This is true? - Geographic oddities that defy conventional wisdom

[MantyMadTown]

People don't think of Pennsylvania as a coastal state in the literal sense for the most part, but technically it is because the Delaware River estuary is at sea level up to at least Philadelphia.

Well people think of Philadelphia as an east coast city despite not literally being on the coast.

[kevinb1994]

People don't think of Pennsylvania as a coastal state in the literal sense for the most part, but technically it is because the Delaware River estuary is at sea level up to at least Philadelphia.

It is at sea level up until The Falls of the Delaware at Morrisville, PA and Trenton, NJ.

[ErmineNotyours]

Atlanta is farther west than Detroit.

The Atlanta Braves used to be in the National League West, even though the Chicago Cubs, further west and in the Central Time Zone, were in the National League East.

[Big John]

Atlanta is farther west than Detroit.

The Atlanta Braves used to be in the National League West, even though the Chicago Cubs, further west and in the Central Time Zone, were in the National League East.

For a more extreme example, the Carolina Panthers were in the NFC West while the Arizona Cardinals were in the NFC East.

[oscar]

For a more extreme example, the Carolina Panthers were in the NFC West while the Arizona Cardinals were in the NFC East.

Indeed, the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints also were in the NFC West, which made that division really the NFC Southeast. That got fixed with realignment, when the Panthers, Falcons, and Saints became (along with NFC Central team Tampa Bay Buccaneers) the new NFC South. The Cardinals were moved (screaming and kicking, IIRC) to the NFC West, as partial offset to its loss of the three now-NFC South teams.

[qguy]

People don't think of Pennsylvania as a coastal state in the literal sense for the most part, but technically it is because the Delaware River estuary is at sea level up to at least Philadelphia.

It is at sea level up until The Falls of the Delaware at Morrisville, PA and Trenton, NJ.

The Schuylkill River is tidal (basicly sea level) up to Fairmount Dam and the Fairmount Water Works, behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Originally it was tidal up to what is now the East Falls neighborhood (where the US 1 expressway crosses the river on twin high-level bridges), until the Fairmount Dam was built in 1822.

The Pennypack Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River in northeast Philadelphia, is tidal to Frankford Avenue (US 13), AKA the King's Highway, which crosses the creek on the oldest continually used bridge in America (over 300 years old).

[SP Cook]

Atlanta is farther west than Detroit.

The Atlanta Braves used to be in the National League West, even though the Chicago Cubs, further west and in the Central Time Zone, were in the National League East.

For a more extreme example, the Carolina Panthers were in the NFC West while the Arizona Cardinals were in the NFC East.

Baseball.  When baseball went to divisions, the teams owned 99% of their TV and 100% of their radio rights.  And, with 12 teams per league, this meant each team played 3 3 game series at each division foe and only 2 3 game series against the other division.   The Cubs (big market) and Cardinals (Budweiser) demanded to be in the East, and pushed the Reds (small market) and Braves (new team with a very weak following at the time) to the West, meaning they had to play 9 more games at San Diego, LA, and SF, starting at 10 local and valueless for local TV and radio. 

Football.  When the NFL and AFL merged, Dallas, about which it has been said is the only place in Texas that cares what people in NYC think of it, wanted to be in the east.  The AFC (old AFL plus 3 cast off NFL teams) easily divided into geographically logical divisions.  The NFC argued for months, finally resorting to a blind draw.  The plan with Dallas in the east and NO and ATL in the west got drawn.  A good alt history can be made of the NFC with logical divisions.

[empirestate]

People don't think of Pennsylvania as a coastal state in the literal sense for the most part, but technically it is because the Delaware River estuary is at sea level up to at least Philadelphia.

It is at sea level up until The Falls of the Delaware at Morrisville, PA and Trenton, NJ.

The Schuylkill River is tidal (basicly sea level) up to Fairmount Dam and the Fairmount Water Works, behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Originally it was tidal up to what is now the East Falls neighborhood (where the US 1 expressway crosses the river on twin high-level bridges), until the Fairmount Dam was built in 1822.

The Pennypack Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River in northeast Philadelphia, is tidal to Frankford Avenue (US 13), AKA the King's Highway, which crosses the creek on the oldest continually used bridge in America (over 300 years old).

