Okay, me and my friends were having this discussion about
which states in the US are the tallest?  We busted out a map and
started measuring (drawing a horizontal line from the northern most
point and the southern most point and measuring the difference) but
this does not take into account the earth's curvature.  We are making
a large poster with the top ten tallest states.  Can you help us?

PS. I think our next poster will be top ten skinniest states.

Or you could chart the highest point in each state:
http://americasroof.com/usa.shtml

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Here's a suggestion. Good maps will have longitude & latitude marked
off along the edges. Using this information, you can get a close
approximation of the latitudes of the north & south extremes of the
various states' geographies. Then it's just a matter of subtraction to
get any one state's "height", as you put it, in terms of how many
degrees of latitude it occupies. For instance, let's say that a
certain state has a northern most latitude of 45 degrees, and a
southern most of 34 degrees. Then its height in terms of latitude is
10 degrees. You do that for every state, make a bar graph of heights,
and the tallest ones will be plainly evident.

Width	State		        Height	State
1900	Alaska 		        1220	Alaska 
778	Texas 		        722	Texas 
554	California 		651	California 
552	Montana 		483	Idaho 
485	North Carolina 		482	Oregon 
478	Oklahoma 		477	Nevada 
472	Tennessee 		435	Florida 
457	Florida 		404	Minnesota 
433	Virginia 		393	Michigan 
427	Nebraska 		390	New Mexico 
416	Kentucky 		390	Arizona 
408	Kansas 		        381	Illinois 
387	Michigan 		345	Utah 
381	Oregon 		        329	Mississippi 
376	South Dakota 		328	Alabama 
357	North Dakota 		324	Hawaii 
356	Wyoming 		320	Montana 
354	Washington 		314	Wisconsin 
354	Colorado 		305	New York 
350	Minnesota 		300	Georgia 
346	New Mexico 		282	Missouri 
336	Arizona 		277	Colorado 
333	Iowa 		        276	Louisiana 
323	New York 		276	Wyoming 
317	Nevada 		        268	Indiana 
306	Pennsylvania 		241	Maine 
305	Idaho 		        240	South Dakota 
305	Missouri 		239	West Virginia 
290	Wisconsin 		239	Washington 
278	Arkansas 		237	Arkansas 
278	Georgia 		227	Oklahoma 
276	South Carolina 		214	South Carolina 
266	Utah 		        210	North Dakota 
265	Louisiana 		210	Ohio 
264	West Virginia 		207	Kansas 
225	Ohio 		        206	Nebraska 
222	Illinois 		201	Virginia 
209	Alabama 		201	Iowa 
201	Maine 		        186	North Carolina 
198	Mississippi 		181	Kentucky 
195	Maryland 		181	Maryland 
188	Hawaii 		        177	New Hampshire 
147	Massachusetts 		168	New Jersey 
145	Indiana 		157	Vermont 
96	Connecticut 		156	Pennsylvania 
90	New Jersey 		115	Tennessee 
89	Vermont 		95	Delaware 
87	New Hampshire 		92	Massachusetts 
38	Delaware 		72	Connecticut 
34	Rhode Island 		47	Rhode Island 


With some quick work with Google Earth I have these for you - happy charting
BTW - these are most likely accurate to 1 or 2 miles.

These are not all right.  I didn't check very many, but Hawaii
certainly has a width of more than 188 miles, and a height of less
than 324 miles.

The top ten highest average elevation states are:
CO, WY, UT, NM, NV, ID, AZ, MT, OR, HI

source: http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/public/outreach/usa_geography_quiz.pdf