Why are USA state boundaries in straight lines?
144386
Because in some cases there were no natural physical features like rivers or mountain ranges when the boundaries were determined.  Usually boundaries run along such features.
301468
No.\nA straight line is obtained by joining two distinct 'points'.\non this line there lies infinite 'points' between the given end-points.\nSo, a strsaight line is actually a set of POINTS.
639268
a line with no slope..a straight line ----------
286164
Is this a trick question?  There is no narrow strip of land that lies between Alabama and Georgia, dill hole!  Look at a map!
233206
Mostly because it is very unlikely that two planets will be precisely in line from the point of view of someone on earth because that takes *three* planets to be in line. Remember that each planet is in its own orbit and that orbit is slightly tilted with respect to the others.\n\nConjuctions are when the planets come close to each other in the sky, but they don't usually actually eclipse.
343966
states which border either mexico or canada, look at a map and you will clearly see which states they are
842865
youre both right.  the boundary is the line you want to draw.  then shade the up or down side.
734041
1.  Flat maps distort landmasses because the earth is curved and 3-dimensional.\n\n2.  The difference in elevation between two contour lines is the contour interval.\n\n3.  Time zone boundaries are not always in a straight line because of politics.  Some states/cities/provinces/etc do not want half of their population in a different time.\n\n4.  The mercator projection makes the earth at the poles as wide as the earth at the equator.  In reality the earth is wider at the equator, so the projection ends up stretching the poles out.  \n\n5.  Each contour line represents a specific elevation.  \n\n6.  The TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite sends microwaves down to the surface of the ocean.  It measures the time it takes for the microwaves to go from the satellite, bounce off the ocean, and return to the satellite.  This is to get the height of the ocean surface.  The surface height is used to predict ocean currents.
825509
Up until relatively recently, one of the island chains belonging to the state of Alaska was technically on the other side of the International Date Line from the rest of the country. This meant that the islands were the furthest "east" someone could go (without crossing the date line), yet the state itself, generally speaking, was the furthest west land area of the political entity known as the United States of America. \n\nThe same thing happened with another small island group inthe south-central Pacific ... basically, one half of the country was on one side of the date line and the other half was on the other.\n\nThe date line was subsequently "jiggled", to keep those countries whose territories are in the vicinity of the date line to remain "on the same side".\n\nTherefore, (from the US perspective) Alaska is - at present - the WESTERNMOST state, and Maine is the EASTERNMOST (neglecting the off-shore protectorates of Puerto Rico and Guam).\n\nHowever, we ALSO need to look at how longitude is measured. "Eastward" occurs from the line of 0 longitude (approximately Greenwich England) and moves toward Europe and Asia. "Westward" occurs from the same starting point and moves west over the Atlantic and across North America. The line of longitude that is directly opposite from 0 would be 180 ... which happens to pass through Alaska. Thus Alaska could be both "eastern- and western-most"
485090
in half horizontally\n\nZ- about right there where the line is
1167101
It was in fact done on purpose! When Montana was being considered admittance to the Union the President said that it was too ugly to be a state. So the people of Montana decided to reshape their state to look like a friendly face. Since the people of Montana had never seen a friendly face they chose the next best thing, a rectangle!
420069
A straight line is the shortest distance.
694667
I think what you are asking is which states do not border a lake or an ocean - I sure am glad you didn't include rivers.\n\nExclude all the states on the Atlantic coast, Pacific coast, and Gulf of Mexico. Also exclude the states that border the Great Lakes. And of course exclude Hawaii.\n\nWith these directions and a decent map, you are in business.
