Bordering states, state by state
Tennessee and Missouri share a land border with more states than any others, eight each. At the other end, Maine borders only New Hampshire, and Alaska and Hawaii border no other state at all. The typical state has four neighbors, and across the country 105 pairs of states share a land border.
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Number of neighboring states
Most and fewest neighbors
Two states in the middle of the country tie for the most neighbors. Tennessee, long and narrow, touches eight states from Virginia and North Carolina in the east to Arkansas and Missouri across the Mississippi River. Missouri also borders eight, reaching from Iowa to Arkansas and from Illinois to Kansas and Oklahoma. Kentucky follows with seven.
At the other extreme, Maine is the only state in the lower 48 with a single neighbor, New Hampshire; the rest of its land border is with Canada. Alaska and Hawaii have no neighboring states at all. Most states fall in between: four neighbors is the most common count, shared by 13 states.
The Four Corners
Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet at a single point, the only place in the United States where four state lines come together. The spot is marked by the Four Corners Monument, on Navajo Nation land, which charges an entrance fee. According to New Mexico’s tourism department, early surveyors missed the intended site by roughly 1,800 feet, but the marker stands at the legal boundary of all four states.
Because Arizona and Colorado, and Utah and New Mexico, touch only at that point, they are not counted as neighbors here.
How borders are counted
This page counts land borders, including those that follow rivers, computed from the Census Bureau’s state boundary files. States that meet only in open water are not counted, and neither is the District of Columbia, which borders Maryland and Virginia but is not a state. Each state’s page shows a map of its neighbors.
Every state's neighbors
Questions people ask
- Which state borders the most states?
- Tennessee and Missouri, with eight each. Tennessee borders Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia; Missouri borders Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Kentucky is next with seven.
- Which state borders only one other state?
- Maine, whose only neighbor is New Hampshire.
- Which states do not border any other state?
- Alaska and Hawaii.
- Where do four states meet?
- At the Four Corners, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet at a single point. It is the only place in the country where four state lines converge.
- Does Arizona border Colorado?
- Only at a single point, the Four Corners. Because the two states touch at a point rather than along a line, they are not usually counted as neighbors, and the same goes for Utah and New Mexico.
Sources
- Four Corners Monument, Know Before You Go New Mexico Tourism Department