What’s the easternmost point in the US?
Well it’s actually a more complicated question than you may think.
The simple answer would be Maine.
Sail Rock, Maine to be specific, and if you said this answer you would be right, but only
in one way of looking at the easternmost point.
This is only right if you think of the easternmost point in the United States as relative to
the United States itself and looking at the US as only the 50 states of the US, but you
have to remember the overseas territories of the US.
In this case, if we include the territories of the US, not including embassies, bases,
or war cemeteries which are technically US soil but not US territories, the easternmost
point in the US, relative to the mainland United States would be Point Udall, in the
US Virgin Islands.
Interestingly, the westernmost point of the United States relative to the United States
is also named Point Udall, this time in Guam, but thats a topic for another time.
So these easternmost points are all talking about east relative to the US, but we must
remember that that’s not really what east is.
“East” is a relative term, and in it’s true sense, it’s all about longitude.
“East” essentially means to the right of the prime meridian line, while “west”
is to the left.
So when we look at Alaska, which includes a long line of islands called the Aleutian
Islands, we see that what was west eventually becomes east because this island chain actually
crosses the 180th line of longitude, the exact opposite of the prime meridian.
Therefore the closest island to the west of the prime meridian, Semisopochnoi Island,
holds the title of being the easternmost point in the United States.
Now this creates a very interesting paradox where the easternmost point in the United
States is actually west, in terms of direction of travel, of the westernmost point of the
US, Amatignak Island, by about 30 miles.
This is of course assuming that you are looking at the westernmost and easternmost point in
terms of longitude.
Now to finish off, this creates one more paradox where Alaska holds the title of being the
northernmost, westernmost, and easternmost state all at the same time.