Home / Trivia / Geography & Countries
At the Four Corners, which four US states meet at one point?
It is the only place in the US where four states meet.
The Four Corners marks the junction of the boundaries of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, and it is the only point in the United States where four states meet. The lines are straight survey boundaries, not rivers or ridges. In 1863 Congress separated Arizona from New Mexico along a meridian, a 1868 survey ran the New Mexico-Colorado line on the 37th parallel, and in 1875 Chandler Robbins marked the junction with a sandstone shaft.
Rumors say the monument is miles from where it should be. The National Geodetic Survey says a figure of 2.5 miles was never claimed by it and that the real offset from the intended point is around 1,800 feet or less, with some uncertainty because the geodetic reference systems of the 1870s differ from today's. Modern GPS can place the monument's coordinates to about an inch.
Legally, the physical monument controls the boundary, even if the original intention was a slightly different spot. The site today is a monument complex built in 1992 on land of the Navajo Nation, and visitors can place hands and feet in four states at once. Other places, such as Kenya, have multi-border points, but in the United States this is the sole four-state junction.