Interesting Facts
Want to try being in four places at once? Then get thee to the aptly named Four Corners Monument, which marks the intersection of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. It’s the only place in America where so many states converge, which is especially impressive given that there are at least 60 spots where three states meet. The exact location of the quadripoint (the technical term for a place where four territories touch) was a matter of more debate than you might expect, with some surveyors arguing that it should have been about 2,000 feet to the west, thanks to changes in the technical reference systems used for various surveys. It wasn’t until a 1925 Supreme Court case that the matter was officially settled.
Ending the dispute was an especially lengthy process when you consider that the borders were first surveyed in the aftermath of the Civil War. What’s more, it isn’t just state boundaries that are marked by the Four Corners Monument: The lands of the Navajo Nation, which maintains the site, meet those of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe there. The monument itself is fairly modest, with each state’s seal embedded in a cement pad around a circular granite disk that reads, “Here meet in freedom under God four states.” Sprawl just so on that disk, and you can have a different limb in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico each.
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The most populous Four Corners state is ______.
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The most populous Four Corners state is Arizona.
There’s only one four-nation quadripoint in the world.
Situated in southern Africa, it marks the intersection of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. As with the Four Corners in the U.S., there have been disagreements over the precise boundaries and whether they constitute a true quadripoint; because the intersection involves sovereign nations rather than neighboring states, the stakes of those debates have occasionally led to diplomatic spats. Unlike its American counterpart, however, there’s no monument to mark this quadripoint — mainly because it’s in the middle of a river — but it’s a gorgeous sight nevertheless.
Michael Nordine is a writer and editor living in Denver. A native Angeleno, he has two cats and wishes he had more.
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