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Otter Tail larger than Rhode Island
Published Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Brian Armstrong
If you think that Otter Tail County represents a large area, Rhode Island residents would agree. Surprisingly, to many people, their state has fewer square miles than does Otter Tail County.
Otter Tail County has approximately 2,232 square miles. Rhode Island, on the other hand, is smaller with about 1,545 square miles. Rhode Island borders Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the north.
Otter Tail County, with over 1,000 lakes, is the eighth largest county among Minnesota’s 87 counties. The exact number of lakes — 1,048 — equates to 173,851 acres of water. There are 62 townships in the county.
“We have 2,934 miles of lakeshore that includes ponds and other bodies of water,” said Brian Armstrong, Otter Tail County’s GIS spatial and address coordinator. “If you were to break them all up, and make them straight, you would have a very long shoreline to follow.”
The big difference between Rhode Island and Otter Tail County is in population. Just under 60,000 people reside in Otter Tail County, while over one million people live in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island was the first of the 13 original American colonies to declare independence from British rule. Eastern Rhode Island contains the lowlands of the Narragansett Bay, while western Rhode Island forms part of the New England Upland.
Health services are Rhode Island's largest industry.
Second is tourism, with tourism-related sales at $3.26 billion. The third-largest industry is manufacturing.
While Rhode Island is positioned near the Atlantic Ocean, Otter Tail County of western Minnesota — including its landscape — is derived from three glacial events.
“Those events took place 40,000 to 50,000 years ago,” Armstrong said. “Our soil dates back, at least, from 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. We have more different types of soil in Otter Tail county than anywhere else in the state of Minnesota. This yields a large complexity of different land uses.”
Comments
The Daily Journal is happy to host community conversations about news and life in Fergus Falls and the surrounding area. As hosts, we expect guests will show respect for each other. That means we don't threaten or defame each other, and we keep conversations free of personal attacks. Witty is great. Abusive is not. If you think a post violates these standards, don't escalate the situation. Instead, flag the comment to alert us. We'll take action if necessary. It's not hard. This should be a place where people want to read and contribute -- a place for spirited exchanges of opinion. So those who persist with racist, defamatory or abusive postings risk losing the privilege to post at all.Posted by cmrx44 (anonymous) on October 22, 2008 at 3:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
rhode island is beautiful. i used to live there, how and WHY am i here!? :)
Posted by buzzman55 (anonymous) on October 23, 2008 at 1:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yea but it doesn't have fresh lobster or seafood. And you can't go deep sea fishing here.
Posted by 1125thmp (anonymous) on October 27, 2008 at 2:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You had precognition seeing the rising see over Rhode Island and finding us high and dry at 1300 feet tempting. Lutafisk can bring you over as well...mmmmmmm...goooood.
Posted by oldotter (anonymous) on October 27, 2008 at 9:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Getting a little lazy Tom? This looks like something you recycled from a 7th grade social studies class.
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