Some fun Wyoming facts for geography nerds

1. If you stand on the summit of Cloud Peak and could somehow see far to the east, you could look over the entire Appalachian Mountain chain, over every volcano in the Caribbean and across the Atlantic Ocean, and the next mountain higher than Cloud Peak would be Mont Blanc on the border of France and Switzerland, the highest peak in western Europe.

2.  Although Wyoming looks like a perfect rectangle on a map, it really isn’t. The state’s northern border is about 17 miles shorter than its southern border because the east and west boundaries follow lines of longitude, which slowly move closer together as they go north.

3. A raindrop falling in Wyoming has about a 72 percent chance of traveling more than 3,000 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. Another 17 percent flows into the Colorado River system, about 5 percent heads northwest toward the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River, and the remaining 6 percent never reaches an ocean, draining into closed basins such as the Great Salt Lake.

4. The Bear River is one of the strangest rivers in America. It flows north out of Wyoming into Utah, briefly re-enters Wyoming, then swings south and west in a broad arc before emptying into the Great Salt Lake. Despite coming within a few miles of the Snake River, it never reaches the ocean.

5. Wyoming’s largest county, Sweetwater County, covers about 10,491 square miles, making it larger than six U.S. states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.

6. War Memorial Stadium in Laramie is the highest-elevation Division I football stadium in the nation, with the field sitting at an oxygen-thin 7,220 feet above sea level.

7. Fremont Lake, located near Pinedale at the base of the Wind River Range, is the deepest lake in Wyoming and the largest natural lake in the state outside Yellowstone National Park. Covering roughly 5,000 acres, it is also the second-largest natural lake in Wyoming overall.

8. Wyoming’s largest city, Cheyenne, would rank only 137th in California by population, roughly comparable in size to Lodi, California.

9. Of Wyoming cities with more than 10,000 residents, Green River and Rock Springs are the closest together, while Jackson is the farthest from any other city of that size.

10. Residents of Hulett, Wyoming, can get to Canada about three hours faster than they can to  Star Valley.  

11. There are more Wyoming cities and towns beginning with the letter B than any other letter: Baggs, Bairoil, Bar Nunn, Basin, Bear River, Big Piney, Buffalo, Burlington, Burns and Byron.

12. There is a K–8 school in Bill, Wyoming, called Dry Creek Elementary. High school students from Bill attend Douglas High School. Bill also has a 112-room Travelodge motel that is largely used by railroad employees needing rest accommodations.

13. A small number of children who live in Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park attend school in Gardiner, Montana, with Wyoming reimbursing Montana for their education.

14. If you’re driving east out of Shoshoni toward Casper, the geographic center of Wyoming sits about one mile south of the highway, roughly six miles east of Moneta.