Geography quiz
US states bigger than every neighbour: minefield
8 of the 48 contiguous states are bigger than every one of their neighbours. Click them all without hitting a state that is not.
- Format
- Map quiz
- Items
- 8 on the map
- Limit
- 3:00
- Level
- Hard
- Checked
- 2026.10.03
The rules as listed below.
- To find
- 8
- Out of
- 48 on the map
- Time limit
- 3:00
- Wrong clicks
- One ends the round
- Click every place that fits the rule, in any order.
- Switch to Rule out (or press M) to hatch a place you have decided against. A ruled out place cannot be clicked by accident.
- A click counts for the place under it, so zoom in (pinch, or the zoom buttons) before picking a small one.
- Pause whenever you like (Esc). The board hides while the clock is stopped.
Click every state that is larger than all of its neighbours.
RuleClick each of the 48 contiguous states whose land area (2010 Census, water left out) is larger than that of every state it shares a border line with. States that meet only at a point, as at the Four Corners, are not neighbours. Alaska and Hawaii have no neighbours and are not in play.
Drawing the map
About this quiz
A thinking quiz on the states map: for each state, picture its neighbours and decide whether any of them is bigger. Mark the ones you have ruled out, and when the round ends every state is listed with its land area and the neighbour that settles it.
- The measure is land area, not total area. About two fifths of Michigan's total area is water, so the choice matters.
- Maine has only one neighbour, New Hampshire.
- Tennessee and Missouri each border eight states, the most of any.
Sources
- [1]US Census Bureau. State area measurements and internal point coordinates.
- [2]US Census Bureau. ANSI codes for states.
- [3]US Census Bureau. Cartographic Boundary Files.
Note on the data. Land areas are the 2010 Census figures in the Census Bureau's state area measurements, in square kilometres. Neighbours were worked out from the Census Bureau's cartographic boundary file: two states are neighbours when their boundaries share a stretch of line, so the pairs that touch only at the Four Corners are not, and Michigan is not joined to Illinois or Minnesota across the lakes. The 50 states are those on the Census Bureau's state code list, leaving out the District of Columbia and the territories. The map is drawn from the Census Bureau's public domain cartographic boundary files, with Alaska and Hawaii moved and rescaled into the lower left corner.
Last checked October 3, 2026
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