US State Shapes Quiz at a Glance
Name the US state from its outline. A state's shape appears on its own, with no map around it and not to scale, and you pick its name from four. Easy starts with Texas and Florida; Hard has Colorado and Wyoming side by side. Then all 50 in one round. Free, no sign-up.
- States
- 50
- Levels
- Easy, Medium, Hard, All 50
- Each round
- 10 shapes, four answers (All 50: 50 shapes)
- Outlines
- US Census map data
- Time limit
- None
- Cost
- Free, no sign-up
How to Play the quiz
- Pick a level: Easy (the famous shapes), Medium, Hard (the rectangles and the small Northeast states) or All 50.
- A state's outline appears on its own. Every outline fills the frame, so Rhode Island looks as big as Texas: the shape is the only clue.
- Pick its name from four. After each answer the state lights up on a small map of the United States, so you see where it is.
- In Hard and All 50, a look-alike is often one of the wrong answers: Colorado with Wyoming, North Dakota with South Dakota, Vermont with New Hampshire.
The shapes everyone knows
Texas with its panhandle and the Rio Grande, Florida's peninsula, California's long coast and its bend, Michigan's mitten, Louisiana's boot and Oklahoma's pan with its handle are the easy ones. Alaska is huge on a real map; here it is the same size as every other state, with the Aleutian Islands trailing west. Hawaii is the only state made only of islands.
The look-alikes
Colorado and Wyoming are both near-rectangles bounded by lines of latitude and longitude; Colorado is relatively wider. North Dakota and South Dakota are stacked rectangles: South Dakota's eastern edge kinks where the Big Sioux River runs, and its southern border follows the Missouri in the southeast. Vermont and New Hampshire are mirror images, Vermont wide at the top and New Hampshire wide at the bottom. Kansas has a bite out of its top right corner (the Missouri River), Nebraska a panhandle in the west.
Why the shapes look the way they do
Most western borders are straight because they were drawn along lines of latitude and longitude before many settlers arrived. Eastern borders often follow rivers and ridges: the Mississippi shapes the sides of ten states, the Ohio River the north of Kentucky and the west of West Virginia, and the Potomac the border between Maryland and Virginia. The outlines here are from the US Census Bureau's map data.
Every State in the Quiz
Each state with its level and the shape it is most often mixed up with.
| # | State | Level | Often mixed up with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | Medium | Mississippi |
| 2 | Alaska | Easy | – |
| 3 | Arizona | Medium | New Mexico |
| 4 | Arkansas | Hard | – |
| 5 | California | Easy | – |
| 6 | Colorado | Hard | Wyoming |
| 7 | Connecticut | Hard | Rhode Island, Delaware |
| 8 | Delaware | Hard | Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland |
| 9 | Florida | Easy | – |
| 10 | Georgia | Medium | – |
| 11 | Hawaii | Easy | – |
| 12 | Idaho | Easy | – |
| 13 | Illinois | Medium | Indiana |
| 14 | Indiana | Medium | Illinois |
| 15 | Iowa | Hard | Missouri |
| 16 | Kansas | Hard | Nebraska |
| 17 | Kentucky | Medium | – |
| 18 | Louisiana | Easy | – |
| 19 | Maine | Easy | – |
| 20 | Maryland | Hard | Delaware |
| 21 | Massachusetts | Easy | – |
| 22 | Michigan | Easy | – |
| 23 | Minnesota | Medium | – |
| 24 | Mississippi | Medium | Alabama |
| 25 | Missouri | Hard | Iowa |
| 26 | Montana | Medium | – |
| 27 | Nebraska | Hard | Kansas |
| 28 | Nevada | Easy | – |
| 29 | New Hampshire | Hard | Vermont |
| 30 | New Jersey | Hard | – |
| 31 | New Mexico | Medium | Arizona |
| 32 | New York | Easy | – |
| 33 | North Carolina | Medium | Tennessee |
| 34 | North Dakota | Hard | South Dakota |
| 35 | Ohio | Easy | – |
| 36 | Oklahoma | Easy | – |
| 37 | Oregon | Medium | Washington |
| 38 | Pennsylvania | Hard | – |
| 39 | Rhode Island | Hard | Connecticut, Delaware |
| 40 | South Carolina | Medium | – |
| 41 | South Dakota | Hard | North Dakota |
| 42 | Tennessee | Easy | North Carolina |
| 43 | Texas | Easy | – |
| 44 | Utah | Easy | – |
| 45 | Vermont | Hard | New Hampshire |
| 46 | Virginia | Medium | – |
| 47 | Washington | Medium | Oregon |
| 48 | West Virginia | Medium | – |
| 49 | Wisconsin | Medium | – |
| 50 | Wyoming | Hard | Colorado |
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the shapes to scale?
No. Every outline fills the same frame, so Rhode Island looks as big as Alaska. That way the size gives nothing away and you have to know the shape.
Which state shapes are hardest?
Colorado and Wyoming, the two Dakotas, and Vermont and New Hampshire are the classic mix-ups. Small states like Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island are hard too, because few people have seen their outline on its own.
Is Washington, D.C. in the quiz?
No. It is a federal district, not a state, so the quiz has the 50 states only.
Where do the outlines come from?
From the US Census Bureau's map data (the public-domain us-atlas files), with Alaska and Hawaii in the projection used for inset maps.
Is there a country version?
Yes: Country Shapes asks the same question with the outlines of the world's countries.
Made by Kashif Sulehria in Lahore, Pakistan. Updated Invalid Date.