Southeast States Map Quiz

Why this quiz counts 12 Southeast states

There is no official Southeast. The United States Census Bureau, the body most often cited for American regions, does not define one at all. What it defines is a South region of 16 states plus the District of Columbia, cut into three divisions: South Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida), East South Central (Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi), and West South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas). Almost nobody teaching Southeast geography wants Texas and Oklahoma in the picture, so the Census South is a poor fit for a map quiz, and the working definitions have to come from elsewhere.

The United States Geological Survey uses an 11-state Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The American Association of Geographers uses a different 11, dropping Arkansas and Louisiana and adding Maryland and West Virginia. A widely repeated 13-state version takes the geographers' list and puts Arkansas and Louisiana back in. The set of 12 used here is the Geological Survey list plus West Virginia, or equivalently the 13-state list without Maryland: the version that keeps the whole Appalachian interior while stopping short of the mid-Atlantic.

The states that move between lists are always the same six: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Each is pulled two ways. Arkansas and Louisiana sit west of the Mississippi and get filed under the South Central states as often as not. Kentucky's northern border is the Ohio River, which is also the conventional edge of the Midwest. Virginia and Maryland belong to the mid-Atlantic in most transport, media and business groupings. West Virginia is Appalachian first and Southern second. Delaware and Missouri turn up occasionally as well, which is how you end up seeing counts of 14 and 15 in print.

For the purposes of playing, the boundary is simple. Nothing north of the Potomac is a target, nothing west of the Mississippi except Arkansas and Louisiana, and Texas and Oklahoma are off the list entirely. Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma are drawn on the screen because the map shows the whole country, but they are never named as answers. Learn these 12 outlines and you can produce any of the competing lists on demand by adding Maryland or subtracting Arkansas and Louisiana.

A four-pass method for learning all 12

Twelve outlines learned as a flat list will blur together, because half of them are rectangles of roughly similar size. The fix is to learn them in four passes, each pass with its own internal logic, and to refuse to move on until the previous pass is automatic. The first pass gives you fixed points on a blank map. The second and third run those points into chains along the two coastlines. The fourth fills the interior, which is where most of the errors live.

Pass one is the three silhouettes: Florida, Louisiana and Virginia. None of them can be mistaken for anything else. Florida is the only large peninsula pointing south, with the panhandle running west along the Gulf. Louisiana is the boot, its lower outline smeared by the Mississippi delta. Virginia is a wedge with a bite taken out of it by Chesapeake Bay, plus a detached scrap on the far side of that bay: the Eastern Shore, a two-county strip on the Delmarva Peninsula joined to the rest of the state by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Fix those three and you have the southern tip, the western corner and the north-eastern corner of the region.

Pass two is the Atlantic ladder, worked down the coast from Virginia: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida. Four rungs, always in that order, north to south. North Carolina is the long thin one, roughly 500 miles east to west, running from the Outer Banks all the way to the highest ground in the eastern United States. South Carolina is a compact wedge pinched between North Carolina and Georgia, and only West Virginia is smaller among the twelve. Georgia is the wide block below it, the largest state east of the Mississippi by land area.

Pass three is the Gulf strips, run west from Georgia: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. Three vertical bands of similar height, each touching salt water at the bottom. Alabama and Mississippi are near-twins by design, so at this stage do not try to separate them on shape; just learn the order, Alabama first, Mississippi second, then the boot. Florida's panhandle helps here as a ruler: it runs along the bottom of Alabama and stops before it reaches Mississippi, because Florida borders only Georgia and Alabama.

Pass four is the inland band: West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. Kentucky and Tennessee are stacked, Kentucky on top, both running east to west across the middle of the map like two shelves. West Virginia sits above and to the right of Kentucky, wedged among Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky, and it is easily the most irregular outline in the set. Arkansas is the odd one out, sitting west of Tennessee across the Mississippi River; it is the only state in this quiz that lies entirely west of that river.

The pairs that cost points, and the tell for each

North Carolina and South Carolina are the pair players name most often, and the tell is reach. North Carolina stretches roughly 500 miles from the Outer Banks to the Tennessee line and contains Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet, the highest peak in mainland North America east of the Mississippi River. South Carolina never gets near that; it is a wedge whose western side is the Savannah River and whose high point, Sassafras Mountain, is 3,554 feet. If the outline runs west far enough to touch Tennessee, it is North Carolina. If it is a compact triangle with only two neighbours, it is South Carolina.

