Map of 52 States in USA

I was a little bit surprised to discover that many people on the internet are searching for the phrase "map of 52 states in USA". That's really interesting, because there are only 50 states in the USA, not 52. I think that maybe some non-Americans mistakenly believe that there are 50 continental states and that Alaska and Hawaii are an additional 2. But that is not correct. Actually there are 48 continental states, and Hawaii and Alaska make 50.

There are however some US territories that are not full US states but are administered by the US. One is Puerto Rico, lying in the Caribbean Sea. It is classified as a commonwealth, but in many ways functions like a state and its residents are US citizens. Others include Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands (of which Saipan is the capital), the United States Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Some people may mistake some of these for states when in fact they are not, though they are administered by the US.

Here you can find a map of 52 states in USA (well 50 plus territories!)

Map of the Week- Pumpkins!

Denis Wood, an artist and cartographer has co-written several books on mapping, most notably "The Power of Maps" and "Making Maps." Since the 1970's he has been working on a "narrative atlas" of Boylan Heights, his neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. While the atlas has not been published, there are excerpts on the "Making Maps" blog. One of the most well known of these is his jack-o-lantern map.

The map shows the locations of jack-o-lanterns using an image of each one. The lack of any other detail challenges the idea of this being a map. The author aims to break down boundaries between mapping and art and to focus on the patterns rather than on the specific locations that would be apparent if the streets were included.