Try to comprehend the bigness.

[katster]

You want to understand just how rural the Western United States is?

Well, here's the comparison of my county (Shasta County, California) to the state of Rhode Island:

	Shasta County	Rhode Island
Area (sq mi)	3785	1045
Population	175,650	1,076,164

All figures courtesy the 2000 United States Census (linked from each name in the table above).

I'll have more to say on this soon on the NFZ. I think I feel a rant brewing.

(This inspired by a discussion a few days back in fairoriana's journal where the East Coast folks were expressing horror at how big the west coast is, and an article on rural counties and the budget in the SF Chronicle.)