Adjacent state pairs ranked by gap in statehood date

[J N Winkler]

Has anyone tried ranking pairs of states that are adjacent to each other (i.e., have a shared border, even if this is only a point, as at the Four Corners) by the gap between each state's date of admission to the Union?

I suspect the widest such gap in the country is between Missouri (admitted 1821-08-10) and Oklahoma (admitted 1907-11-16).

[hotdogPi]

West Virginia also has a large gap with everything it touches (though not the largest), being split from Virginia long after the whole area was made up of states.

For the closest ones, anything in the 13 colonies (except maybe Rhode Island) would be within 2 years, and Arizona and New Mexico are within 1 year.

[noelbotevera]

Pennsylvania (Dec. 12th, 1787) - West Va. (June 20th, 1863)

North Carolina (Nov. 21st, 1789) - Tenn. (June 1st, 1796)

Pennsylvania (Dec. 12th, 1787) - Ohio (March 1st, 1803)

Michigan (Jan. 26th, 1837) - Ohio (March 1st, 1803)

Michigan (Jan. 26th, 1837) - Indiana (Dec. 11th, 1816)

California (Sep. 9th, 1850) - Arizona (Feb. 14th, 1912)

California (Sep. 9th, 1850) - Oregon (Feb. 14th, 1859)

California (Sep. 9th, 1850) - Nevada (Halloween 1864)

New York (July 26th, 1788) - Vermont (March 4th, 1791)

[CtrlAltDel]

Has anyone tried ranking pairs of states that are adjacent to each other (i.e., have a shared border, even if this is only a point, as at the Four Corners) by the gap between each state's date of admission to the Union?

I have! Just now!

And you are correct, the MO-OK pairing has the longest gap in admission dates among states that border one another, at about 86.3 years (or 31,508 days to be exact). Not too far behind is PA-WV, at 75.5 years (27,583 days), which is followed very closely by MD-WV at 75.1 years (27,445 days) and VA-WV at 75.0 years (27,387 days).

The shortest gap is ND-SD, both of which were admitted on the same day. Past that, you get a lot of state pairs in the northeast, sorted quite closely by their distance from Philadelphia, as you might imagine would be the case. (This helps explain why so many of WV pairs are clustered together in the top 5.)

Anyway, here is the complete list. I don't think there are any errors, but it's always possible that something escaped me.

Code Select Expand


I II Days Years

MO OK 31508 86.3
PA WV 27583 75.5
MD WV 27445 75.1
VA WV 27387 75.0
AR OK 26085 71.4
KY WV 25950 71.0
NM TX 24113 66.0
OK TX 22601 61.9
AZ CA 22437 61.4
OH WV 22026 60.3
FL GA 20879 57.2
AZ NV 17271 47.3
KS OK 17091 46.8
MO NE 16639 45.6
IA SD 15650 42.8
AR TN 14623 40.0
KS MO 14417 39.5
AZ CO 12979 35.5
CO NM 12940 35.4
MI OH 12385 33.9
LA TX 12296 33.7
AL GA 11668 31.9
ME NH 11589 31.7
MN ND 11498 31.5
MN SD 11498 31.5
ID OR 11462 31.4
CO OK 11428 31.3
NV UT 11387 31.2
OR WA 11228 30.7
IL WI 10770 29.5
KY MO 10661 29.2
IA IL 10252 28.1
IL KY 9680 26.5
ID NV 9376 25.7
IA MO 9271 25.4
AL FL 9211 25.2
MO TN 9200 25.2
IN KY 8958 24.5
AR LA 8812 24.1
AL TN 8595 23.5
NE WY 8532 23.4
NE SD 8282 22.7
MS TN 7861 21.5
IA NE 7368 20.2
IN MI 7351 20.1
CO UT 7095 19.4
AR MS 6762 18.5
AZ UT 5884 16.1
NM UT 5845 16.0
CO KS 5663 15.5
OH PA 5557 15.2
AR MO 5423 14.8
CA NV 5166 14.1
CO WY 5091 13.9
IN OH 5034 13.8
IA MN 4152 11.4
MI WI 4141 11.3
KY OH 3924 10.7
MN WI 3634 9.9
AR TX 3484 9.5
CO NE 3441 9.4
CA OR 3080 8.4
GA TN 3073 8.4
TN VA 2898 7.9
NC TN 2384 6.5
KS NE 2222 6.1
NV OR 2086 5.7
LA MS 2050 5.6
ID UT 2011 5.5
UT WY 2004 5.5
NM OK 1512 4.1
KY TN 1461 4.0
KY VA 1437 3.9
MA VT 1122 3.1
NH VT 986 2.7
IL MO 981 2.7
NY VT 951 2.6
CT RI 871 2.4
MA RI 843 2.3
AL MS 734 2.0
IL IN 722 2.0
GA NC 689 1.9
NC SC 547 1.5
IA WI 518 1.4
NC VA 514 1.4
SD WY 250 0.7
MT WY 244 0.7
ID MT 237 0.6
ID WA 234 0.6
NY PA 227 0.6
NJ NY 221 0.6
CT NY 199 0.5
MA NY 171 0.5
DE MD 143 0.4
GA SC 142 0.4
MD PA 138 0.4
MA NH 136 0.4
MD VA 58 0.2
AZ NM 39 0.1
CT MA 28 0.1
DE NJ 11 0.0
ID WY 7 0.0
MT ND 6 0.0
MT SD 6 0.0
NJ PA 6 0.0
DE PA 5 0.0
ND SD 0 0.0