The State is Flat

Which States in the USA are the flattest?

Illinois is flatter than every state but one, according to researchers, and is less hilly even than Kansas, a place once proven to be flatter than an IHOP pancake.

Jerome Dobson, a University of Kansas geographer, set out to compare how flat states actually are with how flat people think they are. In a 2013 survey that asked Americans which state is flattest, a full third of respondents guessed Kansas. But Dobson’s team found that Florida, with its low-lying coastal plains, was the flattest of the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C.

“That makes the interesting question, ‘What’s second?’ “ said Dobson, who is also president of the American Geographical Society. “I know that the flattest place I’ve ever seen is central Illinois.”

Dobson was right, finding half of Illinois to be flat by using a formula that broke states into small sections and then analyzed the elevation data in those plots. Illinois beat out North Dakota, Louisiana and Minnesota for the distinction of being America’s second-flattest state. Kansas, despite its reputation for hill-less plains, was merely the seventh-flattest. West Virginia was the least flat.

The Land of Lincoln’s topography, or lack thereof, is due to a series of glaciers that receded from the state tens of thousands of years ago, scientists said.