Landforms

Antelope Canyon

Navajo slot canyon near Page, Arizona, open only by guided tour

Badwater Basin

The lowest point in North America

Black Rock Desert

Nevada’s vast dry lakebed, home to Burning Man and speed records

Canyon de Chelly

Navajo homeland canyon and national monument in northeastern Arizona

Cape Alava

The westernmost point of the contiguous United States

Cape Canaveral

Launch coast of the Space Age, once called Cape Kennedy

Colorado Desert

The low, hot Sonoran Desert corner of Southern California

Columbia River Gorge

The great river’s cut through the Cascade Range

Denali (Mount McKinley)

The highest mountain in North America

Four Corners

The only place where four U.S. states meet

Geographic Center of North America

The middle of the continent, in North Dakota

Geographic Center of the Contiguous U.S.

The middle of the Lower 48, in northern Kansas

Geographic Center of the United States

The middle of all fifty states, in South Dakota

Glen Canyon

The Colorado River canyon mostly drowned beneath Lake Powell

Hells Canyon

The Snake River gorge on the Oregon-Idaho line, deeper than Grand Canyon

Howe Caverns

Upstate New York show cave with an underground boat ride

Island of Hawaiʻi

The Big Island, youngest and largest in the Hawaiian chain

Jewel Cave

The Black Hills cave with more than 220 miles of mapped passage

Ka Lae (South Point)

The southernmost point of the fifty states

Kartchner Caverns

Arizona’s living cave, kept secret for 14 years

Kodiak Island

Alaska’s Emerald Isle and home of the Kodiak brown bear

Lechuguilla Cave

The sealed, pristine cave beneath Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Long Island

The most populous island in the United States

Luray Caverns

Shenandoah Valley show cave and home of the Great Stalacpipe Organ

Mackinac Island

The car-free island at the meeting of Lakes Huron and Michigan

Martha's Vineyard

Massachusetts island of six towns and the Wampanoag homeland of Aquinnah

Maui

The Valley Isle, rebuilding after the 2023 Lahaina fire

Mauna Kea

The tallest mountain on Earth, measured from its base

Mean Center of Population

The country's population balance point, drifting west and south

Monument Valley

Towering sandstone buttes on the Navajo Nation

Mount Rainier

A glacier-clad volcano looming over Seattle

Mount St. Helens

The volcano that erupted catastrophically in 1980

Mount Waialeale

One of the wettest places on Earth

Mount Washington

Home to "the world's worst weather"

Mount Whitney

The highest peak in the contiguous United States

Nantucket

The former whaling capital 30 miles off Cape Cod

Oʻahu

The Gathering Place, home to Honolulu and two-thirds of Hawaii’s people

Painted Desert

Arizona’s banded badlands between the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest

Palo Duro Canyon

The Texas Panhandle canyon carved into the edge of the Llano Estacado

Pikes Peak

The Colorado fourteener that inspired "America the Beautiful"

Point Barrow

The northernmost point of the United States

Red Desert

Wyoming’s high sagebrush desert, where the Continental Divide splits

Ruby Falls

An underground waterfall deep inside Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga

San Juan Islands

Washington’s rain-shadowed archipelago between Puget Sound and Vancouver Island

Semisopochnoi Island

The longitude extreme where the U.S. crosses the 180th meridian

The Aleutian Islands

A volcanic arc reaching from Alaska toward Asia

The Appalachian Mountains

The ancient, worn mountains of the eastern U.S.

The Cascade Range

A chain of volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest

The Channel Islands

California's "Galapagos" off the Southern coast

The Chihuahuan Desert

The largest desert in North America

The Colorado Plateau

The high red-rock heart of the Southwest

The Florida Keys

A coral archipelago curving off the tip of Florida

The Grand Canyon

A mile-deep gorge carved by the Colorado River

The Great Basin

The vast interior where no rivers reach the sea

The Mojave Desert

The driest desert in North America

The Outer Banks

A chain of barrier islands off the North Carolina coast

The Rocky Mountains

The backbone of western North America

The Sierra Nevada

California's great granite mountain wall

The Sonoran Desert

The lush desert of the saguaro cactus

The Teton Range

A dramatic, young range rising sheer from the valley

Three-State Tripoints

The corners where three states meet

Waimea Canyon

Kauaʻi’s red-walled gorge, the Grand Canyon of the Pacific

West Quoddy Head

The easternmost point of the contiguous United States