Top 15 Emptiest Parts of the U.S.

howdy it's called within the geography video this time counting down the 15 emptiest parts of the US the places in the country where you have large areas with few if any people and few if any roads so we're talking about true middle of nowhere as you may have guessed all 15 of these are in the western half of the US there really isn't much true middle of nowhere in the eastern US pakis are never that terribly far from the nearest road or house or some sign of civilization but I do want to quickly mention a couple of spots back east an arc middle of nowhere before I guess in this countdown northwestern Maine is the most middle of nowhere you're gonna find back east there are very few people that live there and very few roads Everglades National Park in South Florida another spot where there are no people and no roads just a bunch of swampy land in northeastern Minnesota that's a lot of lakes a lot of open areas and really not many people in many rows but those three spots the closest thing you're gonna get to true middle of nowhere in the eastern US and if you're thinking that Texas or the southeastern US our country or rural let's look at it in this perspective Idaho Montana and Wyoming combines have 3 million people and it's about the same size as Texas and Oklahoma combined Texas and Oklahoma have 32 million people it's also the same size as Arkansas Tennessee Louisiana Mississippi Alabama and Georgia combined which have a population of 30 million so you put that in perspective there are so few people that live in the interior West is so much more remote so much more empty and barren and it's a lot more country and world than anything you're gonna get in the eastern US my personal definition of middle of nowhere is somewhere where you don't have a phone signal somewhere where you won't hear a train in the distance at all somewhere where there's no services whatsoever and also where there are no ranches and farms just true open wilderness there are several reasons why these places are true wilderness they might be very inaccessible with high elevation or perhaps extreme temperatures the soil might be really bad to where you can't grow any crops or graze animals there might be no water at all or for those few spots back east too much water but enough of this intro style this gets of the countdown at number 15 is northeastern California in an area about the size of Rhode Island there are only about 10,000 people most people know California for having the most people of all states with about 40 million but most estates pretty empty actually so if you were to put California along the East Coast the amount of space it takes up on the East Coast there be over 60 million people so if you think California is really crowded that really isn't especially we sort of the fact that 20 million of the people in California live just in the LA area so California is mostly empty and the northeastern corner of the state is one of the empties parts of the state at number 14 is northwestern Colorado this isn't that part of the state the most people think of when they think of Colorado this isn't where you have the super high mountains with all the ski resorts this isn't where you have all the 14,000 foot plus mountains just kind of high desert really there are some beautiful mountains there but this isn't a very well-traveled part of the state and it's also a part of a that many people live at number 13 is north-central Nebraska and when think of Nebraska this probably isn't that part of the state you're thinking of these are the Sandhills there's no cornfields there no ranching and virtually no farms with it being sand you can't really grow any crops or graze animals there's virtually no water there at all so it's just a bunch of empty landscape and the scenery isn't spectacular bias to think is very beautiful in a very subtle way but yeah north-central Nebraska really MD at number 12 is southeastern Utah and for me personally this is the most beautiful scenery in the entire country I love all the national parks and national monuments the canyons the sandstone formations the arches all of it and with all the parks there you do have a lot of visitors during the high season but there are very few people that live there and even in the busy national parks like I do is hiked a few miles near away from all people away from all civilization but southeastern Utah really empty at number 11 is North Central Washington and of all the places on this countdown this are the only one that haven't actually been to so I'm looking at some with a senior it looks really gorgeous I'm just basing this on the size of the area and how few people live there and looking at some of the numbers it's not very well-traveled it's just pretty inaccessible not very many roads very few small towns leave - roads are passive including North Central Washington it's beautiful it's also really empty kicking off the top ten is the Mojave Desert it's primarily in southeastern California but there are portions of it in Nevada and there as well and even though there are two interstates that run right through it is still mostly empty there are very few roads most of which are dirt and really no towns at all there are a few spots there's a cluster of houses you might want to call a community but no real towns you can drive for well over an hour in this area not passed through anything that's been developed by humans it's just really open barren desert so if you want to see some true emptiness out in the big old desert check out the mojave at number nine is the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona and whereas the Mojave Desert is higher elevation you have a lot more Joshua trees and the Sonoran Desert it's much lower elevation you have a lot more cacti so a lot of people think of the desert scenery they're thinking of Sonoran Desert and it's pretty open a lot of it is actually an Air Force bombing range you're certainly not going to be visiting that but there are some desert national monuments you can visit such as Sonoran Desert or organ pipe cactus so these are some great spots to visit if you want to see some true low elevation open barren desert at number eight is West Central New Mexico this is the part of the state that south of i-40 west of i-25 and north of Silver City this isn't a terribly inaccessible part of the country the elevations aren't really high the temperatures aren't really extreme since there are very few people that live there and very few roads that go through the reason and what also makes it so remote is that there aren't many visitors there either there's no national parks or national monuments there are some wilderness areas or