I realize that this depends heavily on how you define flat. But let’s say it is anywhere you can drive a regular car in any direction without chance of getting stuck.
Probably the Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat in Bolivia that’s almost 4,000 square miles.
Your question is already answered, but the way you phrased it makes me think of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah (which only measures about 50 square miles). When I lived out there and drove out to Wendover, Nevada (a two hour trek almost due West across the Salt from salt Lake City to the Nevada Border* ) I would often pass the dead carcasses of rusting cars stuck in the salt on the side of the road.
They got there because the drivers saw all those miles of flat, empty salt, and decided to emulate their race-car heroes and TV commercials about cars driving unhindered over the flats. Only after they drove off the road and onto the Salt did they realize that near the road that solid-looking salt is just a thin crust of salt covering very soft sand underneath, so the car tires would simply go right through until the car was resting on its chassis, unable to move. No doubt there are places where you can drive onto packed solid foundations, or they have a bridge across the soft parts, or something.
I try to imagine those poor possibly drunk souls marooned out in the salt desert, trying to flag down passing motorists for a lift to civilization and to call a tow company.
*the only reason Wendover exists is that it’s the closest point in Nevada to Salt Lake City. There isn’t even a nearby source of fresh water. But it’s the closest point for legal gambling and unrestricted drinking. (Not legalized brothels, though)…
No bridges, it is all drivable when dry. But it looks about the same when it is wet, so people try to drive across it when it is wet and get stuck. That’s one of the things that delayed the Donner Party. Followed the report of someone who crossed it dry in two days, it was wet when they got there and the wagons sunk in. Took them six days costing lots of livestock and wagons.
Florida? Sure seems that way.
Wendover Air Field was a pretty important location in 1944/45, but due to high security measures, few knew about what went on there. It was where the B-29 crews trained for the atomic bombing missions.
minor nitpick: Wendover is actually in Utah, and was founded in 1907 as a railroad depot.
West Wendover is across the state line in Nevada, and indeed sprang to life in the thirties solely as a result of legalized gambling in the state.
/endnitpick
One of the IgNobel Prizes was awarded to some Kansas scholars who wanted to find out if Kansas was “flat as a pancake.” They laser-scanned a lot of pancakes, and they compared the results with a topographic map of Kansas. The verdict? Kansas is way flatter than any pancake in their sample.
Wiki says Kansas is 82,278 sq. miles (213,100 sq. kilometers.)
I’ve personally been there, on the way back from visiting my sister in Elko, Nevada to my home in Suffolk, Virginia. You can tell exactly where the state line is because the casinos dry up.
Likely a close second is Lake Eyre in South Australia 9,500 km2 (3,668 sq mi). The site of many world land speed record attempts, in 1964 Donald Campbell drove Bluebird II at a speed of more than 400 miles (644 km) per hour
Wouldn’t there be swaths of tundra in Canada and Russia that would be open, flat, and firm enough to drive on?
Tundra is full of lakes and ponds. If you drive in a straight line in the summer, you’ll end up under water within a few kilometres. You might have better luck in the early winter before there is too much snow on the ground. But even then I’m pretty sure you’ll end up getting stuck.
I would nominate the Llano Estacado of Texas and New Mexico. It is immensely large at 37,000 square miles and was assiduously avoided by early explorers and settlers.
Native Kansan here. I vaguely remember that study, but needless to say, I didn’t agree with it. I suppose it would depend on your definition of ‘flat’. I think of a flat surface being akin to a table-top; in other words, all points are at the same elevation. But my state has a lowest elevation of 679 feet above sea level on its eastern border, and a highest elevation of over 4000 feet near its western border. So the state might be described as a ‘ramp’, but I don’t accept that it’s flatter than a pancake.
Well, depends how you are doing this.
The earth is smoother than a billiard ball if you expanded a billiard ball to the size of the earth (or, conversely, shrunk the earth to the size of a billiard ball). BUT, the earth is not round enough to be a billiard ball if the sizes were made the same.
So, a breakfast pancake expanded to the size of Kansas? I can believe Kansas is flatter.
You’re mixing up “flat” and “level.”
You’re probably right. But I still question the validity of the study.
Did they determine how much syrup would be necessary for a pancake the size of Kansas?
Canada had enough, until it had to tap into its reserves.