And of course the Hudson is tidal all the way up to Troy. We were in Poughkeepsie yesterday and enjoyed watching the pack ice appearing to "flow" upriver as it was being carried by the flood tide.

I assume that's the farthest tidal reach on a U.S. river, but I haven't looked it up. And in Canada, I'm sure the St. Lawrence has tides even farther up its course.

[Ben114]

New York stretches from West Virginia to Rhode Island.

[hotdogPi]

New York stretches from West Virginia to Rhode Island.

I don't understand. New York does not border West Virginia.

[Takumi]

New York stretches from West Virginia to Rhode Island.

I don't understand. New York does not border West Virginia.

I think he means longitudinally. It doesn't have any land borders with Rhode Island either, obviously.

[vdeane]

NY does have a sea border with RI, though.  WV doesn't come close.

I think the fact that Long Island goes far enough that the eastern end is under RI is probably more surprising than western NY being due north of eastern WV.  The latter is probably expected, in fact (especially given I-79).

[Chris]

I grew up with a 1987 Rand McNally road atlas my grandfather gave me. Maine is on a single page, for a long time I thought Maine was similar in size, or only slightly larger than the other individual New England states. The top of Maine was displayed on an inset on a smaller scale, reinforcing the idea that Maine wasn't so big. Maine stretches almost 320 miles at its maximum extent, similar to that of Pennsylvania from the northwest to the Delaware River.

[Buck87]

When the NFL and AFL merged, Dallas, about which it has been said is the only place in Texas that cares what people in NYC think of it, wanted to be in the east.  The AFC (old AFL plus 3 cast off NFL teams) easily divided into geographically logical divisions.  The NFC argued for months, finally resorting to a blind draw.  The plan with Dallas in the east and NO and ATL in the west got drawn.  A good alt history can be made of the NFC with logical divisions.

Though it's worth mentioning that geographically screwy divisions in the NFL go back much further than the 1970 merger.

When the NFL first split into divisions in 1933, it made geographic sense that Green Bay, both Chicago teams and Portsmouth (soon to be Detroit) were in the west.  The Cleveland Rams joining the west also made sense, and then made even more sense when they moved to LA in 1946 (as did the placement other short lived expansion teams and merged teams in this era).

There was a brief period after the 1950 NFL-AAFC merger where East and West divisions were renamed American and National conferences. However, in 1953 they were renamed the Eastern and Western conferences....and did not make much geographic sense at all. Baltimore was in the West with LA, SF, GB, DET and CHI Bears while the CHI Cardinals were in the East, and stayed there despite moving to St. Louis. The Cowboys joined the West for all of one season in 1960,then moved to the East the next year when the Vikings joined the West.

Then came the 4 division setup in the late 60s after ATL and NO joined, which had the bizarre Coastal Division with ATL, BAL, LA & SF, the Central which exactly resembled the current NFC North, the Century which for one of its years resembled the current NFC East but for the other years had NO instead of NYG, and the Century division with the CLE, PIT, STL and NYG/NO. 

[Ben114]

NY does have a sea border with RI, though.  WV doesn't come close.

I think the fact that Long Island goes far enough that the eastern end is under RI is probably more surprising than western NY being due north of eastern WV.  The latter is probably expected, in fact (especially given I-79).

Buffalo is directly north of West Virginia, and the Montauk Lighthouse is directly south of Napatree Point (westernmost point of Rhode Island, southwest of Westerly)

[cl94]

And of course the Hudson is tidal all the way up to Troy. We were in Poughkeepsie yesterday and enjoyed watching the pack ice appearing to "flow" upriver as it was being carried by the flood tide.

I assume that's the farthest tidal reach on a U.S. river, but I haven't looked it up. And in Canada, I'm sure the St. Lawrence has tides even farther up its course.

The Hudson is the longest (barely) at 153 miles from the ocean. The Columbia is tidal to 146 miles from the ocean.

The St. Lawrence, on the other hand, is tidal up to Quebec City, which is 700 km (430 mi).

[vdeane]

NY does have a sea border with RI, though.  WV doesn't come close.

