why is the us/canada border straight

Both extended north and south of the 49th parallel, respectively. Michael Bociurkiw writes that as the US has struggled to flatten the curve on the coronavirus pandemic, its neighbor to the north -- Canada -- has successfully managed to … That border, he noted, dates back to the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which established British Canada as separate from the colonies of the future United States. Most of the border west of the Lake of the Woods was first proposed in 1807, and decided in the Anglo-American Convention of 1818 , with the Oregon section finalised in the Oregon Treaty . For instance the weird slanted lines a lot of states have tend to be due to historical incidents of incompetent surveying. How does the recent Chinese quantum supremacy claim compare with Google's? By the time he became President, the states in the east (of the Mississippi River) had already had their shapes pretty much determined. For the US states, generally borders tended to get set up while the areas were still territories (mostly uninhabited by American Citizens), so cultural communication/travel barriers weren't as much of a consideration. The border moved many times, sometimes by force, sometimes for profit. Even straight lines didn't always help. Zero Avenue, a flat, straight road that runs parallel to the border on the Canadian side, is known as a haven for smugglers. rev 2020.12.10.38158, The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, History Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site, Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, Learn more about hiring developers or posting ads with us. It divides the North American continent along one continuous stretch from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans, with another weird section separating Alaska from mainland Canada. Arbitrary lines are at least a permanent solution when having a defensible position isn't an issue. edit: I stripped one of four bolts on the faceplate of my stem. Replace blank line with above line content. Was it worthwhile for Britain to side with the USA in the Canada-Alaska border dispute? 1925 – Canada and America agree to make the International Boundary Commission permanent, in order to maintain the land and monuments along the border. Even the original colonies were mainly arbitrary lines set up while the areas were mostly uninhabited: the colony grants tended to be of the form "from 31 degrees north to 36 degrees north", or "along river X to its northernmost point, and from there west to the Pacific Ocean". It looks straight because most of it were fixed at the 141st meridian west under the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825. Concerning "no-one had any idea where the lakes, mountains or forests were": an example of this is the Treaty of Paris (1783), which originally called for the border between the British Empire and the USA to run due west from Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi River. "No one" (in a policy-making position) had any idea where the lakes, mountains or forests were. There is a TV series "How States got their Shapes" with about 30 episodes that explains very nicely the history behind many of the surprising tidbits. @jamesqf: It sounds to me like those people have everything under control. Yes, you can walk across the Canadian border . Some boundaries in the West still are determined by rivers, for instance the Colorado between Arizona/Nevada and California, or the Columbia between Washington and Oregon. I was bitten by a kitten not even a month old, what should I do? Why was the bald eagle chosen as the national bird of the United States? History Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for historians and history buffs. One-time estimated tax payment for windfall. Less was even known about the geography of those regions, especially pre-Lewis&Clark. Unpacking the Bizarre Weirdness of the Canada/United States Border Image: Wikipedia Commons The truth is, the border is not a straight line along the 49th parallel, because at the time the agreement was made there was no such thing as GPS to help draw things straight. How are states (Texas + many others) allowed to be suing other states? Why was the shape of German states pre-WWII (especially Prussia) so complicated? Why is it easier to handle a cup upside down on the finger tip? As others pointed out, less white population. Unfortunately, the Mississippi does not, in fact, reach the 49th parallel. So people sitting in offices found it easier to negotiate straight lines as boundaries, and let the settlers find out what was on either side of them, instead of deciding where to put the "fences.". The state's northern border was defined as exactly 12 miles from a specific building in a specific settlement near the coast. Such a border may split a house from the fields, run through a community and is often difficult to mark on the ground. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. Slavery also ended up having a hand in a surprising number of state border placements (for example, its almost solely responsible for Oklahoma's weird "pot" shape, made up of mostly straight lines.). A lot of the economy in the western US depended on resources such as gold, silver, later also oil etc. Interestingly, the treaty between the U.S. and Canada explicitly provides that either side may legitimately dissolve it with thirty days' notice; I wonder if the existence of provisions to dissolve a treaty helps prevent either side from giving the other cause to do so. I believe the border of Wyoming had something to do with Yellowstone, although I don't recall the exact connection. Similarly, the border between Alaska and Canada is mostly a straight line as it crosses sparsely populated tundra. Where can I travel to receive a COVID vaccine as a tourist? Those borders were originally intended to extend all the way through the Continent. Thanks for contributing an answer to History Stack Exchange! Does a rotating rod have both translational and rotational kinetic energy? The US/Canada border was formed by a treaty where we placed a bunch of monuments along the border and declared that to be the official boundary. When could 256 bit encryption be brute forced? Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. Share on Facebook Were discrepancies from the 45th parallel in the US-Canadian border ratified? Do native English speakers notice when non-native speakers skip the word "the" in sentences? While it is a huge stretch of land, that’s not really what makes it bizarre. level 2. vahntitrio. We see this in many colonial borders, in America or elsewhere in the various European empires. They only wanted to get it done with easily. I really enjoyed watching "The difference between Holland, the Netherlands & a whole lot more" and the vids about the vatican. At the time Louisiana claims include the entirety of the Mississippi's western watershed, while Britain claimed the all of Hudson's Bay drainage basin. The advantages for doing so are obvious. News; Canada; Hundreds of thousands of U.S. visitors are still crossing border into Canada each week. Again, native nations still controlled most of this area. Weird result of fitting a 2D Gauss to data. E.g. In such instances, "strong fences make good neighbors. Can someone just forcefully take over a public company for its market price? Why was it decided to make it like this? CGP Grey, maker of entertaining and informative YouTube videos, has created a fascinating explanation of why the border between Canada and the U.S. is where it is - and why it's just not straight. First off, most Canadian or American states' borders are not particularly straight. AFP via Getty Images. I believe the other long straight line he had in mind was the East edge of Alaska: some 644 miles. 1 - Yes, there's a tiny straight bit on the northern border of Vermont too. This border in particular seems straight because a huge 3,500 km section of the Canadian – US border was somewhat arbitrarily fixed at the 49th parallel. Note that about half of the US-Mexico border is also made up of several straight lines. The Canada–United States border is the world’s longest international boundary.The boundary stretches for 5,525 miles (8,891 km) from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean to the west. The border was fixed in different stages during the 19th century by teams of American, Canadian and British surveyors. Who drew the US Canada border? Very cool, the other videos in his channel is extremely interesting too ! Your email address will not be published. I understand the colonizers made arbitrary decisions initially, by why didn't they pick more natural borders, for example following rivers and mountains? What Makes It Bizarre? This was revived after Louisiana was purchased as a satisfactory border for both. The borders to the East where both sides had cities remained at more natural boundaries. For instance, the straight-line border between California and Nevada runs just a bit east of the crest of the Sierra Nevada, so people on the east side (especially in the Reno/Tahoe area) tend to identify much more with Nevada than California: they do major shopping in Reno, get news from Reno sources (at least prior to internet & satellite TV), often go to college there, &c. Life would have been much less complicated if the border had been set at the crest. In contrast, there is only one 42nd parallel (incidentally part of the border between New York and Pennsylvania, which is fixed, simple, and objectively determinable. These resources generally don't have perfectly known boundaries. Wyoming in America. Its mandate was to establish the border as agreed to in the Treaty of 1818. However, the reality is that the United States had not fought any war against Canada (or British North America) since the borders were demarcated. For instance, the northern border of Indiana is straight - but it's about 10 miles further north than it would be as an extension of the Ohio border. It was simply easier to draw a straight line on a map than to survey the area. What is the national animal of the USA and Canada? Canada-U.S. closure now extended until September. The western border of Massachusetts is straight except for the southernmost few miles. Similarly, the border between Alaska and Canada is mostly a straight line as it crosses sparsely populated tundra. Canada relies on the "A-B" Line as rendering nearly all of Dixon Entrance as Canadian internal waters. When the US and Canada mutually agreed in March to shut the border to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, no one predicted it would be closed this long. Many states within the USA and Canada have straight lines as a border, completely ignoring natural borders like mountains or rivers. That's just wilderness across the northern border, so they just drew a line. The little-known US-Canada border war For the past 116 years, a disputed passageway off the Alaskan coast has spurred a war between the two neighbouring countries. Why was it deemed necessary that the “average person… knows they are on the border”, which resulted in the creation of the US-Canadian border slash? Who inherited from the pre- World War II German states? One effect of this is that it creates/exacerbates modern regional differences. Multiple wars might eventually readjust the border to more natural terrain features. This border in particular seems straight because a huge 3,500 km section of the Canadian-US border was somewhat arbitrarily fixed at the 49th parallel. 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