Thomas R. answered • 05/10/19
Over 25 years of experience and a sense of humor about math
False. We had acquired the land after the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Congress needed to settle the problem of sorting this territory into states and tasked Thomas Jefferson with the job. He devised a scheme to give the future states identical border rules: 2 degrees high and four degrees wide. Congress did not do this, in part because of major rivers and other features that they felt forced a wandering border here and there. Otherwise, settlers might officially reside in one state but live across the river next to settlers in another. Still, they did keep his underlying purpose: keep the states roughly the same area.
I recommend the wonderful book "How the States Got Their Shapes" by Mark Stein, which is surprisingly funny and colorful, despite the rather simple name.
