This is kind of an interesting bit of data. I moved from the state with the second greatest disparity between high and low points (between Mount Whitney and Badwater in Death Valley--only Alaska is higher, because of Denali) to the one with the least.

But I was surprised to see that several states rival it, including Delaware and DC (which isn't really a state--I also have a little trouble believing that the elevation of the Potomac in the district is only one foot above sea level). Louisiana is pretty flat as well. But Florida is striking to me because it's so big, so the fact that it has so little variation in altitude is all the more remarkable. And depressing, to someone for whom (like me) mountains almost define scenery.

[Update a few minutes later]

As someone in comments notes, there are some people (like those wheelchair bound) who prefer it flat for obvious reasons. I had never considered this before, but Patricia mentioned to me that she knew people who had been brought up in New York who were actually afraid to drive on hills (a concept totally bizarre to me, but then, I have my own phobias). So I guess that a place like Florida would actually appeal to them. But I suspect that most people who like Florida don't do so for its flatness, but because there are a lot of other things they like about it (year-round warm weather, golfing, boating) and are simply indifferent to whether or not the terrain has any relief.

FL also stands for flood.

It is an emergent coral reef, what did you expect?

A submergent coral reef!

Yes, but as someone in a wheelchair -- who notices such things -- every time they build a shopping mall or apartment complex they still manage to put in all these little HILLS! (Yes, yes, I know...it's probably for drainage or somesuch -- but it's still DAMNED ANNOYING!)

DC is small and has a 400-ft spread between its highest and lowest parts, so it's actually quite hilly. FL is large and has mildly hilly areas, but South FL is mostly dead flat and feels like it. The agricultural areas SW of Miami resemble rural Delaware with different vegetation and more canals.

I consider Texas to be pretty flat. Considering its size, you really have to go along way to find the hills and mountains.

Leland, I grew up in the mountainous part and I always thought you had to go a long way to get to the flat part.

I thought one had to go a long ways from Dallas to find some actual relief. However, I discovered not to long ago that there are some mountains just west of Fort Worth. Of course these mountains are really just glorified hills if you compare then directly to say, Santa Fe.

A couple of points to ponder:

1) In From the Earth to the Moon Verne had a 600' hill near Tampa.

2) The VAB is taller than any natural feature of the state.

year-round warm weather, golfing, boating

Boating is certainly on the up and up in Florida. The weather will stay as warm as ever, although you can expect Florida to lose some of its edge over higher latitudes. And golfing will remain an attraction --- for those who like water hazards.

So if NZ was a US state (it's the same size as average states such as AZ, CO, OR) it would come 6th on that measure with Mt Cook at 12,316 ft (and a near tie with Arizona).

It might be interesting to see how far it is from the highest point to the lowest point. For example, Mt Cook is 25 km from the ocean, an average slope of 1:6.66. (The 5551 ft Mitre Peak is less then 4000 ft horizontally from the waters of Millford Sound, surely some kind of record).

(mis-spelling deliberately introduced to avoid mothers I'd ...)

Kansas has the reputation for being flat, but it's basically a 400-mile-long ramp leading up to Colorado, with the west end 3000 feet higher than the east end. The western half gives the state its reputation by the appearance of being flat. There are large areas of rolling hills in the eastern half.

When my dad died a few years ago and it was time to dispose of assets of the estate, I didn't decide to keep (as an investment, jointly with my siblings) his waterfront attached house. More than 20' above the water level, but the effect of potential future sea level rise was a consideration, albeit not the most important one.

BTW, the notion that global warming will flood Florida, or any other populous area that is near sea level, is silly. As Jay Manifold pointed out WRT Manhattan, the reasonable projections of maximum sea-level rise are on the order of 1 ft per 100 years. Even if it were several feet per 100 years it would be trivial to protect against, because the rise in sea level happens so slowly.

The real risk in places like Florida, and Manhattan too, is major hurricanes that produce temporary sea-level rises of 10-20 ft.

BTW, the notion that global warming will flood Florida, or any other populous area that is near sea level, is silly. As Jay Manifold pointed out WRT Manhattan, the reasonable projections of maximum sea-level rise are on the order of 1 ft per 100 years.

This statement (r.e. 'silly') displays considerable ignorance. The latest IPCC report has a projection of about this magnitude for the next century, but only because they deliberately and explicitly ignore ice sheet dynamics, because the underlying mechanisms are so poorly understood. In other words, it is a deliberately conservative projection that ignores something that might greatly accelerate ice sheet disintegration. No guarantee that it will, of course, but the possibility that it will cannot honestly be called 'silly'.

