119 Fun Facts About US Geography

What is the largest state in the United States by area?

Alaska is larger than the next three biggest states combined; the United States bought the whole territory from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million.

Which river drains the Great Lakes into the Atlantic?

The St. Lawrence River drains the Great Lakes to the Atlantic; since its Seaway opened in 1959, ocean ships have been able to sail more than 2,300 miles inland, as far as Duluth.

Which state is nicknamed the Buckeye State, after a native tree?

The Ohio buckeye's shiny brown nut is said to resemble a deer's eye, and it is also the mascot of the state's flagship university.

The Grand Canyon is located in which US state?

Arizona's Grand Canyon was made a national monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, eleven years before Congress agreed to turn it into a national park.

What is the capital of California?

Sacramento became the permanent capital in 1854, after California's legislature had moved from San Jose to Vallejo to Benicia in barely three years.

Which river is the longest tributary in the United States?

The Missouri runs more than 2,300 miles from the mountains of southwestern Montana to the Mississippi just north of St. Louis; by some measurements the tributary is longer than the river it joins.

Mount Rushmore is located in which US state?

South Dakota's state historian, Doane Robinson, dreamed up the carving in the 1920s to lure tourists to the Black Hills, then recruited sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who picked the mountain.

Which state consists of two peninsulas separated by the Straits of Mackinac?

Michigan's two peninsulas were joined only by ferries until the Mackinac Bridge, about five miles long, opened in 1957.

What is the smallest US state by area?

Rhode Island, the smallest state, is mostly mainland: its name first belonged to an island in Narragansett Bay, now usually called Aquidneck, and only later spread to the whole colony.

Yellowstone National Park is primarily located in which state?

Wyoming holds about 96 percent of Yellowstone, which became America's first national park in 1872, eighteen years before Wyoming itself became a state.

Which two US states do not share a border with any other state?

Alaska and Hawaii are the only US states that do not share a land border with any other US state. Alaska borders Canada, and Hawaii is an island chain in the Pacific.

What is the highest point in the United States?

Denali rises 20,310 feet in Alaska; in 2025 the federal government switched its official name back to Mount McKinley, though the state of Alaska has called the peak Denali since 1975.

Which state is known as the Empire State?

New York was widely called the Empire State by about 1820, though nobody is sure who coined the name; George Washington is often credited, and Manhattan's most famous skyscraper borrowed it in 1931.

The Mississippi River empties into which body of water?

The Mississippi reaches the Gulf of Mexico below New Orleans after draining about 40 percent of the continental United States; since 2025 US federal agencies have called it the Gulf of America.

Which is the second-most populous city in the United States?

Los Angeles counted about 3.9 million residents in the 2020 census; it overtook Chicago for second place during the 1980s and now trails only New York.

Which US state contains the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states?

Kansas holds the center of the 48 adjoining states, near the town of Lebanon; count the two newest states as well and the center of the whole country jumps north to western South Dakota.

What is the capital of Texas?

Austin was a riverside hamlet called Waterloo until 1839, when it was picked as the site of the capital and renamed for Stephen F. Austin.

Which Great Lake is the largest by surface area?

Superior is big enough to brew ocean-sized storms: one sank the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald with all 29 of her crew in 1975, the wreck Gordon Lightfoot turned into a hit song.

Which New York Harbor island, called Bedloe's Island until 1956, is home to Bartholdi's most famous statue?

Liberty Island got its present name from Congress in 1956; the water around it belongs to New Jersey, but an 1834 agreement between the two states keeps the island itself in New York.

Which US territory is located in the Caribbean Sea?

The US Virgin Islands were the Danish West Indies until 1917, when the United States paid Denmark $25 million in gold for them, fearing Germany might seize the islands as a submarine base.

Which US state has the most national parks?

California has nine national parks; it was level with Alaska on eight until 2013, when Congress upgraded Pinnacles from a national monument.

Which hot desert, the only place giant saguaro cactus grows wild, straddles the US–Mexico border?

The Sonoran Desert has mild winters and two rainy seasons, which suits the saguaro: the giant cactus cannot survive hard freezes, so cold marks the edge of its range.

Which state is nicknamed the Keystone State?

