1653: United States Map

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United States Map
It would be pretty unfair to give to someone a blank version of this map as a 'how many states can you name?' quiz. (If you include Alaska and Hawaii, you should swap the Aleutian Islands with the Hawaiian ones.)
Title text: It would be pretty unfair to give to someone a blank version of this map as a 'how many states can you name?' quiz. (If you include Alaska and Hawaii, you should swap the Aleutian Islands with the Hawaiian ones.)

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Early draft. To be added: A list of how the states are swapped around. (This could be tough to write in text?)
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic is a map with the (rough) outline of the mainland of the United States of America. At first it looks like the real map, but actually all the states have been shuffled around in it. It seems that Randall took all of the states (minus Alaska and Hawaii the two states that are not part of this map and are only mentioned in the title text, see below), and then reassembled them in the style of a jigsaw puzzle, with the end result being a map with a similar outline to the original unaltered mainland state map.


Previously Randall has played with the shapes of the united states in 1079: United Shapes. In that map he did two separate drawings for Michigan with a glove in the lower part and an eagle in the upper part. Once again in this version he has split Michigan in two, the main part, the glove just labeled Michigan, is on the west coast on part of California's location, but the upper part is located on the east coast over New York's location and has been labeled MI (upper). So even without Hawaii and Alaska, there are 47 and 2 halves states in this map.

It seems at a first glance that the names have been written on the states as they would appear in a normal map, and that they have all then been rotated with the rotation of the states. But this is not the case for all states. For instance it seems like Utah has hardly been moved at all, and with the name written normally this may be intentionally to deceive the readers. Because Utah has been turned upside down, and according to how for instance Texas, clearly turned upside down, has it's name written upside down as well, Utah should thus also have been written like that.

Other states that have not been moved a lot include California which has only been pushed down the length of the west border of the US, so the top part overlaps with the correct position of the state. Maine has only been shifted left to just outside its normal position. Colorado has been moved up a state to where Wyoming usually is, and Wyoming has then just been shifted right. But both have been turned 90 degrees, whichever way would be impossible to say for these rectangular states. But the text, if you dare believe in that, seems to indicate they have been turned counter clockwise. Wisconsin has only been shifted down below its usual position but then turned upside down.

The title text mentions how it would be unfair to use a blank version (already created by a user) of this shuffled-up map as a quiz for knowledge of U.S. geography, because it is switched around. It also suggests a corresponding mean trick to play if you include Alaska and Hawaii, which are not present in the comic itself.

Transcript

[A white map with an outline that closely resembles that of the mainland of the United States of America with gray all around the black border. But on closer inspection most of the states do not look right. The 48 mainland states are all there, however, with their name or abbreviations written on them as a label in gray text. But they have all been shuffled around and then reassembled as a jigsaw puzzle in the same shape as USA. The name labels for most of the states have been rotated, often to follow the new rotation of the state in the map. So some are written upside down or have been rotated 90 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise or even somewhere in between. One state, Michigan, has even been split up in two so there are 49 instead of 48 labels. For the states that have been named only with state abbreviations the full name is written in a brackets behind the transcript of the abbreviation. Here below all the states are listed approximately in columns going from the top left and down and then moving right to the next column across the map. Any rotation of the text from normal is noted in brackets behind the name.]
Ohio [Upside down]
Georgia [Upside down]
Michigan [Upside down – but only bottom part]
MD [Upside down - Maryland]
California [Text not rotated, but state is rotated counter-clockwise]
Kansas [Upside down]
Pennsylvania [Rotated clockwise]
Oklahoma [Rotated clockwise]
New Mexico
Nebraska [Upside down]
South Dakota
Colorado [Rotated counter clockwise]
Wyoming [Rotated counter clockwise]
Utah [Text not/barely rotated, but state is upside down]
Alabama
MA [Rotated counter clockwise – Massachusetts]
Virginia [Rotated counter clockwise]
Arizona [Rotated counter clockwise]
Washington [Rotated counter clockwise]
Montana [Rotated clockwise]
New York
Minnesota [Upside down]
Texas [Upside down]
CT [Rotated clockwise –Connecticut]
Missi-
ssippi [Rotated clockwise]
Nevada
Idaho [Rotated clockwise]
South Carolina [Rotated counter clockwise, by more than 90 degrees]
Missouri [Upside down]
Wisconsin [Upside down]
Kentucky [Rotated clockwise]
North Dakota [Rotated clockwise]
Florida [Rotated counter clockwise, by more than 90 degrees]
North Carolina [Rotated clockwise]
Indiana
RI [Label below in the ocean –Rhode Island]
Oregon [Rotated clockwise]
Iowa
Tennessee [Upside down]
Illinois
Maine [Upside down]
NH [New Hampshire]
MI (upper) [Rotated 45 degree counter clockwise – Michigan but only upper part]
Arkansas
NJ [New Jersey]
Louisiana [Rotated 45 degree counter clockwise]
West Virginia [Rotated 45 degree clockwise]
DE [Rotated counter clockwise – label to the right in the ocean – Delaware]
VT [Upside down –Vermont]


