I’m not sure how I once had the impression that Hawaii is the smallest state, but I’ve recently learned that Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island are smaller. With all the eight major islands of Hawaii combined, the Aloha state has 6,422 square miles of land area. To put that figure into perspective, let’s look at how many “Hawaiis” it would take to equate to the same land mass of these states:
- 89 Hawaiis are approximately equal to the size of Alaska
- 40 Hawaiis are approximately equal to the size of Texas
- 24 Hawaiis are approximately equal to the size of California
- 8 Hawaiis are approximately equal to the size of the states of New York or Illinois
The states of New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland and Vermont are all larger than Hawaii, but closer in size compared to the other states.
Now let’s look at the three states that are smaller than Hawaii and see how many of them equate to the size of Hawaii.
- 6 Rhode Islands are approximately equal to one Hawaii
- 3 Delawares are approximately equal to one Hawaii
- 1.3 Connecticuts are approximately equal to one Hawaii
Did any of this data surprise you? Did you also have the impression that Hawaii was the smallest state?
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Source: Infoplease.com – note that for the purposes of this fact discovery, I am focusing on land mass only not land and water area combined.
This post is part of the series of 50 facts about the 50th state to celebrate Hawaii’s 50th anniversary of statehood.
Sheila Beal
6 comments
Very interesting, indeed. I remember hearing at one point that counting the entire Hawaiian island chain (including the NW islands passed Kauai), that Hawaii is the “widest” state East to West.
I’d have to find where I read that, though.
Yeah! – Its not as small as I thought it was. I was sure that you could fit several hundred Hawaii’s inside of Texas.
Hmmm… Now I’m wondering about combined miles of coastline. ;^)
@ Kris – hmmm….that could possible be the subject of another post. 🙂
@ Dave – oh boy….ditto from above.:-) Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to run out of interest facts, and then one question leads to another. I’ll have to search to see if I can find data on coastline length.
I have to disagree with your three statements that say “…is approximately equal to one Hawaii”
Ain’t nothing on the mainland that’s remotely “equal” to Hawaii! 🙂
Good point Andy! Wouldn’t it be cool if Hawaii had 320 major islands instead of just 8 and the combined land mass was equal to the size of Texas?
I live in Rhode Island……………..can cross entire state in 1 hour.