Pennsylvania's nickname is usually explained by its place in the middle of the original thirteen colonies, like the keystone at the top of an arch that locks the other stones in place.

The Appalachian Mountains reach their southern end in which state?

Alabama: the Appalachian Trail stops at Springer Mountain in Georgia, but the mountains themselves carry on to the southwest and only run out in central Alabama.

Which US state was the last to join the union?

Hawaii became the 50th state in August 1959, seven months after Alaska, which is why the 49-star flag was official for just one year.

What is the deepest body of fresh water in the United States?

Crater Lake in Oregon is more than 1,900 feet deep; it fills the hole left when the volcano Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago, and rain and snow are its only water supply.

Which four states meet at a single point called the Four Corners?

Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico: the four meet at a marker that surveyors now place about 1,800 feet from the spot Congress described, yet the marker itself remains the legal corner.

What is the capital of Florida?

Tallahassee became the territorial capital in 1824, roughly midway between the older capitals of St. Augustine and Pensacola, and was the only Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi never captured during the Civil War.

Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, lies in which national park?

Death Valley drops to 282 feet below sea level at Badwater Basin, yet Telescope Peak, in plain view to the west, stands more than two miles above the salt flats.

Which US state borders just one other state?

Maine borders only New Hampshire; it was part of Massachusetts until 1820, when it became a state of its own under the Missouri Compromise.

Until a 2020 vote, which city's name came before 'Plantations' in Rhode Island's full official name?

Providence: voters cut 'and Providence Plantations' from the state's name in November 2020, after campaigners argued the word evoked slavery; ten years earlier, 78 percent had voted to keep it.

Which river forms most of the border between the United States and Mexico?

The Rio Grande forms the border from El Paso to the Gulf; when floods shifted its course at El Paso in the 1860s, the two countries argued over the stranded land for a century, until a 1963 treaty.

What is the most visited national park in the United States?

Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park, and the public helped buy it: schoolchildren pledged their pennies toward the land before a $5 million Rockefeller gift closed the deal.

Which state capital has the smallest population?

Montpelier, Vermont, had just 8,074 residents in the 2020 census; it has been the capital since 1805 and kept the title even after fire gutted the State House in 1857 and rival towns bid for it.

Which US state is home to Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world?

Kentucky's Mammoth Cave has more than 420 miles of mapped passages; Stephen Bishop, an enslaved guide, opened up miles of it by crossing the Bottomless Pit, then drew a map of the cave from memory in 1842.

Which island, home to Hilo and the Kilauea volcano, is the largest in the United States?

Hawaiʻi, known as the Big Island, is larger than all the other Hawaiian islands put together and still growing: Kilauea's 2018 eruption alone added about 875 acres of new land.

The Continental Divide runs primarily through which mountain range?

The Rocky Mountains carry the Divide down the spine of the continent: rain and snowmelt on its western side drain to the Pacific, while water on the eastern side ends up in the Atlantic, the Arctic or the Gulf.

Which US city is known as the Windy City?

Chicago: the nickname nods to the wind off the lake, but it stuck just as much as a jibe at the 'windy' boasting of the city's boosters and its long-winded politicians.

Which is the longest Interstate highway, running from Seattle to Boston?

I-90 is the northernmost coast-to-coast Interstate, and its number says so: east–west routes take even numbers that rise from south to north, and I-10 is the southernmost coast-to-coast route.

Which US state contains the Everglades?

Florida's Everglades are a slow, shallow river rather than a stagnant swamp, which is why Marjory Stoneman Douglas called her 1947 book about them River of Grass.

Mount St. Helens, the volcano that erupted catastrophically in 1980, is in which state?

Washington: Mount St. Helens stands in the Cascade Range; its eruption on May 18, 1980, killed 57 people and turned day to night in Spokane, on the far side of the state, as ash blew east across the country.

Which state was an independent republic from 1836 to 1845 before joining the Union?

Texas entered the Union as the 28th state on 29 December 1845, and the single star on its flag recalls the Republic of Texas of 1836–1845.

Which is the only US state whose local subdivisions are called parishes rather than counties?

Louisiana's 64 parishes go back to its French and Spanish colonial past, when local government followed Catholic church parishes; Alaska has no counties either, using boroughs instead.

