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Question on "CONUS"; I've never heard of this acronym in my life. Is it specific to the telecommunications industry? -- Brion 17:39 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)
After doing a little Google research, i find:
It also appears that "non-continental" is much less used than "continental United States". ("Outside continental United States" may be more used instead.) The contexts i found seemed to be mostly or all ones where it was not restricted to states, but included other US territories, notably PR and Guam.
IMO, contiguous is clear (and non-contiguous may be depending on context), but continental and non-continental introduce pointless confusion when used in articles. I would suggest that the few dozen articles linking to Continental United States would profit from being editted to replace them with Contiguous United States, which would link to Continental United States, and that Continental United States link back, but restrict itself almost exclusively to documenting the ambiguity of the term.
While i am calling Continental United States ambiguous, i don't think it should be a disamb page, bcz i think there is little need to link to it once we have a Contiguous United States article, and probably only Contiguous United States needs an outgoing link; the other two IMO need to be discussed only to document the ambiguity, and articles on the other two senses are unlikely to be useful.
-- Jerzy 07:31, 2004 Feb 20 (UTC)
I've moved this text out, as the act in question shows it is surely mistaken:
I'm not satisfied with my substitute, and the hints this deleted text gives may aid further research. -- Jerzy (t) 06:05, 2004 Mar 3 (UTC)
I've restored the cap N in
even tho we lack an article for North Pacific Ocean.
After research, i find that:
IMO,
-- Jerzy (t) 07:29, 2004 Mar 9 (UTC)
If the 48 continguous states are referred to as the continental US ... what are the other two states referred to as other than non-continental. It is a question on my granddaughters homework frankly. "These two states (Alaska and Hawaii) are in what part of the country?" Any suggestions? Smile
The actual term used by the Government applied to anything not CONUS, for purposes of paying things such as per diem to Government and Military personnel, is OCONUS. It means Outside Contiguous United States. -J
I removed this text:
That would make sense if the title of this article were "contiguous US" or "conterminous US", but it's not, it's "continental US". So this text is irrelevant. Alaska is not in the "continental US" because of common usage, not because of logic.
Axlrosen 23:28, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
What's the area? - Jerryseinfeld 21:23, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article said the following:
I changed it to this:
The style manual at Wikipedia:Manual of Style, like many style manuals, says that when writing about a word or phrase rather than using the word to write about what it refers to, one should italicize it. See also use-mention distinction. But also, to say "The continental United States refers to..." with the word "the" OUTSIDE of the highlighted part is to imply that the word "the" is not part of the expression that "refers to" something, and that would mean that it's not the expression that refers to that thing, but rather it's the continental United States itself that refers to that thing. I becomes like all those articles that say "A dog refers to an animal that barks" instead of "A dog is an animal that barks". Michael Hardy 00:16, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I would like to add the following to the " see also" section.
*[[Kingdom of the Netherlands]]
*[[Mainland China]]
*[[Metropolitan France]] —
Insta
ntnood 20:51, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
The original text read:
I think this could say "more logically" instead of "more correctly", but "more correctly" flies in the face of actual documented usage. But even as I've left it, this isn't a very useful comment, lacking any documentation of actual usage, since there is plenty of documentation for its usage as "the continguous states".
Unfortunately, without the aside, the text as I've left it doesn't make much sense. A more accurate resummary would be:
Moreover, the original comment clearly doesn't make any sense in context, because the very next paragraph is a list of other ways of saying "the continental US" without being ambiguous--but the way it is phrased is "the continental US is also sometimes referred to as:"--and if "the continental US more correctly refers to 49 states", then how can that also be referred to as "the lower 48"?!?
I think the only reasonable thing to do here is to move the comment about its more logical meaning to the end of initial section, and to revise it to state that the term is ambiguous or even illogical. But does anyone actually use it to refer to 49 states? Or do they just note that logically that's what it should mean, so it's ambiguous? -- 63.204.132.73 18:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article has been kept following this VfD debate. Sjakkalle 08:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
The articles states that conterminous is better than contiguous because not all 48 states are touching. However, not all 48 states share a common boundary either. That is, Oregon and Maryland are neither contiguous nor conterminous.
