00:00Why are so many U.S. states perfect rectangles?
00:03When you compare the U.S. to Europe, you can clearly see that European borders are very detailed,
00:08while many American states are just straight lines stretching for hundreds of kilometers.
00:13So why is that?
00:14In order to understand, we have to go back to the beginning of U.S. history.
00:18The original 13 colonies had detailed borders as they developed over hundreds of years,
00:23and even several of the newly acquired states had irregular borders as well.
00:27But everything changed after the Louisiana Purchase and the subsequent expansion westward.
00:32The land was sparsely populated and the government largely ignored indigenous territories when drawing borders.
00:38So, in order to distribute the land to people, they created the Public Land Survey System,
00:44basically dividing the land into square grids.
00:46This also made it much easier to draw many of the new state borders as simple rectangles.
00:51However, there are exceptions, such as Texas keeping its old border or Washington following the Columbia River.
00:57So which state do you think has the weirdest shape?
