Continental VS Contiguous
Do those of us in geographic related industries need a geography lesson? About a month ago I received an email from someone letting me know of a mistake I’d made in an article. I’d used the word “continental” to refer to a set of maps which contained data for the USA without Alaska and Hawaii. I scratched my head for a moment thinking about the issue, and realized that it indeed was incorrect. Then I got looking around at how many other websites use the term and began wondering what was truly correct.
The question comes down to what exactly what is meant by “continental” and if that includes Alaska. It seems nobody can really agree and the answer depends in part on where you are. The distinction is important in GPS as I’ve had a couple of people tell me recently they had purchased maps or devices that contained “continental USA” mapping assuming it included Alaska.
I’ve since gone through this site and I think I’ve cleaned up any ambiguity I could find. However I’ve since come across numerous examples of confusion on other GPS manufacturer’s websites regarding the terms “continental” and “contiguous”.
Continental
There are many products out on the market today which advertise having maps of the “Continental USA”, but those products do not include Alaska. Sure, Alaska is way up there, but last I checked it was still on the North American continent. In the strict definition continental means “belonging to a continent” and Alaska certainly belongs to the North America continent.
I’ve polled a few people around me and (without trying to lead the question) there were mixed results if Alaska is part of the continental USA. When I asked a few people from Alaska however, the results were different with all of them saying that Alaska most certainly is part of the continental USA. This was just a couple of people and certainly wasn’t a scientific survey.
However that definition is far from unanimous. I asked a mapping technician at the USGS if Alaska was part of the Continental USA and was told “yes”. However even parts of the USGS website don’t always agree.
Contiguous
Where we see people (including us!) use the term continental ambiguously is most often places where the maps should have been labeled “contiguous”. So if a map contains maps of the USA except for Hawaii and Alaska the term “contiguous” is the least ambiguous choice. Contiguous therefore would reference the same geographic location as what people commonly think of as the “USA 48″.
Lower 48
This is yet another term that doesn’t seem to be technically correct. When most people think of “lower 48″ they commonly think of the 48 contiguous states. Yet I’m not sure what those states are supposed to be “lower” than. Last I checked most of Hawaii was below the Tropic of Cancer, further South than Key West which is just above the Tropic of Cancer. Maybe we should call it the “Middle 48″ or the “East 48″
Confusion
Here are a few places where we can see the ambiguity in action. Take the current Nuvi overview page at garmin. They describe the Nuvi 200 has having coverage for “continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico”. Okay, so if it includes the Continental USA plus Hawaii, why not just say the entire USA? Well, because it doesn’t include the entire USA as Alaska is not included on the Nuvi 200 despite their use of the term “continental”. They do a better job of explaining it on the Nuvi 200 detail page where they say this:
map data for the continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico (no Alaska or Canada detail)
Magellan also has a few places where the mapping detail is confusing. On this press release they say “the RoadMate 1400, comes preloaded with Navteq road maps of the Continental United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico”, but they note that the 1412 adds maps of Alaska that the 1400 does not have. But it is less ambiguous here on the 1200 page where they cite “Pre-loaded maps of contiguous U.S., Hawaii & Puerto Rico”.
Again, I’m not saying Garmin and Magellan are wrong, rather we need to be aware that the term “continental” seems to be ambiguous and the meaning can differ depending on where you are from.
