What state am I in?

What each row means

FIPS is the two-digit state code the Census Bureau uses, such as 06 for California and 48 for Texas. Counties listed counts the county-equivalents in the Census file for that state: Texas has the most with 254, and District of Columbia has 1.

Population is the sum of the state's Vintage 2024 county estimates, so it matches the state pages on this site. The primary IANA zone is the zone of the capital. Across the 50 states and DC the capitals use 10 different zone names.

How to use it

1. Tap Use GPS, search a place, or click anywhere in the 50 states or DC.
2. The state outline file loads the first time you look something up, which takes a moment on a slow connection. Later lookups are instant.
3. The card shows the state name with its postal abbreviation, capital, two-digit FIPS code, number of counties, 2024 population, and the IANA time zone of its capital.
4. The point is kept in the page address. Copy the link to share the same lookup, or press Clear to start again.

How the state is found

The page downloads one file of state outlines, drawn from Census cartographic boundaries through the us-atlas project. When you pick a point, a point-in-polygon test runs against each state in turn until one contains it. Nothing is sent to a server for this step, so it keeps working once the file has loaded.

Search is the one part that goes online. Typing an address sends it to the Photon geocoder to get coordinates. After that, the state test is local.

Points close to a border

The outlines are simplified for fast loading on the web. Along a river border or a jagged coastline, the simplified line can differ from the legal boundary. A point very close to a state line can land on the wrong side. For anything with legal weight, such as tax residence or voter registration, check the official boundary with the state or the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line files.

Points in water just offshore return no state, because the outlines follow the shoreline. Points in the Great Lakes or a bay can do the same even though state jurisdiction extends over the water.

State figures behind the result

By land area Alaska is the largest at 571,242 square miles, and District of Columbia is the smallest unit at 61.1 square miles, from the 2024 Gazetteer. Together the 50 states and DC hold 340,110,988 people in the Vintage 2024 estimates.

For every figure on one page, open the state page from the list of states. Each has a county map, the largest and most populous counties, and national ranks.