Alabama and Mississippi are the hardest pair, and the reason is historical: they were one territory cut in two. The tell is the western edge. Mississippi's western boundary is the Mississippi River, or the course the river used to run, so it loops and wanders. Alabama's western boundary is a straight survey line. The second tell is neighbours. Alabama touches Georgia and the Florida panhandle on its eastern side; Mississippi touches Louisiana and Arkansas on its western side. If Georgia is on the far side of the strip you are looking at, you are looking at Alabama.

Virginia and West Virginia share a long and wildly irregular border, and newcomers regularly click one for the other. The tell is water. Virginia reaches the Atlantic, carries the Chesapeake bite and owns the detached Eastern Shore. West Virginia is landlocked and jagged, with a northern panhandle poking up between Ohio and Pennsylvania and an eastern panhandle stretching toward Washington. Put crudely: if it touches the ocean it is Virginia, and if it looks torn rather than drawn, it is West Virginia.

Kentucky and Tennessee are stacked and similar in width, so look at the top edge. Tennessee is close to a perfect long rectangle, about 440 miles east to west and 121 miles north to south, with straight northern and southern borders. Kentucky's northern border is the Ohio River, so it curves and scallops the whole way across, and its western end narrows to a point at the Mississippi. Straight top, Tennessee. Wavy top, Kentucky.

The last confusion sits either side of the river. Arkansas is close to square, with a straight northern border on Missouri and a ragged eastern edge on the Mississippi. Louisiana below it is the boot and gives no trouble. Across the river, Mississippi mirrors that same ragged edge, which is exactly why the two get swapped: they are opposite sides of one wandering line. The separator is the bottom. Mississippi runs down to the Gulf; Arkansas never reaches salt water at all.

How the Southeast got these borders

The Carolinas start as one grant. Charles II issued a charter for Carolina to a group of eight English noblemen on 24 March 1663. A deputy governor was appointed to administer the northern half in 1691; by 1712 north and south were operating as separate colonies; and in 1729 seven of the proprietors sold their interests to the Crown, at which point both became royal colonies. That sequence explains why two states share a name, and why the line between them is a series of surveyed steps rather than a river.

Kentucky and Tennessee are the western halves of older states, which is why they lie behind Virginia and North Carolina like two shelves. Virginia created Kentucky County on 31 December 1776, and Kentucky entered the Union as the 15th state on 1 June 1792; like Virginia, it calls itself a commonwealth rather than a state. North Carolina ceded its western lands to the federal government, they were organised as the Southwest Territory, and Tennessee was admitted as the 16th state on 1 June 1796, the same calendar day four years later. Two parent states, two long east-west strips, in the same order.

West Virginia is the youngest border in the region and the only one produced by a war. When Virginia seceded, its western counties refused to follow; conventions at Wheeling produced a rival government, and Congress admitted West Virginia as the 35th state on 20 June 1863. The result is a boundary that follows political loyalty and mountain drainage rather than geometry, which is how the state ended up with two panhandles instead of a tidy outline. It is also the only state lying entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission.

The Gulf strips come from one administrative cut. Congress split the Mississippi Territory on 3 March 1817, making the eastern half the Alabama Territory. Mississippi was admitted on 10 December 1817 as the 20th state, and Alabama on 14 December 1819 as the 22nd. Two states from one territory, separated by a line drawn for convenience, which is precisely why their outlines are so alike and why the pair is the standard trap on this quiz. Florida arrived by a different route: Spain ceded it to the United States under the Adams-Onis Treaty, which took effect in 1821, and Florida became the 27th state on 3 March 1845.

Two survey accidents are still visible on the map. In 1818 the mathematician James Camak surveyed the Georgia-Tennessee line and placed the 35th parallel about a mile south of its true position; the actual parallel crosses the Tennessee River near present-day Haletown, Tennessee, so the error left Georgia without access to the river. Georgia has tried to reopen the question in 1887, the 1890s, 1905, 1915, 1922, 1941, 1947 and 1971, and again in 2008, 2013, 2018 and 2019, when Governor Brian Kemp vetoed a resolution creating a negotiating committee. The other accident is Kentucky Bend, a loop of the Mississippi that leaves about 17.5 square miles of Kentucky land completely encircled by Tennessee and Missouri, reachable by road only through Tennessee, and home to nine residents at the 2020 census.

