Don't really like this measure of flatness. Measuring how flat a 90-m cell(square meters or 90m on a side not given in the abstract) is from the SRTM data set and then averaging this value over all the state's cells. Nevada, a state full of mountains(see US topo map[1]), is ranked #9 due to (I would guess) the presence of many flat dry lake beds (lakes with water are removed from the study for some reason not well stated). No wonder our intuition is wrong if the measurement used to calculate the value bad.
Yeah, this "taking the average" of relatively small areas seems to me a poor measure of "flatness". I mean, Colorado comes right in the middle at #25. Yes, the eastern portion of CO is very flat, but there are other objective potential measures that could potentially put CO much higher on the "hilly" scale.
Cool paper. Having lived all over the US I’d say the paper matches my mind-map of which states “feel” flattest, and yeah I definitely have noticed how flat Florida is and don’t perceive Kansas to be the flattest place - but I’ve spent a lot of time in the eastern half of the state where it’s moderately hilly.
It’s fascinating that the paper is pointing out the negative stereotypes around flatness and implying these harm states that are perceived to be flat. I’d be interested to see that unpacked a bit more.
I've lived in FL (#1) and IL (#2). When I moved to central IL, I noticed it wasn't flat as S. FL. On a bike ride it was clear there were up and down slopes that I didn't have growing up.
But in Florida, either city or forest or scrub blocks out the view of the horizon, while in IL there were open plains where sometimes I could see the horizon under distant trees. It made IL feel flatter, even though I knew it wasn't.
I lived in Florida, and recall hearing that much of the state is actually below sea level. I saw some forests, but much of the state is swamp, or former swamps that were drained for suburbia.
> Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp.
The view that it is worthless swamp, best turned into real estate, sugar cane, or other agriculture has greatly damaged the Everglades ecosystem. An ecosystem which replenishes the Biscayne Aquifer that the Miami metropolitan area drinks from, and which provides a bubble of fresh water to help prevent saltwater intrusion.
Going back to the main point, none of the natural land surface of Florida is below sea level, other than the trivial case of land exposed during low tide ("sea level" means "mean sea level").
If there were land below sea level, it would be covered by water. Most of the rock in Florida is porous limestone, which isn't an effective barrier to water. Parts of Miami flood during king tides, simply because of water rising up through the ground.
I’ve never verified it, maybe because I’m scared it won’t be true.
But one of the few facts I remember to this day from 8th grade history, ages ago, is that no land is more than 20 feet above sea level in all of Florida.
The second paragraph of the article starts "What is the flattest state?
Florida is the obvious answer, since its highest point is only 105m. above sea level, ..."
I grew up in Miami, at about 22ft elevation. The highest point in Miami-Dade is about twice that height above sea level.
I guess we'll never know how flat Alaska or Hawaii are, though I'd guess not very flat at all. I'm most surprised how many states are considered flatter by this paper than Colorado!
Yeah, the methodology they used generated a few somewhat surprising results. I suspect there are other reasonable ways of defining "flatness" that would yield markedly a markedly different ranking for some states.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Uspainte...