"BEAUTIFUL STATES"

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY CONTEST

NAME OF THE STATE + popular city

FLAG INTERESTING FACTS/PLACES

ALABAMA Birmingham

• The North Alabama region is mostly mountainous, with the Tennessee River cutting a large valley creating numerous creeks, streams, rivers, mountains, and lakes.

• A 1,000-foot (300 m)-wide meteorite hit the area about 80 million years ago The Wetumpka impact crater is the only confirmed impact crater in Alabama, United States. It is located east of downtown Wetumpka in Elmore County.

ALASKA Anchorage

• Alaska is the largest state in the United States and is over twice the size of Texas with the area at 1,518,800 km2 and has the lowest population density in the nation. 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States are located in Alaska • Alaska's most important revenue source is the oil and natural gas industry. • Mount McKinley (also called Denali) in Alaska is the highest mountain in the US, at 6,193 m.

ARIZONA Phoenix

• Arizona is best known for its desert landscape, which is rich in cactus.

• Arizona is home of the Grand Canyon National Park. The Grand Canyon is a colorful, steep-sided gorge, carved by the Colorado River, in northern Arizona. The canyon is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and is largely contained in the Grand Canyon National Park—one of the first national parks in the United States. The canyon was created by the Colorado River cutting a channel over millions of years, and is about 446 km long, ranges in width from 6 to 29 km and has a depth of 1.6 km.

ARKANSAS Little Rock

• Blanchard Springs Cavern is a major tourist attraction in Arkansas.

It is a cave system located in the Ozark National Forest in Stone County in northern Arkansas • The World's Championship Duck Calling Contest is held annually in Stuttgart. Arkansas • Sam Walton founded his Wal-Mart stores in Bentonville. Wall Mart is the biggest supermarket chain store in the United States

CALIFORNIA Los Angeles

• The center of the state is dominated by the Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. • Yosemite Valle in The Sierra Nevada Mountainsy, famous for its glacially carved domes.

• Death Valley is recognized as the hottest, driest place in the United States.

• The Sequoia National Park, home to the giant sequoia trees, the largest living organisms on Earth.

Giant sequoia trees

• The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, one of California's most famous landmarks.

• Silicon Valley is a 48-km by 16-km area in northern California between San Francisco and San Jose. Its name comes from the many electronics, information technology, and Internet companies that have been locating their offices and manufacturing plants there since the 1950s. • California is known variously as The Land of Milk and Honey, The El Dorado State, The Golden State, and The Grape State • California is extremely rich. California has the largest economy in the states of the States. If California's economic size were measured by itself to other countries, it would rank the 7th largest economy in the world

COLORADO Denver

• Every year Denver host the worlds largest Rodeo, the Western Stock show. The World's First Rodeo was held on July 4th, 1869 in Deer Trail.

• The highest suspension bridge in the world is over the Royal Gorge near Canon City. The Royal Gorge Bridge spans the Arkansas River at a height of 1,053 feet.

CONNECTICUT Hartford

• Hartford is home to the nation's oldest public art museum (Wadsworth Atheneum), the oldest public park (Bushnell Park), the oldest continuously published newspaper (The Hartford Courant) • Connecticut is home to the first hamburger, Polaroid camera (1934), helicopter (1939), and color television (1948).

DELAWARE Dover

• Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, which it did on December 7, 1787. That’s why Delaware is represented first in presidential inaugurations and other national events and is often called The First State • It is the only State Without a National Park

FLORIDA Jacksonville

• Florida is nicknamed the "Sunshine State"

• Everglades National Park is a national park in the U.S. state of Florida that protects the southern 25 percent of the original Everglades. It is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and is visited on average by one million people each year

Everglades National Park • Almost all the orange juice we drink is processed in Florida. The state grows 80 percent of all oranges and grapefruit in the United States.

GEORGIA Atlanta

• Atlanta is the capital and the most populous city of the state. • Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta on May, 1886 when a pharmacist named Dr. John Styth Pemberton produced the syrup.

"the World of Coca-Cola" museum • In Gainesville, the Chicken Capital of the World it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork.

HAWAII Honolulu

• It is the newest of the 50 U.S. states (1959), and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands

• The island houses the world's biggest telescope and more scientific observatories in one place than anywhere else in the world

• Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee. • The world's largest wind generator is on the island of Oahu. The windmill has two blades 400 feet long on the top of a tower twenty stories high.