Point Barrow, the northernmost point of the US, lies near which city, known as Barrow until 2016?

Utqiagvik took back its Inupiaq name in 2016 after residents approved the change by just six votes, 381 to 375.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park preserves a stretch of badlands in the west of which state?

North Dakota: Roosevelt first came to the Little Missouri badlands to hunt bison in 1883 and later ranched there; losing most of his cattle in the brutal winter of 1886–87 helped shape his conservation politics.

Which state contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River?

Minnesota's Lake Itasca is the river's traditional starting point; Henry Schoolcraft, who identified it in 1832, is generally credited with coining the name from the Latin veritas caput, meant as 'true head'.

What is the driest state in the United States by average annual precipitation?

Nevada sits in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada, so most of the state is desert or semi-arid and dominated by the Great Basin.

Which strait separates Alaska from Russia?

The Bering Strait is only about 50 miles wide; the date line runs between its two Diomede Islands, so the Russian one is almost a day ahead of its American neighbor about two and a half miles away.

Which state has the highest population density in the US?

New Jersey is the most crowded state because it is wedged between New York City and Philadelphia, and most of its people live in the counties around one or the other.

Founded in 1610, which is the oldest state capital in the United States?

Santa Fe was a Spanish colonial capital ten years before the Mayflower sailed; a Pueblo uprising in 1680 drove the Spanish out of the city for twelve years.

Which state's highest point, Mount Washington, recorded a 231 mph wind gust in 1934?

New Hampshire's Mount Washington held the world wind record for 62 years, until a cyclone off Australia beat it in 1996; its 231 mph gust is still the fastest ever measured at a staffed weather station.

Which state has the lowest mean elevation in the United States, with a high point of only about 448 feet?

Delaware has the lowest average elevation of any state, yet not the lowest summit: its 448-foot high point beats Florida's Britton Hill, which tops out at 345 feet.

Which island city at the end of US Route 1 has a painted buoy marking the 'Southernmost Point' of the continental US?

Key West's buoy is a favorite photo stop, but the southernmost dry land is really Ballast Key, a small island to the west; even on Key West itself, Navy land reaches farther south.

Which state capital, hemmed in by mountains and an icefield, has no road to the rest of its state?

Juneau's cars arrive by barge or on Alaska Marine Highway ferries; no road links the city to the rest of North America, because the terrain around it is too rugged to build one.

Which of these state capitals lies off the Interstate highway system altogether?

Pierre, South Dakota, sits near the center of its state, yet the Interstate system passed it by; the nearest Interstate crosses the state well to the south.

Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River, is in which state?

Mount Mitchell, 6,684 feet, rises in North Carolina's Black Mountains northeast of Asheville; it is named for Elisha Mitchell, the professor who measured it and died in an 1857 fall while defending his claim.

Which is the largest county by area in the contiguous United States, at over 20,000 square miles?

San Bernardino County, California, is larger than nine of the states; in 2022 its voters backed a measure asking officials to study every way of winning a fairer share of state funds, secession included.

Which state has two panhandles, one between Ohio and Pennsylvania and one reaching toward Washington, DC?

West Virginia kept its Eastern Panhandle only after a court fight: Virginia sued to take back Berkeley and Jefferson counties, and the Supreme Court ruled against it in 1871.

Which region spanning parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois escaped the last glacial period's ice sheets?

The Driftless Area takes its name from the missing glacial drift — the silt, gravel and rock the ice sheets left everywhere around it — and its deep river valleys and bluffs are typified by Wisconsin's Coulee Region.

The Cumberland Gap lies near the tripoint of which three states?

Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee meet near the Cumberland Gap; Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road ran through it, and some 200,000 to 300,000 settlers followed it west.

How many counties does Texas have, the most of any state?

254 counties cover Texas, more than any other state has; one of them, Loving County, had to be organized twice, because the first attempt, in 1893, seems to have been a scheme to defraud.

Which two states each border eight other states, more than any others?

Missouri and Tennessee each touch eight states, and each other; Tennessee manages it by being a strip more than 400 miles long but only about 110 miles wide.

Besides the Great Lakes, what is the largest natural freshwater lake entirely within the lower 48?

