Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Why are so many states in the Midwest all square (more or less) and all the same size (also more or less)? Did someone make a mistake? Or did they do it on purpose? The map of the America's 50 states is so familiar you might be forgiven for thinking their borders had been carved upon the land by Divine Providence. In "How the States Got Their Shapes", the world's biggest-selling travel book, Mark Stein, a screenwriter for "Housesitter", digs up all the detail you never knew about how the state lines were drawn. Along the way, he highlights a whole array of geographical and historical topics, including: the importance of the 49th parallel, how Idaho's boundary was derailed in 1864 with $2,000 in gold, why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania, why Michigan has an upper peninsula that is not attached to Michigan, why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii, and how on earth California and Texas got to be quite so big.
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