• There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet. Vowels: A, E, I, O, U , Consonants: H, K, L, M, N, P, W

IDAHO Boise

• The Sawtooth Range is often considered Idaho's most famous mountain range.

• The world's first nuclear power plant is located at the Idaho National Environmental • The deepest river gorge in North America is Idaho's Hells Canyon (7,900 ft deep).

ILLINOIS Chicago

• The Northeastern border of Illinois is Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, and the only one located entirely within the United States.

Chicago's Border with Lake Michigan • The Willis Tower, formerly (and still commonly referred to as) the Sears Tower, is the tallest bui lding in Chicago, the United States and on the North American continent.

• The world's first Skyscraper was built in Chicago, 1885. • Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery.

INDIANA Indianapolis

• The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), located in Speedway, Indiana, is the site of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race (also known as the Indy 500), an open-wheel automobile race held each Memorial Day weekend on a 2.5 miles (4.0 km) oval track. The Indy 500 is the largest single-day sporting event in the world, hosting more than 257,000 permanent seats.

• Although Indiana means, "Land of the Indians" there are fewer than 8,000 Native Americans living in the state today.

IOWA Des Moines

• Iowa is the nation's third most productive agricultural state, following only California and Texas in the value of its yearly farm output. Iowa produces 1/10 of our nation's food supply! It is the number one producer of corn and soybeans.

KANSAS Wichita

• Wichita, Kansas, the largest city in the state of Kansas

• Wyatt Earp, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok and William B. "Bat" Masterson were three of the legendary lawmen who kept the peace in rowdy frontier towns like Abilene, Dodge City, Ellsworth, Hays, and Wichita.

• Civil War veteran S.P. Dinsmoor used over 100 tons of concrete to build the Garden of Eden in Lucas. Even the flag above the mausoleum is made of concrete.

• The world famous fast-food chain of Pizza Hut restaurants opened its first store in Wichita.

KENTUCKY Louisville

• Red River Gorge is one of Kentucky's most visited places

• Mammoth Cave National Park is a U.S. National Park in central Kentucky, is the world's longest cave and was first promoted in 1816, making it the second oldest tourist attraction in the United States. Niagara Falls, New York is the first.

• More than $6 billion worth of gold is held in the underground vaults of Fort Knox. This is the largest amount of gold stored anywhere in the world.

LOUISIANA New Orlean

• New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park was created in 1994 to celebrate the origins and evolution of jazz, America’s most widely-recognized indigenous music. • New Orleans was a birthplace of Jazz

• The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge is the longest expansion bridge over water in the world. Lake Pontchartrain Causeway consists of two parallel bridges. The causeway is 24 miles long.

Lake Pontchartrain Causeway near New Orleans, Louisiana

MAINE Portland

• Acadia National Park (ANP) is a National Park located in the U.S. state of Maine. It is the second most visited national park in the United States.

MARYLAND Baltimore

• Chesapeake Bay in Maryland is abundant with clams, oysters, crabs and other sea food. • The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is considered a masterpiece and one of the finest 19th century buildings in the world.

• King Williams School opened in 1696 it was the first school in the United States.

MASSA- -CHUSETTS Boston

• Massachusetts has been significant throughout American history. Plymouth was the second permanent English settlement in North America. Many of Massachusetts's towns were founded by colonists from England in the 1620s and 1630s. • the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in Plymouth in 1621. • Salem is famous for witches. 552 original documents pertaining to the Salem witch trials of 1692 have been preserved and are still stored by the Peabody Essex Museum.

• Harvard was the first college established in North America in 1636

MICHIGAN Detroit

• Michigan is the only state to consist entirely of two peninsulas. • In Dearborn, Michigan you can visit Henry Ford Museum and see automobiles on display

• Detroit is known as the car capital of the world. • Grand Rapids is home to the 24-foot Leonardo da Vinci horse, called Il Gavallo.

MINNESOTA Minneapolis

• Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water".

MISSISSIPPI Jackson

• Greenwood is called the Cotton Capital of the World. • The Mississippi River is the largest in the United States and is the nation's chief waterway. Its nickname is Old Man River.

MISSOURI Kansas City

• The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is located in St. Louis, Missouri. The memorial site consists of a 91-acre (36.8 ha) park along the Mississippi River on the site of the original city of St. Louis. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, an inverted steel catenary arch has become the definitive icon of the city

MONTANA Helena

• Glacier National Park is located in the U.S. state of Montana. The park has over 4,000 km2 and includes parts of two mountain ranges (sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains)’ It has 250 lakes within its boundaries over

• Buffalo in the wild can still be viewed at the National Bison Range in Moiese, south of Flathead Lake and west of the Mission Mountains.