I think the fact that Long Island goes far enough that the eastern end is under RI is probably more surprising than western NY being due north of eastern WV.  The latter is probably expected, in fact (especially given I-79).

Buffalo is directly north of West Virginia, and the Montauk Lighthouse is directly south of Napatree Point (westernmost point of Rhode Island, southwest of Westerly)

Sure, in the same sense that Canada is north of Mexico, but one wouldn't usually say a state goes from X to Y unless it directly borders both X and Y.  NY does, however, have an actual border with RI, just not over land.

Also, as I mentioned more subtly earlier, the fact that parts of NY are north of parts of WV is not in any way, shape, or form surprising.  I-79's northern end is in Erie, PA, just 20-25 miles from the NY line, and it then proceeds due south through PA to WV - and WV has the entire eastern half of the state and panhandle east of I-79.

[kurumi]

I grew up with a 1987 Rand McNally road atlas my grandfather gave me. Maine is on a single page, for a long time I thought Maine was similar in size, or only slightly larger than the other individual New England states. The top of Maine was displayed on an inset on a smaller scale, reinforcing the idea that Maine wasn't so big. Maine stretches almost 320 miles at its maximum extent, similar to that of Pennsylvania from the northwest to the Delaware River.

US 1 in Maine (526.05 mi) is only 19 miles shorter than US 1 in Florida (545.03 mi). If not for the Overseas Highway along the Keys (about 110 miles), Florida would be a distant 2nd place to Maine.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

New York stretches from West Virginia to Rhode Island.

This, and...

The state of New York, for example, lies entirely to the east of Florida.

[vdeane]

Yeah, the bend in the coast makes for some interesting counter-intuitive facts.  Florida being entirely west of NY is certainly less intuitive than WV not being entirely west of NY (WV's position to NY is, in fact, exactly what I would have expected, but then again, I live here; RI being not entirely east of NY was certainly counter-intuitive when I first heard it, though).

[jon daly]

And of course the Hudson is tidal all the way up to Troy. We were in Poughkeepsie yesterday and enjoyed watching the pack ice appearing to "flow" upriver as it was being carried by the flood tide.

I assume that's the farthest tidal reach on a U.S. river, but I haven't looked it up. And in Canada, I'm sure the St. Lawrence has tides even farther up its course.

The Hudson is the longest (barely) at 153 miles from the ocean. The Columbia is tidal to 146 miles from the ocean.

The St. Lawrence, on the other hand, is tidal up to Quebec City, which is 700 km (430 mi).

Is there a good list of how tidal various rivers are? Also, is there somewhere that mentions how far up that they are saline enough to support sea life?

[cl94]

Is there a good list of how tidal various rivers are? Also, is there somewhere that mentions how far up that they are saline enough to support sea life?

I wish. As far as the Hudson, it's only saline enough for sea life up to Tappan Zee, if that. Salt point generally lies somewhere between the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and Poughkeepsie railroad bridge. There is a variety of interesting brackish life up to Albany, as well as an assortment of species that live in saline and breed in fresh. These include the endangered Atlantic Sturgeon, which lives in the ocean but breeds in fresh water. The sturgeon is the largest animal that regularly appears in the Hudson and can be seen as far north as Albany when breeding.

[empirestate]

And of course the Hudson is tidal all the way up to Troy. We were in Poughkeepsie yesterday and enjoyed watching the pack ice appearing to "flow" upriver as it was being carried by the flood tide.

I assume that's the farthest tidal reach on a U.S. river, but I haven't looked it up. And in Canada, I'm sure the St. Lawrence has tides even farther up its course.

The Hudson is the longest (barely) at 153 miles from the ocean. The Columbia is tidal to 146 miles from the ocean.

The St. Lawrence, on the other hand, is tidal up to Quebec City, which is 700 km (430 mi).

Is there a good list of how tidal various rivers are? Also, is there somewhere that mentions how far up that they are saline enough to support sea life?

This might be a good jumping-off point: https://coast.noaa.gov/nerrs/

[jon daly]

Thanks, guys.

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[Road Hog]

Every county in the Texas Panhandle has a "four corners"  connection with adjacent Texas counties, with the exception of the row of counties at the panhandle's base.