Rick Perry wants to be president.... of what?

North America's 4 biggest nations—according to Rick Perry. What country does Texas Governor Rick Perry want to be president of? Late las...

Forgottonia Revisited

Forgottonia seems to be a hot topic these days, so I thought I'd revisit the entry from Lost States : Illinois has lots of freeways. Lot...

Loring vs Turner - The Feud

The fine folks at Baseball Think Factory have been debating a claim made on these pages ... namely whether Loring, Montana is the furthest ...

Atlanta from "Gone With the Wind"

Gone With the Wind is among the bestselling books of all time. Here at Lost States, we thought it would be fun to see how the story played ...

Tornado map's weird anomaly

Of course, our prayers go out to the people of Joplin, Missouri and other cities after the devastating tornadoes of recent days. To get a be...

Denmark claims North Pole. Is Ecuador next?

This past week Denmark admitted it's planning to stake a claim to the North Pole. That's because the pole has lots of oil and gas, a...

Borders from 1967.... is that 1967 A.D. or B.C.?

In his big speech, Pres. Obama forgot to tell us which 1967 borders he wanted for Palestine. Did he mean the borders from 1967 A.D. .... or ...

California's first flag revealed

What the heck was the animal on California's first flag? And who designed this monstrosity? Here's the backstory: In 1846, Californi...

Backwards time (zone) travel

There are a few spots in the US where time travels backwards—sort of. Let me explain. In most places, when you travel eastward from one time...

Earliest fireworks - solving the sunset problem

(Updated. Thanks q) What place in America has the earliest sunset—local time? This is a really important question for the upcoming 4th of J...

Canada's split: NY Times

Most Canadians don't consider Vancouver to be a part of the "real" Canada—that's according to a recent New York Times arti...

Samoan Time Warp

It's like something out of the TV show "Lost." A madman on an island in the south Pacific has found a way to jump forward in t...

Saddest town in baseball

Quiz question: What US city (in the lower 48) is furthest from a major league baseball team? The crack staff at Lost States spent way too mu...

Baja Arizona map

Reports on the proposed 51st state of Baja Arizona are heating up, but no one seems to have a clear, simple map of this idea. So I made one....

NPR reports on 51st state story

The proposed 51st state of Baja, Arizona made the news on NPR today. Of course, we here at Lost States have been all over this movement for...

Mysterious island - an evil lair, or??

Bouvet Island in 1898 No that Osama is gone, are there any evil masterminds left? Anyone who might be James Bond-worthy? In fiction, these a...

Splitting up Canada?

The only places the separatists won a majority in Monday's election The platform of the Bloc Québécois (BQ) party involves seceding from...

Panetta: New York City should be 51st state

Leon Panetta was a major proponent of statehood for New York City, according to a long-forgetten report he wrote for mayor John Lindsay.  It...

Osama map hijinks

So if you zoom in on Abbotabad in Google maps, you can see the closest restaurant to Osama's house... probably the place he called for t...

How the States got their Shapes

So you enjoyed the May 3rd premiere of the new History Channel series entitled How the States Got their Shapes hosted by Brian Unger. And no...

Congress says Hawaii's not a state--in 1993

I hate to give birthers a Plan B, but I've stumbled upon a conspiracy theory that is just too juicy to ignore.  Specifically, Barack Oba...

Bin Laden's 2001 escape... the "X"s and "O"s

Why did it take 10 years to get Osama Bin Laden? Think football. In December 2001, Bin Laden ran an end-around misdirection play, faking out...