Lake Okeechobee covers about 730 square miles, too wide to see across, yet its average depth is only around ten feet; the Kissimmee River supplies most of its water.

Which state's panhandle holds Lake Pend Oreille, where the US Navy tests model submarines far from any ocean?

Idaho's Lake Pend Oreille is about 1,150 feet deep, and the Navy's Acoustic Research Detachment at Bayview uses that deep, quiet water to test large scale models of submarines.

Mount Elbert, the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains, stands in which state?

Colorado's Mount Elbert beats its neighbor Mount Massive by only about 12 feet; Massive's fans once piled rocks on its summit to close the gap, and Elbert's supporters knocked the piles down.

Which of these lakes lies entirely within the United States?

Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake with no Canadian shore; Chicago draws its drinking water from it, and in 1900 reversed the Chicago River so the city's sewage would flow away from the lake.

Which is the only populated U.S. territory located in the southern hemisphere?

American Samoa lies south of the equator in the South Pacific; people born there are US nationals rather than citizens, unlike those born in any other inhabited US territory.

Which Arizona city is usually ranked the driest and sunniest in the United States?

Yuma gets sunshine for about 90 percent of its daylight hours and only about three inches of rain a year, yet irrigation from the Colorado River has turned the desert around it into winter vegetable fields.

Which present-day Virginia county did Congress return from the District of Columbia in 1846?

Arlington County was handed back with the town of Alexandria, whose residents had lost their voice in Congress and seen federal buildings barred from their side of the Potomac.

Which major US city lies north of Windsor, Ontario, so that drivers must head south to enter Canada?

Detroit is the only major city on the Canada–US border where travellers go south to cross. A road tunnel under the river has linked it to Windsor since 1930.

Which dormant volcano, measured from the seafloor, is often called a taller mountain than Everest?

Mauna Kea rises 13,803 feet above the Pacific, but more than half of the mountain is hidden underwater. Its dry, steady summit air makes it one of the best telescope sites on the planet.

Which reservoir, held back by Hoover Dam, is the largest in the United States by water capacity?

Lake Mead swallowed the town of St. Thomas, whose last resident left in 1938. It is named for Elwood Mead, who ran the federal Bureau of Reclamation while the dam was built.

Which port city on a sharp bend of the Mississippi River lies about half at or below sea level?

New Orleans is called the Crescent City after the river's curve around it. Pumps designed by engineer Baldwin Wood drained its swamps for building, and the dried ground then sank.

Which state capital has a step on its capitol building engraved 'One Mile Above Sea Level'?

Denver takes its Mile High City nickname from the elevation that step records. Later surveys moved the true mile-high point, so the building now carries markers on three different steps.

Which former highway carried Dust Bowl migrants west in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath?

Route 66 was named the Mother Road by Steinbeck in that 1939 novel. It was struck from the US highway system in 1985, after interstates had largely replaced it.

Which waterfalls on the Canadian border combine the Horseshoe, American and Bridal Veil cascades?

Niagara Falls sends about nine-tenths of its water over the Horseshoe section alone. Two small islands, Goat and Luna, split the river into the three separate drops.

Which national park, home to El Capitan and Half Dome, was first protected under Abraham Lincoln?

Yosemite was set aside by Lincoln's signature in 1864, in the middle of the Civil War. It was the first time the US government reserved land specifically for preservation and public use.

Which river city is marked by the Gateway Arch, a 630-foot steel monument to westward expansion?

St. Louis finished the stainless-steel monument on its riverfront in 1965. The Gateway Arch is the tallest arch in the world, and it is exactly as wide as it is tall.

Which city on Biscayne Bay is the only major US city founded by a woman, citrus grower Julia Tuttle?

Miami took off after Julia Tuttle persuaded tycoon Henry Flagler to extend his railroad to the area. She is remembered as the mother of the city.

Which New England state capital opened the first subway in the United States in 1897?

Boston opened the Tremont Street subway in 1897. The city also claims the nation's first public park, Boston Common, and its first public school.

Which state capital in the Salt River Valley has more residents than any other state capital?

Phoenix has over 1.6 million residents, the most of any state capital. An early settler suggested the name because the town was born from the ruins of a former civilization.

Which city on Puget Sound built the Space Needle for a world's fair held in 1962?

