# Why is Oklahoma shaped the way it is? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 23, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869 "2012-05-23T20:08:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/1 "2012-05-23T20:08:37Z")
Oklahoma’s a funny-shaped state for America. Going from East to West on the southern border with Texas it follows a river - a natural boundary. But then the border suddenly shoots due North and then later due East. Why? There’s got to be a tale there. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/2 "2012-05-23T20:13:04Z")
From wikipedia, this is how Texas lost it: > [@](#): > > When Texas sought to enter the Union in 1845 as a slave state, federal law in the United States based on the Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery North of 36°30’ parallel north. Under the Compromise of 1850, Texas surrendered its lands north of 36°30’ latitude. The 170-mile strip of land was thus left with no formal territorial ownership. It was officially called the “Public Land Strip” and was more commonly referred to as “No Man’s Land.” You can read further to see how it went from No Man’s Land to OK. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/3 "2012-05-23T20:16:22Z")
Slavery. See [Oklahoma Panhandle - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Panhandle) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/4 "2012-05-24T01:15:47Z")
If the shape of Oklahoma bothers you, I strongly advise you never to look at a map of Maryland. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/5 "2012-05-24T01:24:29Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > If the shape of Oklahoma bothers you, I strongly advise you never to look at a map of Maryland. Maryland? Hell all the states are goofy. There is a book out there called “How The States Got Their Shapes” by Mark Stein that will answer all of these types of questions, for all 50 states. As to oklahoma’s panhandle, the slavery issue and 36’ 30" drove that panhandle to be created. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/6 "2012-05-24T01:36:15Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > If the shape of Oklahoma bothers you, I strongly advise you never to look at a map of Maryland. Or several other states. We’ve had several threads on odd state borders, which I’m sure we can reprise. The Kentucky bend, the Missouri bootheel, the 12 mile circle, the Northwest angle, the Erie triangle, Point Roberts, the Idaho / Montana border, … BTW, West Virginia likes to claim that it is the most irregularly shaped state. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/7 "2012-05-24T01:39:33Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > BTW, West Virginia likes to claim that it is the most irregularly shaped state. And people in other states like to think that’s not the only thing it’s the most irregular of. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/8 "2012-05-24T01:42:55Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > Maryland? Hell all the states are goofy. Wyoming and Colorado are well-mannered and Utah tries very hard to keep a straight face. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/9 "2012-05-24T02:31:01Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > Wyoming and Colorado are well-mannered and Utah tries very hard to keep a straight face. Well, Wyoming has some funkiness on it’s border with Montana, even outside of Yellowstone National Park. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/10 "2012-05-24T03:00:25Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > Wyoming and Colorado are well-mannered and Utah tries very hard to keep a straight face. Which makes them pretty goofy. There are some significant geological features that really should have been considered when the western borders were drawn. As it is all the western states have weird little isolated communities where they are in close contact with communities in neighboring states and have absolutely no direct contact with the rest of their own state. NW Arizona is the worst offender. The Grand Canyon very effectively isolates it from the rest of Arizona. All the towns (all four or so) are far more integrated into Utah and Nevada than the rest of Arizona. But even if it is the single worst offender, all the states in the Pacific and Mountain timezones would benefit from a re-drawing of the borders. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/11 "2012-05-24T04:04:05Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Oklahoma’s a funny-shaped state for America. Going from East to West on the southern border with Texas it follows a river - a natural boundary. But then the border suddenly shoots due North and then later due East. Why? I fail to see why this is odd. The boundary has to have four sides, unless the state were to run to infinity, or in a circle. And it’s totally normal for states to have river or mountain boundaries on some sides, and straight lines on others. Some areas have natural boundaries, and some don’t. The only odd thing about Oklahoma is the panhandle, but that doesn’t seem to be what you asked about. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/12 "2012-05-24T04:04:35Z")
Stein’s book is certainly entertaining, but it seems completely oblivious that several state boundaries were set relative to the Washington Meridian rather than Greenwich. That’s a pretty major hole in his knowledge. So the serious state boundary scholar will also have at hand “Boundaries of the United States and the Several States” by Franklin K. Van Zandt, United States Geological Bulletin 1212, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966. Though straight boundaries are virtually unknown in Europe, every US state but one has a straight boundary. The exception, of course, is Hawai’i, which has nothing to touch. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/13 "2012-05-24T04:07:44Z")
> [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](#): > > Wyoming and Colorado are well-mannered and Utah tries very hard to keep a straight face. Googlemap Four Corners and look about 200 yards north. Similarly north of Paradox, Colo ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/14 "2012-05-24T04:26:14Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > We’ve had several threads on odd state borders, which I’m sure we can reprise. The Kentucky bend, the Missouri bootheel, the 12 mile circle, the Northwest angle, … To tie this back to Oklahoma, there’s the odd fact that the western edge of the panhandle doesn’t line up with the western edge of northern Texas, as it looks like it should. > [@Bartman](#): > > There are some significant geological features that really should have been considered when the western borders were drawn. As it is all the western states have weird little isolated communities where they are in close contact with communities in neighboring states and have absolutely no direct contact with the rest of their own state. Occasionally there was better acknowledgement of the local geography. Utah was originally planned to be a simple rectangular shape, without that “missing corner” it now has in the northeast. They learned later though that this area is much easier to access from the rest of Wyoming than from the rest of Utah (because of local mountains), so the border was adjusted and the corner went to Wyoming instead. There have been some strange proposals for the eastern states’ borders as well, sometimes even after the basic geography was known. There’s an old map I’ve seen showing one proposed way for dividing the Northwest Territory into states. It has a west-east line going through the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan, and a north-south line leading south from there. Had that been implemented as shown, the states of “Illinois” and “Indiana” would have had a _single point_ of shoreline on Lake Michigan — which is kind of a bummer if you were hoping to have a port city there. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/15 "2012-05-24T06:31:20Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > Occasionally there was better acknowledgement of the local geography. That’s also the “real story” of the funky Montana-Idaho border and the Idaho Panhandle. There’s all sorts of legends, the most popular of which being that the drunken survey team followed the wrong mountain range, but in reality they just acknowledged that had the parts of Montana west of the continental divide been in Idaho as originally intended, it would have been virtually impossible for people living there to get to their state capital. Even today, it takes a ridiculous amount of time to get from Boise to western Montana even though they’re not that far away. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-oklahoma-shaped-the-way-it-is/622869/16 "2012-05-24T06:55:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > From wikipedia, this is how Texas lost it: Heh. I missed that. Thank you. Probably because I didn’t realise that it was the panhandle.