I’ve been working on a mobile app that will support adding vector-based mapping polygons. Using California and Massachusetts to do a test on MULTIPOLYGON states and a map extent spanning the lower 48, I imported the data, ran the code and when I saw the visual, thought something was messed up:
How could the code be putting California at the top of the image? I went back to my source map and sure enough, the northern tip of California really does go as high as central Massachusetts. It occurred to me that it could be because of the Lambert Conformal Conic projection for the contiguous U.S. that I’m using. But it turns out the northern boundary of California is 42° and so is the southern boundary of western Mass (or at least it seems that was the intention at the time, given the quality of surveying and certain conditions facing surveyors – see the Granby Notch story (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/nyregion/driveway-another-state-blunder-1642-creates-headaches-today-for-homeowners-who.html) .
Incidentally, several states share 42° as an official boundary:
Sometimes our notions of things, based on certain conceptions, distort reality. I can see where my perceptions of California as being in the southwestern part of the country and being mostly warmer than the chilly, northeasterly Massachusetts would make it hard to believe they could have boundaries near the same latitude. At least I know my routines work. That’s “code comfort.” Still lots of work to do!