Seattle raised the tower for the Century 21 Exposition, a bid for world recognition. The city sits on an isthmus between the saltwater sound and a large freshwater lake.

Which city at the tip of a peninsula is hemmed in by the Pacific, the Golden Gate and a bay?

San Francisco began in 1776 as a Spanish fort and mission, both named for Francis of Assisi. Several islands, Alcatraz among them, lie inside the city limits.

Which city, home of Independence Hall, was the national capital until the government moved in 1800?

Philadelphia was also the largest city in the country until 1790. The Declaration of Independence was adopted there, in a building then used as the colony's State House.

Which Massachusetts peninsula, where the Pilgrims first landed in 1620, has Provincetown at its tip?

Cape Cod is where the Mayflower passengers first came ashore, before settling across the bay at Plymouth. Since 1914 a canal across its base has cut most of it off from the mainland.

Which Pacific territory with the motto 'Where America's Day Begins' hosts large US military bases?

Guam lies just west of the International Date Line, so its clocks greet each new day long before the mainland's. Magellan reached the island in 1521 while sailing for Spain.

Which rock monolith above the Belle Fourche River became the first US national monument in 1906?

Devils Tower was protected by President Theodore Roosevelt. It later played the alien landing site in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Which Southern state capital began as the end point of a railroad and was once named Marthasville?

Atlanta takes its present name from the Western and Atlantic Railroad, whose terminus it was. General Sherman's army burned most of the city in 1864.

Which city is home to both NASA's Mission Control and the largest medical complex in the world?

Houston became its region's leading port after a 1900 hurricane devastated nearby Galveston and a ship channel was dug inland. Its medical district employs over 120,000 people.

Which city's downtown, the Golden Triangle, sits where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet?

Pittsburgh is sometimes called the City of Bridges, with 446 of them. The two rivers merge at the tip of its downtown to form a third, larger one.

Which city, founded by Spain in 1565, is the oldest surviving European settlement in the lower 48?

St. Augustine was founded by admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. Only San Juan in Puerto Rico, settled in 1521, is an older European-founded city on US soil.

Which state capital did a railroad rename for Germany's chancellor to attract German investment?

Bismarck was renamed in 1873 by the Northern Pacific Railway, which also hoped to draw German settlers. The town had been called Edwinton, after the railway's chief engineer.

Which river, dammed at Grand Coulee, has the largest flow of any river entering the eastern Pacific?

The Columbia and its tributaries generate more than 44 percent of all US hydroelectric power. Ice Age floods carved the Grand Coulee, a dry riverbed that the dam later refilled.

Which river, explored in 1609 by an Englishman sailing for the Dutch, flows past Albany?

The Hudson is a tidal estuary for its whole lower half, lying in a fjord carved by ice sheets. The explorer who lent it his name is also remembered in a vast Canadian bay.

Which river flows past both the national capital and Mount Vernon, home of the first president?

The Potomac crosses five geological provinces on its way to the sea, from mountain plateau to coastal plain. By its mouth the river is 11 miles wide.

Which bay, the drowned valley of the Susquehanna River, is the largest estuary in the United States?

Chesapeake Bay averages only 21 feet deep. Its position traces back to a space rock that struck the spot about 35 million years ago, long before the river valley formed.

Which canal, mocked as 'Clinton's Ditch' while it was being dug, linked Albany to Buffalo in 1825?

The Erie Canal was the first navigable waterway linking the Atlantic to the upper Great Lakes. At 363 miles it was the second-longest canal in the world, after China's Grand Canal.

Which alpine lake beside the 1960 Winter Olympics site is the second-deepest in the United States?

Lake Tahoe never freezes, and it is the largest alpine lake in North America. Among US lakes, only the Great Lakes hold more water.

Which desert lake formed by accident in 1905 when a flooding river burst into an irrigation canal?

The Salton Sea filled for about two years as an entire river poured into a basin lying below sea level. As it later shrank, it became saltier than the ocean.

Which lake on the Quebec border was briefly declared a Great Lake by a law signed in 1998?

Lake Champlain gained the title through one line in a research-funding bill, which let nearby universities seek extra federal money. After a small uproar the status was withdrawn within weeks.

