What State Am I In?
Your device's location, checked against Census state boundaries in your browser, with a warning when you are close to a border.
How this is calculated
The method is the same as on the county page, with the Census 1:500,000 state boundary file in place of the county file.
- Your browser reports a latitude, a longitude and an accuracy value. MDN defines the accuracy as a radius in metres at 95% confidence.
- The page loads the small boundary file for the one-degree square around you and runs a point-in-polygon test to find the state that contains your position.
- It measures the distance to the nearest edge of every other state in that file, using the haversine formula with a mean Earth radius of 6,371.0088 km.
- If another state's border is closer than your reported accuracy, the page says you are near a border and names that state.
The answer shows the state name and its two-letter postal abbreviation, such as Texas (TX). Nothing about your position is sent to our servers. A point over open water, or outside the 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico and the US island areas, gives an error instead of a guess.
How a state is worked out from a position
A state is a shape on a map, and your position is a point. If the point falls inside the shape, you are in that state. The hard part is not the test but the inputs: the position has an error radius, and the shape in the file is simplified for display. Where a border follows a river or a coastline, a simplified outline can sit a little to one side of the real one.
That is the reason for the near-border note. A reading of 500 m accuracy next to a border that is 200 m away means the circle that probably contains you crosses it. The page does not pick a winner; it names both states.
What accuracy means at a crossing
The accuracy value is the browser's own estimate, and the page can only use what the browser reports. A phone outdoors with a good satellite view often reports a small radius, while a laptop may report a radius of kilometres. When that radius is wider than the strip of map the page can check, you will see a note saying the answer could be wrong. In that case use a phone outdoors. You can also read why your location may be wrong.
If you are driving, let a passenger operate the page. Road signs at the border are the authority on the road; this page is a quick cross-check.
Checking at a border
- Press the button when you are stopped, not while moving. A fresh reading is more useful than one taken seconds earlier.
- Look at the accuracy figure on the home page card. A small figure and no border note means the page has a clear answer.
- If you see the border note, move a short way from the line and try again, or type the coordinates you read from a map.
- For a legal or tax question that depends on which state you were in, rely on the address and on the authorities involved, not on a phone reading.
To see the county, city and ZIP area as well, use the county page, the city page or the home page. For speed, there is a GPS speed readout.
Where the figures come from
- Census Bureau, Cartographic Boundary Files (state and equivalent, 1:500,000). Checked 9 November 2026.
- MDN, GeolocationCoordinates (accuracy is in metres at 95% confidence). Checked 9 November 2026.
- Movable Type Scripts, calculate distance between latitude/longitude points (haversine). Checked 9 November 2026.