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Hi there! I am Studyfin, your learning buddy. Today we will look at how the 50 states are grouped into regions, and why each state's capital ended up in the city it did.
Geographers group the 50 states into regions such as the Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Southwest, and the West. Grouping them this way lets us compare their landforms, climates, populations, and economies.
Each state capital houses that state's legislature and governor, but a capital is often not the state's largest city. Albany rather than New York City, and Sacramento rather than Los Angeles, were chosen for reasons such as a central location, river access, or compromise between rival cities.
Washington, D.C., is different from the state capitals: it lies in a federal district that belongs to no state. Congress created it in 1790 as a compromise between northern and southern states over where the national government should sit.
Let us practice reasoning about capitals. Why is Sacramento, and not Los Angeles or San Francisco, the capital of California?
- First, note when the choice was made. California became a state in 1850, during the Gold Rush.
- Next, look at where the people and the money were then. The mining country lay inland, along the rivers of the Central Valley.
- Find Sacramento on a map. It sits where the Sacramento and American Rivers meet, so boats from San Francisco Bay could reach it easily.
- Compare the rivals. Several cities held the capital briefly before lawmakers settled on Sacramento in 1854 for its central position and river access.
- Finally, draw the conclusion. Los Angeles was still a small town in the 1850s, so the capital was fixed long before it grew into the state's largest city.
