redwoods combined with the mild Pacific Coast climate, create these tall forests Fact number 12 Kilauea is the most active volcano in the world Not only does the U.S. have a supervolcano it also wins the world's most likely to erupt prize, a trophy wanted by absolutely no one Mount Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii is the most active volcano in the world It's been erupting non-stop for the past 200 years with the last notable one being in June of 2024 Fact 11 85% of Nevada is federal land Though many western states contain large amounts of federal land both due to challenging barely habitable geography and being forced to cede land to join the U.S. as a state Nevada contains by far the most Today, the government owns 80 to 85% of Nevada mostly through the Bureau of Land Management Though the Department of Defense also operates a fair amount of bases and facilities here Fact number 10 Las Vegas is in Nevada because Arizona supported the Confederacy When gold was discovered in that pointy region of the Arizona Territory in the 19th century both Nevada and Arizona wanted it At the time, Nevada's southern border was 60 miles or 96 kilometers above where Las Vegas sits today Both states made their cases in front of Congress for who should get that land Congress picked Nevada because they said the state was better prepared to manage the influx of gold miners But it was also 1867 and after fighting a deadly, costly, and frankly exhausting civil war against the Confederacy Congress was also just not in the mood to be nice to the secession-supporting state of Arizona So, Nevada ended up with Las Vegas Fact number 9 39 counties in the U.S. have a GDP of over $100 billion each The GDP of L.A. County in 2022 was around $913 billion a bigger output than all but five U.S. states That places its GDP between Switzerland and Poland Other rich counties in the U.S. include New York, Cook County, home to Chicago and Harris County, home to Houston Fact number 8 Kentucky Bend is separated from Kentucky To separate Kentucky from Tennessee A line was drawn to divide the states But in one small area it was drawn right through a Mississippi River bend and a small chunk of land that sticks out into the river from Tennessee creating Kentucky Bend Residents have to cross through Tennessee to get to the rest of Kentucky People used to be divided over which state they should belong to to the point where a church called Compromise was built right on the state line and residents would sit on the side they supported The area only has 18 residents today so it's not much of an issue anymore Fact number 7 You have to drive through Canada to get to Point Roberts, USA If you venture south from Vancouver into the little peninsula under it you'll hit a border check and then Point Roberts This tiny strip of 4.9 square miles ended up in U.S. hands even though it is on the Tawasin Peninsula It can only be accessed by planar boat without driving through Canada first This division happened in the 1840s when the border between Canada and the Oregon Territory almost brought the U.S. and Great Britain to the brink of war again Instead, they settled on a treaty which divided the territory at the 49th parallel except for Vancouver Island and the Tawasin Peninsula which dips slightly below the parallel Fact number 6 94 places in the U.S. are named after George Washington These include a state, 31 separate counties and the capital of Washington, D.C. Of all presidents Washington has the most places named after him The second most frequently found presidential name in the country's geography is Lincoln Fact number 5 Ohio may have the biggest geode in the world Though the Pulpi Geode in Spain is also competing the winner has yet to be decided Ohio's Crystal Cave may be the world's biggest geode When workers were digging for Heinemann's Winery in Put-in-Bay, Ohio back in 1897 they thought they had uncovered a cave In reality, they had stumbled upon a massive geode a rock lined with dazzling crystals on the inside The celestite crystals in the cave run up to 3 feet wide and 18 inches long and the geode itself can comfortably hold up to 30 people inside Fact number 4 Almost all of Whittier, Alaska lives in one building The 14-story Begich Towers in Whittier houses almost the entire population of 263 people It also has a general store, a post office, a police station, church, and even a hospital helpful for residents who don't want to go outside during the harsh Alaskan winters Fact 3 Only 17 state capitals are also their state's largest cities Out of 50 states, only 17 have capital cities that are also their state's largest urban centers For example, California's capital is Sacramento and New York's capital is Albany Part of the reason is that many capitals were selected for alternate historical, geographical, or military reasons Some early American politicians also believed that if a state's major city was already prosperous and powerful, the capital should be located elsewhere to divide political and economic power among different regions Fact number 2 London Bridge is in Arizona That's right, the original London Bridge is nowhere near the UK capital You can now find it in Lake Havasu City, Arizona Originally built in the 1830s, the bridge did once sit over the Thames River in London But in the 1960s, London Bridge did, quite literally, start falling down The city realized it would be too costly to repair and had to be replaced Industrialist Robert McCulloch bought the bridge and transported all 10,000 tons of it to Lake Havasu City to be rebuilt And finally, Fact number 1 The Grand Canyon isn't the deepest canyon in the US That title goes to Hell's Canyon in eastern Washington, Oregon, and Idaho Hell's Canyon dives down to around 8,000 feet at its deepest point, or about 2,400 meters While the Grand Canyon only reaches 6,000 feet, or about 1,800 meters at its lowest That means about three Burj Khalifas, the world's tallest building, could stack up inside of it So, why does the Grand Canyon get all the fame? Well, because it's longer, larger, and, to many, more scenic than Hell's Canyon thanks to its stunning rock formations and vistas Thanks for joining me today I hope you enjoyed the video And if you want to see more videos like this,