7571
map makers esentiallt did what is known as graphing.  what they did is basically take a piece of graphing pad marking out latitudes and longatudes respectively. they then took measurements as to where they were with a device known as a sextant which they use to determine thire position on the planet LAT/LONG by using the stars as they traveled they marked on the grid paper what thier lat/long was then simply connected the dots this technique can be used to mark coastlines  or if inland plot your course (eg make a line on the map known to be dry land) this course can then be translated to be the border between utah and montana for example the lines for borders between states were mostly arbatrary some were set forth by the gov't where the lines were to be drawn others may have been a natural boundary such as a river or other waterway.\n\ni hope that is what you were looking for
873359
The decisions were political--decided by colonizers like England, by war, by land deals with other countries, and by Congress and the President.\n The boundaries were sometimes based on natural features--as previous answerer indicated, or sometimes based arbitrarily on latitude or longitude. \nThe boundaries of the first thirteen states were influenced by the boundaries of the early colonies. \nIn addition, some boundaries were decided by war with European countries (or their successors) (the states bordering Mexico and Canada, for instance), or by land purchases (Louisiana, and states along the Mississippi; Alaska).
2320
Though the Mason-Dixon line is most commonly associated with the division between the northern and southern (free and slave, respectively) states during the 1800s and American Civil War-era, the line was delineated in the mid-1700s to settle a property dispute. The two surveyors who mapped the line, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, will always be known for their famous boundary.\n\nIn 1632, King Charles I of England gave the first Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, the colony of Maryland. Fifty years later, in 1682, King Charles II gave William Penn the territory to the north, which later became Pennsylvania. A year later, Charles II gave Penn land on the Delmarva Peninsula (the peninsula that includes the eastern portion of modern Maryland and all of Delaware).\n\nThe description of the boundaries in the grants to Calvert and Penn did not match and there was a great deal of confusion as to where the boundary (supposedly along 40° north) lay. The Calvert and Penn families took the matter to the British court and England's chief justice declared in 1750 that the boundary between southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland should lie 15 miles south of Philadelphia. A decade later, the two families agreed on the compromise and set out to have the new boundary surveyed. Unfortunately, colonial surveyors were no match for the difficult job and two experts from England had to be recruited.\n\n\n\nCharles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon arrived in Philadelphia in November 1763. Mason was an astronomer who had worked at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and Dixon was a renowned surveyor. The two had worked together as a team prior to their assignment to the colonies.\n\nAfter arriving in Philadelphia, their first task was to determine the exact absolute location of Philadelphia. From there, they began to survey the north-south line that divided the Delmarva Peninsula into the Calvert and Penn properties. Only after the Delmarva portion of the line had been completed did the duo move to mark the east-west running line between Pennsylvania and Maryland.\n\nThey precisely established the point fifteen miles south of Philadelphia and since the beginning of their line was west of Philadelphia, they had to begin their measurement to the east of the beginning of their line. They erected a limestone benchmark at their point of origin.\n\nTravel and surveying in the rugged "west" was difficult and slow going. The surveyors had to deal with many different hazards, one of the most dangerous to the men being the indigenous Native Americans living in the region. The duo did have Native American guides although once the survey team reached a point 36 miles east of the end point of the boundary, their guides told them not to travel any farther. Hostile residents kept the survey from reaching its end goal. Thus, on October 9, 1767, almost four years after they began their surveying, the 233 mile-long Mason-Dixon had (almost) been completely surveyed.\n\nOver fifty years later, the boundary between the two states came into the spotlight with the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Compromise established a boundary between the slave states of the south and the free states of the north (however its separation of Maryland and Delaware is a bit confusing since Delaware was a slave state that stayed in the Union). This boundary became referred to as the Mason-Dixon line because it began in the east along the Mason-Dixon line and headed westward to the Ohio River and along the Ohio to its mouth at the Mississippi River and then west along 36° 30' North.\n\nThis line was very symbolic in the minds of the people of the young nation struggling over slavery and the names of the two surveyors who created it will evermore be associated with that struggle and its geographic association
1170479
That's like asking why the US uses inches, feet, etc., instead of the metric system (which the rest of the world uses).  Basically, it's just because we're the US.  No reason.  But it's too much of a hassle to change, apparently, on both counts.