national forests but those aren't big draws for tours so west central New Mexico is one of my favorite parts of the entire country partly because it is so empty at number seven is simply Montana it's hard to pick up part of the state that's really empty because the whole state's pretty empty it's a huge state with the only 1 million people the vast majority of which live along one of the interfaces that goes through the state or near Glacier National Park and it isn't all mountains either all the folks think that Montana is gonna be all higher mountains but there's a lot of high plains and rolling hills in the state it's all very beautiful but it is also very empty yeah Montana not much there not many people really beautiful really empty and along those same lines at number 6 is Wyoming it's not quite as large as Montana but for an area the size of New York and Pennsylvania combined there's a total population of 600,000 in the entire state as the least populated state in the entire country and just like Montana the vast majority the people that live there live along within the interstates that goes through the state or in the northwestern corner near the national parks and when you can drive for hours on the back roads to the state and really not go through anything but small little towns there's really hardly a phone signal through most of state it's really remote really barren but Wyoming beautiful state but also really empty all right we're about to get real deep was we at the top five at number five is southeastern Oregon for an area about the size of New Hampshire there's a grand total of about 20,000 people there it's just mostly wide open and very remote and it's not the most spectacular scenery in the world it's mostly high desert which is very pretty but it isn't the high elevations that keep this area boom from being so you know empty it's the fact you only go through it to even point A to point B and without there being spectacular scenery does not really a lot of people visiting there so you don't have a lot of people going through it you really have any small towns it's just truly remote really wide open southeastern Oregon v empties part of the country at number 4 is North Western and west central Utah this is just some almost like barren wasteland it's just west and southwest of the Great Salt Lake we're talking the Great Salt Lake Desert here just flat open barren nothingness and for an area about the size of New Hampshire you have about 10,000 people to live there so extremely remote very few people this is an area of not even indigenous groups populate because the land is so bad there's no water there at all the ground is just so salty so you can't grow anything or graze anything there so it's just empty wasteland basically I think it's pretty beautiful myself but you know again northwestern west central Utah extremely barren and really empty at number 3 is central Nevada and this is a huge area with very few people at all to put it in perspective the entire state has 2.8 million people there are 2 million in the Las Vegas area 600,000 in the Reno Lake Tahoe area and a hundred thousand living along i-80 so you add all that up that means there's only 100,000 people in the entire rest the state an area about the size of either Maine or South Carolina think about that if you live in South Carolina a tire state only a hundred thousand people that's how few people live in central Nevada it's just super empty and the fact that it is so empty is why you have some pretty sketchy things going on out there this is where area 51 is and I'm on a big conspiracy theorist but there is obviously some pretty sketchy stuff going on in area 51 and it's in central Nevada for a reason you also have some nuclear waste dump sites out there so essentially I'm at a truly empty really Barrens but it's also really beautiful at number two is central Idaho and this area isn't as large as the empty part of central Nevada but there are a few people to central Nevada there are nobody in central Idaho so if coming from the Bitterroot wilderness down to the River of No Return wilderness into the Salmon River area there are no people no small towns no roads it's completely inaccessible and with the exception of some you know deep parts of some unexplored caves there's really nowhere else in the u.s. where you can find parts for no human being has stepped on except for central Idaho if Bigfoot exists he's gonna be in central Idaho there could be all kind of stuff going on there that we all know about it's just so empty so incredibly remote also extremely beautiful but with no people there it's also extremely empty and I'm sure it'll be a huge shock to you to learn what the number one spot is but of course it's Alaska it's more than twice the size of Texas with a population of about 700,000 half of which live in just the Anchorage area the vast majority the state is really empty and barren even native groups didn't really inhabit most the state there are very few roads in the entire state almost all of which are in the southeastern quadrant you have to take you know little Bush planes and float planes throughout the state to get from one place to the other it's just over a moat but yeah Alaska obviously the emptiest part of the entire country and there you have it the 15 emptiest parts of the US and again they're all out west but if you're from back east and you haven't been out to the west I strongly encourage checking it out there's nothing like being out in the middle of absolute nowhere camping out and open looking up at the sky and there seeing how dark the night sky can be just seeing how many stars you can see seeing what the Milky Way actually looks like no trains going off in a distance no cell phone reception it's wonderful and if you've seen some my other videos I do love big cities I love visiting the cities I love doing all the city stuff but I wouldn't really want to live in a big city I really love the openness of the Interior West it's wonderful remote USA is wonderful USA I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give me a thumbs up to let me know you approve and if your interesting stuff about road tripping across the u.s. I'm u.s. geography so there's some nerdy travel information and check out my channel and subscribe that's the kind of stuff that I'm posting but yeah thanks for watching geography Kings hunting out and about to go begin my search for Bigfoot you

Channel: Geography King

Views: 1,476,720

Keywords: wilderness, middle of nowhere, empty, rural, country, geography, geography king, mr. beat, nick johnson, world according to briggs, wolters world

Id: w3sRHar1Buk

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 10 2018