Which river gorge, carved by the Snake, is the deepest in North America at nearly 8,000 feet?

Hells Canyon runs deeper than the Grand Canyon. It deepened after an ancient lake spilled over a natural divide and sent the Snake River through the plateau.

Which desert, the smallest and driest of North America's four major deserts, is the native home of the Joshua tree?

The Mojave is where most wild Joshua trees grow, which makes the spiky plant a handy marker of where the region begins and ends.

Which peak at the end of the John Muir Trail is the highest point in the contiguous United States?

Mount Whitney rises to 14,505 feet. Hikers who finish the trail on its summit have walked about 212 miles through the Sierra.

Which volcanic archipelago stretches so far west that it crosses into the Eastern Hemisphere?

The Aleutian Islands cross longitude 180°, so the chain holds both the westernmost and the easternmost points of the United States. Its 57 volcanoes belong to the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Which string of barrier islands was the site of the Wright brothers' first powered flight in 1903?

The Outer Banks have seen hundreds of shipwrecks, which earned the surrounding waters the nickname Graveyard of the Atlantic. The chain of sandy islands runs for about 200 miles.

Which peak, named 'Great Mountain' by the Penobscot, is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail?

Mount Katahdin was climbed in the 1840s by Henry David Thoreau, who spelled it Ktaadn. A governor later spent much of his own fortune buying the mountain to protect it.

Which lake formed when the ground sank during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812?

Reelfoot Lake appeared when the quakes dropped the land and blocked local streams. The same shocks raised temporary waterfalls on the Mississippi and sent waves rolling upstream.

Which national park on the Canadian border is crossed by the scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road?

Glacier joined Canada's Waterton Lakes in 1932 to form the world's first International Peace Park. Its ice has been retreating since the Little Ice Age ended around 1850.

Which national park protects General Sherman, by volume the largest single-stem tree alive?

Sequoia National Park's giant stands about 275 feet tall and is at least 2,300 years old. A coast redwood felled in the 1940s is thought to have been even larger.

Which cave system's Big Room is the largest underground chamber in North America?

Carlsbad Caverns' biggest chamber is almost 4,000 feet long and 255 feet high. From late May to mid October, visitors gather each evening to watch its bats stream out.

Which national park, about as large as Croatia with its preserve, is the biggest in the US?

Wrangell–St. Elias is larger than nine of the states. Its peaks rise within 10 miles of tidewater, one of the greatest vertical reliefs in the world.

Which surveyed boundary, drawn to end a colonial border feud, came to divide North from South?

The Mason–Dixon Line was laid out between 1763 and 1767 by two English astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. It became a symbol of the slavery divide during debates in Congress in 1820.

Which interstate along the Atlantic coast passes through fifteen states, more than any other?

I-95 is the longest north–south interstate, at 1,906 miles, and ends at a Canadian border crossing. For most of its length it shadows the older US 1.

Which people's reservation, governed from Window Rock, is the largest in the United States?

The Navajo Nation covers more than 27,000 square miles, making it larger than ten of the states. Its territory completely surrounds the Hopi reservation.

Which state, last of the Thirteen Colonies, shares the Okefenokee Swamp with its southern neighbor?

Georgia and its neighbor share the largest blackwater swamp in North America. The name is often translated as 'land of trembling earth', though it more likely meant 'bubbling water'.

Which state's panhandle was the Public Land Strip, nicknamed No Man's Land, until 1890?

Oklahoma absorbed the strip in 1890, ending settlers' hopes of making it a separate Cimarron Territory. Its western tip holds Black Mesa, the state's highest point.

Which state runs a park where visitors dig for diamonds in a plowed field and keep what they find?

Arkansas turned the field into a state park in 1972. The 40-carat Uncle Sam, found there in 1924, is the largest diamond ever unearthed in the United States.

Which Pacific port city, long tied to the US Navy, sits directly across the border from Tijuana?

San Diego meets Tijuana at San Ysidro, the busiest international land crossing in the world outside Asia. The Navy has kept a presence in the city since 1901.

Which port city's Fort McHenry withstood the British bombardment that inspired the national anthem?

Baltimore held out in 1814 while Francis Scott Key watched and wrote the poem that became 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. It was not made the official anthem until 1931.