Is Maine farther north than North Dakota? I think the answer is yes. Am I correct?

I'm afraid the answer is no, despite the appearance of the map in the link provided by Writeacher. It is a distorted and tilted conic projection.

The highest latitude of Maine is 47.6 degrees North. The highest latitude on North Dakota as well as Montana, Idaho and Washington, is 49.0 degrees. Minnesota sticks out a little bit farther north at Lake of The Woods.

Washington, Idaho, north Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, are more north then maine

Yes.

http://www.50states.com/us.htm

http://www.google.com/images?q=map+usa&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=7XyLTMydM4aKlwfg_4Vh&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=11&ved=0CFEQsAQwCg&biw=1024&bih=403

Ahhh, thanks DrWLS -- I do depend on visual stuff a great deal!!

Here's a better map to answer your question (a Mercator projection). East-west constant-latitude parallels are horizontal everywhere:

http://www.map-of-usa.co.uk/images/usa-politcal-map.jpg

I was amazed how many maps of the USA that are shown online are distorted in the northeast corner.

Hey, that's a really good map -- helps a great deal. I'll have to save this one.

Yes, you are correct. To determine which state is farther north, you can take a look at their respective latitudes. Latitude is a measure of distance north or south of the equator, and the higher the latitude, the farther a location is from the equator.

The latitude of the northernmost point in Maine is approximately 47.4599 degrees North, while the latitude of the northernmost point in North Dakota is about 49.0000 degrees North. Since 49 degrees is larger than 47.4599 degrees, North Dakota is indeed farther north than Maine.

So, to get the answer, you can compare the latitudes of the northernmost points of the two states, and in this case, North Dakota has a higher latitude and is therefore farther north than Maine.