• Montana is home to seven Indian reservations. • The state's official animal is the grizzly bear. • Yellowstone National Park in southern Montana and northern Wyoming was the first national park in the nation.

NEBRASKA Omaha

• Nebraska's Chimney rock was the most often mentioned landmark in journal entries by travelers on the Oregon Trail.

• There are five army forts open to the public in Nebraska: Atkinson, Kearny, Hartsuff, Sidney, and Robinson

Fort in Atkinson

NEVADA Las Vegas

• Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state • The southern third of the state, where the Las Vegas area is situated, is within the Mojave Desert.

• Las Vegas is best known for its casinos and has more hotel rooms than any other place on earth.

• The Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas, while not a habitable building, is the tallest observation tower in the U.S.

• Nevada is the largest gold-producing state in the nation. It is second in the world behind South Africa

NEW HAMPSHIRE Concorde

• Granite is the traditional rock in New Hampshire. It gave New Hampshire its nickname of “The Granite State.” New Hampshire once had a large industry surrounding the quarrying of granite

NEW JERSEY Newark

• New Jersey has the most dense system of highways and railroads in the U.S. • New Jersey is a major seaport state with the largest seaport in the U.S. located in Elizabeth.

NEW MEXICO Santa Fe

• The ruins contain Pueblo structures from the 11th to 13th centuries with more than 400 masonry rooms which were misidentified by early American settlers as Aztec.

• White Sands National Monument is a desert, not of sand, but of gleaming white gypsum crystals

• A dam on the Rio Grande formed the Elephant Butte Reservoir the state's largest lake.

NEW YORK New York City

• New York City's five boroughs are home to some of the most recognizable and cherished landmarks and attractions in the world. From Times Square and Central Park to the Empire State Building and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the island of Manhattan packs more legendary icons into one compact area than any other place on Earth

Times Square • The New York City Stock Exchange (the largest in the world)

• The Statue of Liberty This iconic statue, built in 1886 on Liberty Island and 46 m tall, commemorates the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence and is a gesture of friendship from France to the U.S. Liberty Enlighening the World is a symbol of welcoming immigrants to the U.S. and is listed as a World Heritage Site. Ellis Island, where 12 million immigrants entering the U.S. passed through, is included in the monument.

• The first capital of the United States was New York City. In 1789 George Washington took his oath as president on the balcony at Federal Hall.

NORTH CAROLINA Charlotte

• The first English colony in America was located on Roanoke Island. Walter Raleigh founded it. The colony mysteriously vanished with no trace except for the word "Croatoan" scrawled on a nearby tree. • White Lake near Elizabethtown is very unique in that it has a white sandy bottom and is blessed with crystal clear waters. It has also been labeled as the "Nation's Safest Beach." It is truly a child's paradise in that there are no currents, no tides, no hazardous depressions or real dangers of any kind to swimmers.

NORTH DAKOTA Bismarck

• The town of Rugby is the geographical center of North America. A rock obelisk about 15 feet tall, flanked by poles flying the United States and Canadian flags marks the location.

OHIO Cleveland

• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio,dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, and other people who have in some major way influenced the music industry, particularly in the area of rock music.

• The Glacial Grooves on the north side of Kelleys Island are the largest easily accessible such grooves in the world. They were scoured into solid limestone bedrock about 18,000 years ago by the great ice sheet that covered part of North America.

• Dresden is the home of the world's largest basket. It is located at Basket Village USA.

OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City

• Populations of American Bison inhabit the state's prairie ecosystems.

• The National Cowboy Hall of Fame is located in Oklahoma City.

• Oklahoma has the largest Native American population of any state in the U.S. there are 250.000 of them.

OREGON Salem

• Oregon Caves - The monument is known for its marble caves, as well as for the Pleistocene jaguar and grizzly bear fossils found in the deeper caves. There are four primary buildings: The Oregon Caves Chateau, The Ranger Residence, The Chalet, and the old Dormitory.

• Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and is formed in the remains of an ancient volcano nearly 7,000 years ago. The first thing visitors notice about Crater Lake is its vivid blue color.

• The nation's most photographed lighthouse is the Heceta Head Lighthouse located in Lane County.

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PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia

• Philadelphia is home to the Liberty Bell. The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American Independence.

• The Rockville Bridge in Harrisburg is the longest stone arch bridge in the world.

