The 50 US states have drastically different sizes. Alaska — the largest state by physical size — is about 425 times bigger than the smallest, Rhode Island. The three largest states — Alaska, Texas, and California — make up about 30% of the entire country.

Texas is the second largest state in the U.S.

Due to sea erosion, the states along the coasts are slowly shrinking in size with the exception of Hawaii. Due to volcanic activity, Hawaii is actually increasing in size. Kilauea Volcano has been erupting since 1983, and had added almost one square mile (about 640 acres, 2.6 sq/km, or 260 hectares) of new land to the state by 2002.

Alaska is the largest state in the union at more than 656,000 square miles.

The chart below shows the relative sizes of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. To help put some of the sizes in perspective, the sizes of some countries, such as France, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Greece, are also included. Please note that figures are in square miles and include the area of bodies of water.

The first state, Delaware, is the second-smallest in the country.

Virginia ranks 35th in size among U.S. states.

rank state (country) size in square miles 1 Alaska 656,425 2 Texas 268,601 - (France) 211,207 3 California 163,707 4 Montana 147,046 5 New Mexico 121,593 - (Poland) 120,725 6 Arizona 114,006 7 Nevada 110,567 8 Colorado 104,100 9 Oregon 98,386 10 Wyoming 97,818 11 Michigan 96,810 - (United Kingdom) 93,026 12 Minnesota 86,943 13 Utah 84,904 14 Idaho 83,574 15 Kansas 82,282 16 Nebraska 77,358 17 South Dakota 77,121 18 Washington 71,303 19 North Dakota 70,704 20 Oklahoma 69,903 21 Missouri 69,709 22 Florida 65,758 23 Wisconsin 65,503 24 Georgia 59,441 25 Illinois 57,918 26 Iowa 56,276 27 New York 54,475 28 North Carolina 53,821 29 Arkansas 53,182 30 Alabama 52,423 31 Louisiana 51,843 - (Greece) 50,944 32 Mississippi 48,434 33 Pennsylvania 46,058 34 Ohio 44,828 - (Bulgaria) 42,823 35 Virginia 42,769 36 Tennessee 42,146 37 Kentucky 40,411 - (Iceland) 39,768 38 Indiana 36,420 39 Maine 35,387 - (Austria) 32,374 40 South Carolina 32,007 41 West Virginia 24,231 - (Denmark) 16,629 42 Maryland 12,407 43 Hawaii 10,932 44 Massachusetts 10,555 45 Vermont 9,615 46 New Hampshire 9,351 47 New Jersey 8,722 48 Connecticut 5,544 49 Delaware 2,489 50 Rhode Island 1,545 51 District of Columbia 68 rank state (country) size in square miles

Wisconsin lies roughly in the middle of states, size-wise.

Florida is about one-tenth the size of Alaska.

Utah covers about 85,000 square miles.

Missouri contains nearly 70,000 square miles.

Oregon encompasses more than 98,000 square miles.

Michigan is slightly larger than the United Kingdom.