Wyoming Geography
Covering nearly 98,000 square miles, Wyoming is the nations ninth-largest state. The states of Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia would all fit within Wyomings boarders-with some room to spare. With the smallest population of any state, Wyoming remains a remarkably undeveloped and unsettled state. Cattle outnumber people by almost three to one.
On the map, the state of Wyoming is simply a gigantic mound of earth. Its straight border-375 miles from the east to west and 276 miles north to south-is an arbitrary human creation encompassing an exciting, diverse and beautiful piece of America. With the Continental Divide wandering diagonally across the states mountains from the northwest corner to south-central Wyoming, this geological phenomenon forms the barrier thats separates waters flowing into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. More than 70 percent of the states lakes, rivers, and streams eventually drain into the Missouri River finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Others flow into tributaries of the Colorado and Columbia Rivers, continuing to the Pacific Ocean. Some of Wyomings water sources drop into the Great Basin or Great Divide Basin, where the water evaporates or percolates into the ground.
With the mountains of the state generally trending northwest and southwest, smaller ranges separate this overall pattern. Northwest Wyoming is dominated by a complex mlange of mountains: the Absaorka, Teton, Gros Ventre, Wyoming, and Wind River Ranges. Divided by the Big Horn Mountains in north-central Wyoming and the Laramie Range and Medicine Bow Mountains in the south-central region, the states western geography is a mountainous playground. The far northeast corner harbors the Black Hills. In among these ranges, the landscape spreads out in broad basins, which include the Bighorn Basin and Powder River Basin in the north, Wind River Basin in the west-central region, and the Green River, Red Desert, and Washakie basins in the southwest. The rather flat and open eastern side of the state drops gently into the Great Plains.
Bordered by Montana to the north, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Colorado and Utah to the south and Idaho to the west, Wyomings physical layout dominates this impressive region.
network of Travel Guides