RHODE ISLAND Providence

• Rhode Island is the smallest state in size in the United States. • Rhode Island was the last of the original thirteen colonies to become a state.

SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia

• Fort Sumter - American Civil War began with a Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861.

• The Upper Whitewater Falls is the highest cascade in eastern America; it descends for nearly 411 feet.

SOUTH DAKOTA Sioux Falls

• Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills. This amazing sculpture—one of the largest in the world—of the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln was begun in 1927 and took the sculptor 14 years to complete.

• Jewel Cave is the second longest cave in the world, with about 141 miles (227 km) of mapped passageways. In the Black Hills, it was discovered in 1900 and is so named because of its calcite crystals

• The Crazy Horse mountain carving now in progress will be the world’s largest sculpture (563' high, 641' long, carved in the round). It is the focal point of an educational and cultural memorial to and for the North American Indian.

TENNESSEE Nashville/ Memphis

• Tennessee has played a critical role in the development of rock and roll and early blues music. • Major tourist attractions include Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis and the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

• The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States. The park was named for the smoke-like bluish haze that often envelops these fabled mountains.

TEXAS Houston

• Houston became the home of NASA's Johnson Space Center, where the Mission Control Center is located.

• Texas is home to Dell and Compaq computers and central Texas is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of the south

UTAH Salt Lake City

• One of Utah's National Parks, Arches has what is possibly the most unusual natural architecture on the continent. More than a hundred arches that give the park its name are the strange and dramatic formations caused by the weathering of sandstone walls through the ages. Located next to the town of Moab, (mountain bike capital of the world), Arches has become very popular in recent years, and the government - wisely - limits its use.

• Rainbow Bridge, Nature's abstract sculpture carved of solid sandstone, is the world's largest natural-rock span. It stands 278 feet wide and 309 feet high.

VERMONT Montpelier

• Montpelier, Vermont is the only U.S. state capital without a McDonalds • With a population of fewer than nine thousand people, Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest state capi tal in the U.S

VIRGINIA Richmond

• George Washington Birthplace - Representative of 18th-century Virginia tobacco farms, this site is the birthplace and boyhood environment of George Washington. The entrance includes a Memorial Shaft obelisk of Vermont marble that is a one-tenth scale replica of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Also within the monument are the historic birthplace home area, a kitchen house, and the Washington family burial ground

• The Pentagon building in Arlington is the largest office building in the world.

• USA, Virginia, Arlington National Cemetery, soldiers with flag memorial

WASHINGTON Seattle

• Seattle is the birthplace of rock legend Jimi Hendrix and the rock music style known as "grunge," which was made famous by local groups Nirvana (band), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. • Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the largest electric power-producing facility and the largest concrete structure in the United States

• Microsoft Corporation is located in Redmond • The Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge at Evergreen Point is the longest floating bridge in the world. The bridge connects Seattle and Medina across Lake Washington.

• Starbucks, the biggest coffee chain in the world was founded in Seattle

WEST VIRGINIA Charleston

Because of its mountains, West Virginia is sometimes referred to as "the Switzerland of the United States". • The New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville is the second highest steel arch bridge in the United States. The bridge is also the longest steel arch bridge (1,700 feet) in the world. Every October on Bridge Day, the road is closed and individuals parachute and bungee cord jump 876 feet off the bridge. The event attracts about 100,000 people each year.

WISCONSIN Milwaukee

• Milwaukee was once the home to four of the world's largest breweries and was the number one beer producing city in the world for many years. Because of Miller's solid position as the second-largest beer-maker in the U.S., the city remains known as a beer town despite now only representing a fraction of its economy. The historic Milwaukee Brewery, located in "Miller Valley" at 4000 West State Street, is the oldest still-functioning major brewery in the United States.

Entrance to Miller Brewery in Milwaukee • The House on the Rock was designed and built in the early 1940s. It is considered an architectural marvel and is perched on a 60-foot chimney of rock. The 14-room house is now a complex of rooms, streets, buildings, and gardens covering over 200 acres.

• The original Barbie is from Willows. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.

• Milwaukee is home of Harley Davidson Motorcycles.

WYOMING Cheyenne

• Yellowstone was the first national park in the world, and is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful Geyser, one of the most popular features in the park.

• Devils Tower The tower is a monolithic igneous intrusion of volcanic neck rising dramatically 1,267 feet (386 m) above the surrounding terrain. Proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt, this was the first national monument. Filming of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, an American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, took place here.