However, this objection is specious. Contiguous is very commonly used in the loose sense of "in contact", so that the 48 states are both contiguous and conterminous. In the OED, "contiguously" is used in this broader sense in all of the examples where there are more than two things in contact:
(That is, the colors of the rainbow are contiguous, though they only contact the immediately adjacent colors)
The examples aren't as clear with the adjectival form, since most involve only two entities, but we do get
Thus the word contiguous is clearly correct when applied to the Lower 48.
Its definition is similar to one definition of conterminous:
Contiguous: Touching, in actual contact, next in space; meeting at a common boundary, bordering, adjoining.
Conterminous: (1) Having a common boundary, (2) bordering upon (each other).
However, conterminous is generally used with the first sense. Thus the US nation is conterminous with its states and counties (including AK and HI), because a stretch of the US border is also the border of a state and of a county. California is conterminous with Nevada and Arizona on the east, but California and Nevada are not conterminous states, because they do not have the same border overall. That is, the state of Hawaii is (more or less) conterminous with the islands of Hawaii, and the Pacific ocean is conterminous with Hawaii, but none of the states is completely conterminous with another. In the OED,
However, the word is sometimes used more loosely, in sense (2), as in the Conterminous US:
This was the only such example in the OED, and note that it was necessary to say that their ranges were separate, because if the author had only said their ranges were conterminous, we would understand this to mean that they completely overlapped.
Thus both words fit, but in general usage, contiguous is a better fit than conterminous, which only works in its secondary sense. kwami 18:42, 2005 August 15 (UTC)
Does the US have any islands near the coast? If so, are these considered part of CONUS? gpvos 17:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Its mentioned that this label is not factually correct because Hawaii is actaully the southernmost. Does its use come from a time before Hawaii achieved statehood?
I think the term "forty-eight/48 contiguous states," or just "contiguous states" or "contiguous United States" should also redirect here.
Not realizing there was an entry for "continental United States," I started writing one for 48 contiguous states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/48_contiguous_United_States
I guess it could be merged. -- Kushibo ( talk) 20:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
The article has been re-written and copy-edited to be tighter and better organized. Please stop reverting to older versions and using "blanking" in the edit summary, to give the impression that you're fixing vandalism. If you want to discuss the edits, please do so here, but continued reversion now will run afoul of 3RR and will be reported. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 22:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Since there seems to be some outstanding question about whether there is a difference between what is meant by "contiguous United States" and "continental United States", I've added three references which contain 4 examples (one from NASA, two from the National Parks Service, and one from a commercial website) of maps which have been labeled "Continental United States" which show only the contiguous 48 states and DC, but not Alaska and Hawaii. (I stopped with these, but I could have posted many more.) I offer these not because they prove that they are the same thing, but to show that in ordinary usage, they are equivalent terms.
If someone has found an authoritative text which claims that, officially or academically, "continental United States" should include Alaska (as logic would dictate) while "contiguous United States" should not, I'd be very interested in seeing that, but, in point of fact, the two terms are used interchangeably. Alaska or Alaskans may not like it (I don't think I would were I them), but that's the way usage has evolved. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 08:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The continental United States is a term referring to that part of the United States which is situated on the North American continent, but most commonly refers to the 48 contiguous states plus the District of Columbia in central North America [1] [2] [3] – in other words, the U.S. excluding Alaska and Hawaii. [4]
Regarding this section:
Well, first of all, are these terms "equivalent"? Depends on whether one means the contiguous states or the literally continetal states, does it not?
Secondly, I personally find this list aesthetically displeasing. I don't like the inclusion of "states" within brackets for the lower 48 (one learning the term here could easily be confused as to whether or not the word "states" needed to be said with the "lower 48"; it's just not list-like). And I don't like the clarifying use of "a military abbreviation" here in the list. Yes, this should be explained, but not within the list.
