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xkcd #2868: Label the States (xkcd.com)

submitted 11 months ago by randoot to c/xkcd

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Alt text: Even with a blank map, a lot of people can only name 45-50 of the 64 states.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

What's interesting are the states you can't modify too much or it gives away the game.

Texas is a key example, people are pretty familiar with that shape, even many non-Americans will recognize it. Florida and California are also pretty well known. Also, many people have a rough idea of NY State, though you could probably tweak the north and west borders a bit and nobody would notice too much.

The ones it's easy to fiddle with are the rectangular ones in the mid-west. I think a lot of people only know them starting from another reference point, like "north of Texas" or "east of Nevada".