This Tuesday's Zoom call featured Debe Maxwell, CRS. She told us all about what makes North Carolina special, and at the end, our "homework" for the week was either to share the most interesting thing we learned OR compare some of the North Carolina facts with our own state. So I decided to do the latter!
So the first factoid I wanted to compare: % of the state covered by forestland. In North Carolina, it's 60%. Perhaps surprisingly, only 28% of Montana is covered by forest, BUT Montana's 28% equates to 25M acres, while North Carolina's acreage with forest is less with 18.7M. And since two thirds of Montana is prairie, the 28% really isn't that surprising!
The second comparison is also a geographical item. Debe shared that there are 1,500 lakes in North Carolina that have 10+ acres. In Montana, I couldn't find anything that counted lakes the same way, but I did find something that indicated we have 3,223 named lakes in Montana. Most of the lakes I've been to are definitely more than 10 acres, so I'm going to assume most of the 3,200+ lakes in MT are bigger than that!
And then there are the amount of freshwater streams by miles. North Carolina has 37,000+ miles which is quite impressive!!! Montana has almost five times the amount with 169,829 miles of streams.
So take a look at the following chart, and what do you think?
Who wins the North Carolina versus Montana bout, round 1?
| Item | North Carolina | Montana |
| % of State w/forest | 60% | 28% |
| - Acres of forestland | 18.7M | 25M |
| Lakes w/10+ acres | 1,500 | 3,223 named lakes - don't track by size |
| Miles of freshwater streams | 37,000+ | 169,829 |
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