As I drove over the border from Alabama to Florida the other day I noticed there was absolutely no difference in the look of the two states, which is typical. Are there any states where you drive over the border and it looks distinctively different than the state you just left? I think there has to be a river involved where the geography changes drastically but I can’t think of an example of this.
Not states, but what was striking to me crossing over from Detroit Michigan into western Toronto one day was that the latter has virtually no trees. In both Michigan and nearby Ohio trees are often kept and used as windbreaks, or at least to enliven the scenery a bit. Canadians apparently have differing ideas/ideals…
You do realize that Detroit and Toronto are 230 miles apart, right?
mmm
I would nominate the Arkansas-Oklahoma border especially in the northern parts. The border isn’t completely abrupt but there is a very fast transition from the Ozark mountains to the very flat lower plains.
The Massachusetts-New Hampshire border is fairly abrupt as well even though extreme southern New Hampshire is part of the Boston metro area. That is because of culture and not terrain however. Once you get a few miles across the New Hampshire border, it starts to get very rural, very fast and it is very different politically from Massachusetts.
I doubt you are going to find many stark differences right on whole state lines unless you look at individual cities and towns. There are plenty examples of those. I live very close to the Rhode Island border on the Massachusetts side and it is completely obvious when you take backroads into Woonsocket, RI the second you pass over the border because the poverty and crime levels go from very little in that specific area to off the charts. You don’t even need a sign or map to know that something just changed drastically. There are abrupt borders like that in many places but they don’t generally encompass entire state boundaries.
This was twenty years ago, so things may have changed…but driving from Wyoming to Colorado, I noticed, instantly, that the roads in Colorado were a lot CRAPPIER than the roads in Wyoming. The road surfaces were rougher, of a different color, and much more poorly kept up.
I can’t boast: there’s more trash alongside the roads in California than in Arizona and New Mexico. They both do a better job of trash pick-up – or maybe they simply throw less trash out of their cars. Anyway, there’s a big blot against California’s pride.
It’s much easier to notice the differences between two adjacent states if you’re familiar with the area.
In college we were on a trip to Lincoln NE, and I’d annoyed my carmates to much with Nebraska trivia that they ordered me to shut up. So, I read a book for a while, oblivious to the world around us - until I looked out the window at random and told them “We’re in Kansas; you missed the turn at Nebraska City.”
To them, it was just MORE CORN OMG ALL THE CORN. But to me, the plantings for windbreaks, the slight hilliness, the condition of unfinished roads, even the way the fields were laid out made it immediately obvious we weren’t in Nebraska anymore.
Closer to home, I cross from Missouri to Illinois every work day. There’s a river in between (obvs), but on the Missouri side where I usually cross the terrain is semiforested and lots of limestone (and mostly developed). Illinois it’s farmed floodplain, with no limestone outcrops in evidence. Further up- or down-stream, however, there are areas that look quite similar on both sides of the river.
I was going to mention the Mississippi dividing MO from IL as well. In some areas one side is low flat land and the other is high bluffs or karst terrain with rolling hills. Depending on where you are either state could be the flat one.
Out west there’s not an obvious line on the ground separating northeast NM from northwest TX/OK. But the topography changes radically within about 40 miles not far from the border. So we can readily tell when we’re entering or leaving TX.
For sure there are many many areas where crossing state lines the man-made situation is totally different. Rich to poor, crappy roads to good, aging infrastructure to modern, etc. I took the OP to be mostly referring to natural stuff.
It’s the same going from MS to Louisiana in Natchez or Vicksburg. The complete flatness with oxbow lakes scattered all around and soybean farms for miles, then cross a bridge and it’s a 100 foot change in elevation and some actual hills!
Connecticut to Massachusetts seemed to me to be quite sudden change in local vegetation.
What is always striking to me in going from Ontario to Detroit is the almost immediate drop in road quality.
I don’t know if it’s still that way, but when driving from MA into RI, the roads would be considerably more bumpy on the RI side.
When you drive into NV from CA, there are suddenly casinos everywhere.
Not so much driving, but when flying from Nevada to California, the ground color changes from brown to green, and the sky changes from blue to brown.
I’ve also noticed a different feel when I cross the international border from New York into Ontario or Quebec. I don’t know exactly what it is but there’s some subtle difference. Maybe it’s just the effect of things like street signs and license plates and mailboxes (and language, especially in Quebec). But even things like houses and streets and farms seem different.
From eastern Oregon into Idaho is pretty dramatic, as you cross the Snake River Canyon.
Crossing from eastern Montana into North Dakota, you go from rolling ranch land to flat as a billiard table.
When I drive into NV from CA, the road suddenly gets smoother. Or it gets worse going the other way. Casinos thing is true, but not on 80. The landscape looks the same. I hear similar stories from other states (PA?).
Not right at the border.
This is particularly true in South Lake Tahoe, where the casino / no casino line straight through the town is very distinctive.
It’s been a long long time, but I remember crossing from Maryland to Pennsylvania and being struck by: (1) awful roads (2) billboards everywhere.
The Lincoln Tunnel, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey and Midtown Manhattan, New York.
Most of the border between New South Wales and Victoria (Australia) is marked by the south bank of the Murray River. In the mid-section from say Albury in the east to Swan Hill in the west, a distance of about 400km (250m) if you cross the river it is fairly apparent which state you are in.
Victoria is much closer settled with irrigation areas, dairy farms, orchards, wineries, associated agribusiness and most of the tourist/holiday spots. Make the trip on the Victorian side you drive from Albury through 15 towns (Wodonga, Rutherglen, Yarrawonga, Cobram, Yarroweyah, Strathmerton, Nathalia, Echuca, Torrumbarry, Gunbower, Leitchville, Cohuna, Koondrook, Murrabit, Lake Boga) and bypass a couple of others and then to Swan Hill. Lots of buildings and homes visible from the road.
The NSW trip travels more through broad acre farming and grazing country and the route, albeit shorter, goes through just six towns (Howlong, Berrigan, Finley, Blighty, Deniliquin, Wakool) most being smaller than their Victorian equivalent and then Swan Hill and for large sections there are few signs of habitation or industry.
Drive up I-89 in Vermont to the Highgate border crossing. As you do so, you have the foothills of the Green Mountains on your right. Cross the border into Canada, and drive five miles north, and the land becomes flat as Kansas.