You’ve heard that Idaho’s largest county, Idaho County, is larger than three states, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Connecticut. In fact, you’ll sometimes hear that you could put all three of those states inside Idaho County.
Take this with a grain of salt. The area of a state seems to be determined by… what? Humidity? You’ll find numerous conflicting numbers if you Google the area of our smallest states. Rhode Island’s area is 1,045 square miles. Unless it’s 1,545 square miles. Or 1,037 square miles. Delaware comes in at 2,489 square miles or 1,982 square miles and 1,954 square miles. Comparatively gigantic, Connecticut is 5,567 square miles, or possibly 5,028 square miles, or 5,018 square miles.
Not surprisingly, when asking about the area of Idaho County in square miles, you get a couple of answers, 8,503 or 8,477 square miles.
If you took the lowest numbers for the area of the three smallest states, yes, they could be shoehorned into Idaho County. But use the highest numbers, and only any two of the three would fit, with nearly enough left over to cram in the third one.
I thought it might be fun to see how Idaho’s smallest county, Clark, measures up to small states. Clark County is 1,765 square miles. Now, don’t make me fit a jigsaw piece into a differently shaped hole, but if the square miles in Clark County were SQUARE, Rhode Island, the smallest state in the US, would fit easily inside of Idaho’s smallest county.
How about the number of counties in Idaho compared with other states? Idaho has 44 counties. The state with the fewest is Delaware, with three. Unless you count Rhode Island and Connecticut, which don’t bother having any counties at all. And, of course, Louisiana doesn’t call its political subdivisions counties. They are parishes, and there are 64 of them.
Do we really need a drum roll to announce the state with the most counties? Texas, at 254.
None of this useless information is likely to show up on a test, fourth graders, so relax.
Take this with a grain of salt. The area of a state seems to be determined by… what? Humidity? You’ll find numerous conflicting numbers if you Google the area of our smallest states. Rhode Island’s area is 1,045 square miles. Unless it’s 1,545 square miles. Or 1,037 square miles. Delaware comes in at 2,489 square miles or 1,982 square miles and 1,954 square miles. Comparatively gigantic, Connecticut is 5,567 square miles, or possibly 5,028 square miles, or 5,018 square miles.
Not surprisingly, when asking about the area of Idaho County in square miles, you get a couple of answers, 8,503 or 8,477 square miles.
If you took the lowest numbers for the area of the three smallest states, yes, they could be shoehorned into Idaho County. But use the highest numbers, and only any two of the three would fit, with nearly enough left over to cram in the third one.
I thought it might be fun to see how Idaho’s smallest county, Clark, measures up to small states. Clark County is 1,765 square miles. Now, don’t make me fit a jigsaw piece into a differently shaped hole, but if the square miles in Clark County were SQUARE, Rhode Island, the smallest state in the US, would fit easily inside of Idaho’s smallest county.
How about the number of counties in Idaho compared with other states? Idaho has 44 counties. The state with the fewest is Delaware, with three. Unless you count Rhode Island and Connecticut, which don’t bother having any counties at all. And, of course, Louisiana doesn’t call its political subdivisions counties. They are parishes, and there are 64 of them.
Do we really need a drum roll to announce the state with the most counties? Texas, at 254.
None of this useless information is likely to show up on a test, fourth graders, so relax.
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