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Ocean
Lakes
Rivers
Forest
Desert
Mountains
Hills
Plains
It literally has it all..
"And it's not even close"? Seriously?
I grew up in Texas. Been all over the state. I now live in Washington, and I can assure you that WA has much more geographical diversity, packed into a much smaller area. You can drive 5 hours in this state, and go from low, rolling, pine-forested mountains... to rolling, grassy prairie, to open high desert, to tall, jagged, volcanic mountains with a few glaciers at higher elevations, to lowland swamps, to true temperate rainforests that exist in no other state (so much for Texas "having it all") to rocky coastline. The changes are sudden and striking.
In Texas, it takes over 800 miles of driving to see a very gradual, underwhelming change from pine forest, to rolling prairies, to limestone hills that very slowly and gradually give way to open desert in the extreme Western tip of the state. That drive takes about 14 hours.
As someone else pointed out earlier, Texas' only advantage here is it's massive size. And even then it still doesn't have as much diversity as Washington.
What does the size matter? That wasn't the question. The question was what state is the most geographically diverse.. Texas hits the nail on the head. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
Texas is pretty diverse. Also, Hawaii has pretty much every type of geography in the world, just on the Big Island alone.
Agreed, people always seem to underrate HI on here when it comes to it's geographic diversity. Nowhere else can you go from a desert (leewards side), snow capped mountain, to a tropical rainforest (windward side) in the span of about 45-60 miles as the crow flies.
What does the size matter? That wasn't the question. The question was what state is the most geographically diverse.. Texas hits the nail on the head. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
But the point is, Texas DOESN'T have the most geographical diversity. Where are the temperate rainforests? The glaciers? The volcanoes? The rocky coastline? The Alpine lakes and meadows?
The only thing Texas has that Washington doesn't is palm trees.
Saying things like "whatever floats your boat" does nothing to help make your case solid. Texas has more geographical diversity than many states, yes... but "the most"? Sorry, wrong.
I think for sure California #1, but Oklahoma deserves to be at least part of the conversation. If you think I'm crazy, let me explain....
The eastern portion of Oklahoma is as lush as most of the southeast getting 40-60 in. of precip. depending on elevation. In the far southeast there are cypress swamps complete with alligators. Just north are the Ouachita mountains which are similar to the Appalachians except the ridges run east west which create not only elevation diversity, but differing ecosystems on each slope. The sunny south facing slopes are covered with oak-pine while the shady north facing slopes get more northern trees like maples. Just north of the Ouachitas is a large wide valley region formed by the Arkansas river with bottom-land forest with trees like ash, pecan, water oak, cottonwood, elm, and sycamore. North of that are the Ozark Highlands including the Boston Mountains and Cookson Hills which are covered by dense oak dominated forest.
Western Oklahoma is dry getting less than 20 inches in some places. There are mesa lands including the states highest point (Black Mesa bordering Colorado/New Mexico) and the multicolored Gloss Mountains. Southwest Oklahoma is home to the granite wichita mountains which are rise above prairie dog filled shortgrass prairies below. In northwest Oklahoma there is also a salt lake, salt plain, and desert complete with dunes (i.e. The Little Sahara).
Central Oklahoma is a major transition zone where the forest turns into the prairie. Scrubby oak savannas called the cross timbers cover much of the region, as do some of the largest tracks of tallgrass prairie in existence. North central Oklahoma is covered by the Flint hills which are a protected area just across the border in Kansas. In south central Oklahoma there is yet another mountain range, the Arbuckles.
There are several large rivers which carry Rocky mountain snow melt to the Mississippi (i.e. the Red, the Arkansas, and the Canadian). These rivers create riparian areas with trees in even the drier west.
NY seems reasonable. CA or TX could be good, too. It is kinda unfair considering how HUGE TX and CA are. For their size, NJ and MD definitely win this.
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