Washington

Washington's south border is the Columbia River, which then turns north through the middle of the state, and the Cascade Range runs down the center from the Canadian line, dividing a wet, green west from a dry east that lies in its rain shadow. Puget Sound reaches deep inland in a maze of glacial channels and islands; the Olympic Peninsula holds a temperate rainforest and its own range; and Mount Rainier stands at 14,411 feet over Seattle. East of the mountains the Columbia Basin and the rolling Palouse wheat hills take over. Thirty-nine counties.

Washington entered on November 11, 1889 as the 42nd state. Olympia, at the southern tip of Puget Sound and the head of navigation, had been the territorial capital since 1853 and kept the job. The board reads well because of that contrast: the San Juan Islands and the ferry routes at the top, North Cascades and Mount St. Helens' broken crater in the middle, and I-5 running the populated west while I-90 crosses Snoqualmie Pass to Spokane.