Global warming, btw, is projected to warm the globe to temperatures above that at the peak of the last interglacial -- and sea levels were 20' higher then than they are now.

If not assigning the same probability to extreme estimates and mere possibilities as to moderate estimates is ignorance, then I am ignorant.

Even if sea levels rise by more than 20 ft per 100 years, why would this be a problem? We can easily handle a few inches' increase per year, and with time our wealth and knowledge will grow by multiples, making any warming remedies, if they even turn out to be necessary, much easier to accomplish in the future than would be the case now.

But 20 ft per 100 years is not likely. The scare animations showing Florida being submerged are cheap demagoguery whose impact on viewers depends on its not mentioning the low odds of such events or how slowly they would occur in real time.

If not assigning the same probability to extreme estimates and mere possibilities as to moderate estimates is ignorance, then I am ignorant.

By calling the notion 'silly', you are making a positive (and entirely unwarranted) statement about the probability of the outcome. For all we know, the business-as-usual scenario would guarantee a sea level rise of 20'. It's not that the probability is low, it's that the probability is not known.

Why stop at 20 feet? One can imagine anything. The Canary Islands volcano could collapse and inundate us. Yellowstone could explode. We could be hit by a large asteroid. Without a better idea of the odds of a large rise in sea level it is silly to assume anything about the risk. The risk may be slight. The onset may be so gradual that we will adapt without difficulty. Or it might never happen.

If the odds aren't known it makes no sense to devote huge resources to dealing with the possible problem, particularly when the possible problem would have such a gradual onset that we wouldn't have to worry about mass casualties or destruction. It also makes no sense to deal with the problem when it's at best hugely expensive to do so with current technology -- and when the enormous resources that MIGHT alleviate global warming would CERTAINLY save and prolong many millions of lives if instead they were invested in raising living standards in developing countries.

The plutocratic line has long been that the climate is totally unpredictable and who is to say whether the planet will warm up or cool down. If the future really were that murky, then you would have no basis to suppose that Greenland won't melt in this century. You wouldn't be able to say that it's likely or unlikely.

We have been here before. When Rowland and Molina proposed the theory of CFC-catalyzed ozone destruction, the chemical industry and politicians first responded that it's all just a theory, it's all unpredictable, and who is to say whether it will be as bad as Rowland and Molina said. Well, it turned that it wasn't as bad as they said, it was a lot worse.

Melting northern ice has also been unpredictable in the sense of Murphy's Law. The ice pack in the Arctic Ocean has destabilized. It has come decades sooner than any brassy science committee predicted. In addition to the greenhouse effect, summer sunlight is now pouring into the dark ocean in a vast region where it once bounced off the ice and back into space. The right question in the face of that is how soon Greenland will destabilize. Will it really take a millennium, or maybe less than a century?

But hey, America is a rich country that doesn't have to worry much about the sea level. We can always build more levees. Just ask the residents of South Florida.

The fact that the polar ice pack is melting faster should make one more skeptical of the prevailing narrative not less. What it says is that the climatologists really have no way of predicting of what happens next. That's why I am in the camp of "Deal with it when it happens because we just won't know for sure until then."

The odds of harmful climate change are highly uncertain. The magnitude of such change is highly uncertain. The ability of humans to prevent or remedy such change is highly uncertain.

What is certain is that proposed remedies such as dramatic cutbacks in carbon use are extremely expensive. It is also certain that imposing such remedies on only the industrialized countries will not be enough to solve the warming problem (if there is a problem), because most of the carbon pollution is being generated by developing countries. Further, it is certain that forcing developing countries to make dramatic cutbacks in carbon use and emissions will significantly slow their economic growth by diverting precious capital away from productive investment. And it is certain that poverty kills and that economic growth saves lives, because richer people live longer and healthier lives.

How many people are you willing to kill in India and China in order to lower the probability of an extremely gradual sea-level rise in Florida? That's the tradeoff you are telling us we should make.

I consider Texas to be pretty flat. Considering its size, you really have to go along way to find the hills and mountains.

I grew up in the mountainous part and I always thought you had to go a long way to get to the flat part.

That's Texas for you. You pretty much have to go a long way to get ANYTHING different. Except those of us that are with a few hours of the Gulf. I would like to have the mountains from Las Vegas back for scenery, but such is life.