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Discussion

But what prompted this map? Has there been a real life event that influenced Randall to create this? 141.101.91.25 07:32, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this is about voting districts. They are so random you can not guess where your vote will count: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90RajY2nrgk

08:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Citation needed. Jkshapiro (talk) 03:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Definintely a case of [Citation needed]. -Pennpenn 108.162.250.162 03:58, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Maybe but still realistic that it could have something to do with the timing. Added it to the trivia section --Kynde (talk) 22:20, 12 March 2016 (UTC)


(Finally, someone made the page so I can post this. :| ) I removed the names from Randall's map! Here's a blank version! Muahahaha! Quoice (talk) 07:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Cool. Could you be so mean as to make a version including the shapes of Alaska and Hawaii. You could use the ones from Randall's map of United shapes as templates. That would be fantastic! --Kynde (talk) 09:03, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


Maybe add a table with every state cut out; and add a correct map with the cut out pieces in the right place? sirKitKat (talk) 09:05, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

That would just be a normal map... The piece could go over a real map in the wrong place to show it. Or rather the entire map should be overlaid on a real map... --Kynde (talk) 09:22, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
This sounds like a great idea to me! Case of "A picture is worth a thousand words". Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


First thing that comes to mind when I look at the map is seeing New York being against the Mexico border. I wonder how New Yorkers would deal with the Mexicans coming across. --173.245.54.28 14:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

This proves it: continental drift is real, and much faster than we thought. 162.158.114.217 15:18, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


1653-rearranged.png -- Frankie (talk) 15:31, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

AZ <-> NM 162.158.56.173 16:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
RI should be rotated Azsr (talk) 17:31, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
D'oh! Fixed AZ & NM (although server is still caching the original). Leaving RI as is due to caption arrangement. -- Frankie (talk) 18:00, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Great map. Have linked from the explanation at the top. Also made my own real life jigsaw which I put in the trivia.

There's nothing in the article right now that indicates the shapes of the states have been altered slightly so that they fit together seamlessly in this arrangement. I think that's an important point. 162.158.255.80 15:53, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

I think that's obvious 141.101.70.157 16:18, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
I mentioned it in the trivia. Maybe it should go up also? But it is surprisingly close to being correct within the reasonable limits of the resolution --Kynde (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
+1, fitting Cape Cod into Mobile Bay is particularly stellar. Miamiclay (talk) 04:26, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

What happened to Long Island (part of NY)? 108.162.218.118 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The article indicates Maine has only been moved, but it's also been rotated 180 degrees. (Upside down) 198.41.235.107 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I will correct my mistake then ;-) --Kynde (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

So glad I'm not in Illinois any more... I guess I'm in Texas now. 108.162.221.18 18:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

* Do not use for navigation. Alexbuzzbee (talk) 23:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


Reminds me of this MIT Mystery Hunt puzzle from 2013 where you rebuild the US states into a map of Europe: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/2013/coinheist.com/indiana/watch_your_back/answer/answer2/solution.png --162.158.252.185 02:47, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

"Orientation none" sounds strange to me, like saying "no temperature" when it is 0 degrees. Isn't "normal" or "unchanged" better? Jkrstrt (talk) 16:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

... or change the title of the column to be "Rotation" -- to which "None" is valid 21:54, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Could someone with more experience than me fix the picture so it's not ginormous? I tried last night and the picture was replaced with the generic "picture failed to load" graphic, same as it looks here: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:1653_United_States_Map_49_piece_jigsaw_solved.jpg NotLock (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I have tried to make a smaller version of it. It can take a while before it uploads so I'm not sure if it has a descend size now? --Kynde (talk) 22:20, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Would Washington, D.C. move with Virginia, or would it remain physically anchored in its current (real) location? 108.162.218.83 04:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

It could be placed on any state borders, due to it's small size compared to any state, so it makes no sense to ask the question I would say. Anyway it lies insicde Maryland on the border of Virginia so could as well move with Maryland if it was state bound... ;-) --Kynde (talk) 22:20, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Has anyone sent this to Al Franken? 108.162.245.180 22:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC) I like this map more than the normal one