All 12 states, grouped by how hard they are to click

The twelve fall into three groups of four, and the grouping is worth respecting when you practise, because time spent re-clicking Florida is time not spent on the states that actually decide your score. What follows is the full set, with one durable fact attached to each.

The giveaways are Florida, Louisiana, Virginia and West Virginia. Florida, the 27th state, admitted on 3 March 1845, has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States at roughly 1,350 miles, and its high point, Britton Hill, is only 345 feet. Louisiana, the 18th state, admitted on 30 April 1812, is the only state whose subdivisions are called parishes rather than counties; Alaska is the only other state without counties, and it uses boroughs. Virginia, a commonwealth, ratified the Constitution on 25 June 1788 as the tenth state, and its boundary with Maryland runs along the low-water mark on the south shore of the Potomac, meaning Maryland owns the river. West Virginia is the smallest of the twelve by land area at 24,038 square miles, and its high point, Spruce Knob, reaches 4,863 feet.

The big blocks are Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, all large, all central, all straightforward once the coast is fixed. Georgia was established at Savannah on 12 February 1733 by James Oglethorpe as the last of the thirteen colonies, ratified fourth on 2 January 1788, borders five states, and at 57,513 square miles of land is the largest state east of the Mississippi River. North Carolina measures about 500 miles east to west and 191 north to south, ratified twelfth on 21 November 1789, and holds Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet. Tennessee borders eight states, tying Missouri for the most of any state in the country, and formally divides itself into East, Middle and West Grand Divisions. Kentucky's northern boundary follows the Ohio River as the river ran in 1792, which is why the jurisdiction reaches the far bank.

The four that decide the round are South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. South Carolina is the eleventh-smallest state in the country at 30,061 square miles of land, second here only to West Virginia; it ratified eighth, on 23 May 1788, and its border with Georgia follows the Savannah River and its headwater streams. Alabama, the 22nd state, admitted on 14 December 1819, has Montgomery as its capital and Huntsville as its largest city, which surprises people who expect the two to coincide. Mississippi, the 20th state, admitted on 10 December 1817, ranks 32nd in the country by area and has Jackson as both capital and largest city. Arkansas, the 25th state, admitted on 15 June 1836, is 29th by area, holds the Ozark and Ouachita mountains, and contains Crater of Diamonds State Park near Murfreesboro, the world's only diamond-bearing site open to the public for digging.

What to play once the Southeast is automatic

The first target is a clean round with no hesitation. Because the order is shuffled you cannot learn a sequence, and because the map carries no labels you cannot read the answer off the screen, so a perfect score really does mean recall. Your best score is stored in the browser on that device, so progress is visible from one run to the next without an account. When 12 out of 12 stops feeling like an achievement, raise the standard and aim for the same score without pausing on the Carolinas or on Alabama and Mississippi.

The obvious extension is capitals. The twelve are Montgomery, Little Rock, Tallahassee, Atlanta, Frankfort, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Raleigh, Columbia, Nashville, Richmond and Charleston. Seven of them are not their state's largest city: Montgomery, Tallahassee, Frankfort, Baton Rouge, Raleigh, Richmond and Columbia, and that gap is the single most reliable source of wrong answers in any Southern capitals test. The Northeast states and capitals quiz on this site plays that variant: the map highlights a state and you choose its capital from four options, rather than clicking the map yourself.

After that, widen the frame. The world-map sets use the same two mechanics on a different atlas. The Latin America quiz is a click quiz, like this one, where you find the named country on the map. World Capitals, European Capitals, Africa Capitals and Middle East Capitals are the other kind, where a country lights up and you pick its capital from four choices. Click quizzes train location; capitals quizzes train recall against a location you are shown. Alternating between the two types is more effective than grinding either one on its own.

One last suggestion for the Southeast specifically: learn the neighbours, not only the shapes. Ask which states each of the twelve touches. South Carolina and Florida each touch only two of the others, South Carolina bordering North Carolina and Georgia, and Florida bordering Georgia and Alabama. Tennessee touches eight states in all. Once you can recite the adjacencies, the map stops being a set of outlines and becomes a network.