#22: What a Square
If you’ve looked at a map of the United States closely, you’ll have noticed that the eastern United States is full of tiny, oddly shaped states, and the West is full of big rectangles. I’m proud to live in Utah, one of three states that is basically just a big old rectangle (or, in our case, a rectangle with the corner taken out of it).
Only it’s not quite as straightforward as that. These borders were drawn by surveyors doing the best they could with the tools available to them in the 1800s, and there were loads of little errors, leading to shapes that were actually pretty complex. But it’s close enough that I’m still comfortable claiming we are all big rectangles.