Nonetheless, I must add that I like the inclusion of "CONUS" here in the list, rather than in the opening sentence, as in some previous versions. I know that this is a real term, but, as best as I can determine, it truly is quite exclusive to military personnel and their adherents. Nonetheless, is this a list or not? It just looks awkward to me in its current form. Unschool ( talk) 04:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I didn't find that one, but here's one where "CONUS" is used with great frequency: [1]. In fact, it seems to be in regular use at Penn State, as you can see from this Google search [2]. Moving on, here's a NOAA site that uses it [3], and a GSA site as well [4], so it seems to be in fairly regular bureaucratic use by the Federal government. No, I thin your perception that CONUS is strictly a military term is mistaken. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Regarding this paragraph—
It just seems awkwardly written. And, now that I look at it, it includes unfounded speculation. Let me try a re-write:
I've omitted the total speculation about Hawaii and the Spanish American War; I don't see what they have to do with this. The comment about coming after the purchase is almost too irrelevant to include, and, given that I've logically shown that it could not have been used until 1912, I've left out the 1867 mention. I've also left out the last sentence entirely; it might actually be something interesting and relevant, but, as written, I can't even figure out what it is trying to say. Unschool ( talk) 05:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, this is a lot of energy expended over a quite simple subject. I think the article is pretty much fine as is, and doesn't need more tinkering unless someone's got some citations to contribute. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 06:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
When I open this page, I don't see a "Contents" box at the top, that thing that allows you to navigate to a particular section without scrolling down. I don't mean that it's hidden (you know, with the show/hide toggle), I mean its not even there? Do others see it, or is this just my problem? I see it on other pages. Unschool ( talk) 05:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Here are some usage examples from http://books.google.com sorted by date. -- Jtir ( talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Some of the sources define the acronym "OCONUS". ISTM, that it would be a useful addition to this article. There is currently a redirect from OCONUS to Military slang. -- Jtir ( talk) 10:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Some of the sources use the definite article ("the continental United States") and some do not. ISTM that it would be useful to point this out in the article. -- Jtir ( talk) 11:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Regarding this revert, I still have to see evidence that "lower" means "further south" in this context. Granted, I don't like my own wording either, because it sounds speculative, but at least I think we need to acknowledge that there are dozens of meanings of the word, and we can't say that its usage here is incorrect based on a selective choice unless we have a source saying that specific meaning was intended. See also #"Lower 48" above. -- Jao ( talk) 05:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
When I lived in Alaska in the late 1950s, the term "Outside" was already very widely used. What is the source for saying that it has been used increasingly since the 1980s? That is not supported by the sources given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.86.92.198 ( talk) 17:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Note: Not unreasonably, User:JimWae made some comments above in response to an old thread of discussion. Nothing wrong with that; we've all run across dead threads and left our thoughts in the middle of a talk page, months after everyone else is done talking. But as his comments (and my responses) grew lengthier, it appeared to me to have become difficult to follow the conversation, which was now effectively happening in the middle of prior discussion. I have opted to move the discussion down here, and hope that that is acceptable to all.
Since there seems to be some outstanding question about whether there is a difference between what is meant by "contiguous United States" and "continental United States", I've added three references which contain 4 examples (one from NASA, two from the National Parks Service, and one from a commercial website) of maps which have been labeled "Continental United States" which show only the contiguous 48 states and DC, but not Alaska and Hawaii. (I stopped with these, but I could have posted many more.) I offer these not because they prove that they are the same thing, but to show that in ordinary usage, they are equivalent terms.
If someone has found an authoritative text which claims that, officially or academically, "continental United States" should include Alaska (as logic would dictate) while "contiguous United States" should not, I'd be very interested in seeing that, but, in point of fact, the two terms are used interchangeably. Alaska or Alaskans may not like it (I don't think I would were I them), but that's the way usage has evolved. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 08:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
We appear to have two articles about the same thing with a different first word (Continental/Contiguous). I propose merging them. Lumbergh ( talk) 03:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
This is the
talk page of a
redirect that targets the page: • Contiguous United States Because this page is not frequently watched, present and future discussions, edit requests and requested moves should take place at: • Talk:Contiguous United States |
This redirect does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||
|
Question on "CONUS"; I've never heard of this acronym in my life. Is it specific to the telecommunications industry? -- Brion 17:39 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)
After doing a little Google research, i find:
It also appears that "non-continental" is much less used than "continental United States". ("Outside continental United States" may be more used instead.) The contexts i found seemed to be mostly or all ones where it was not restricted to states, but included other US territories, notably PR and Guam.
IMO, contiguous is clear (and non-contiguous may be depending on context), but continental and non-continental introduce pointless confusion when used in articles. I would suggest that the few dozen articles linking to Continental United States would profit from being editted to replace them with Contiguous United States, which would link to Continental United States, and that Continental United States link back, but restrict itself almost exclusively to documenting the ambiguity of the term.
While i am calling Continental United States ambiguous, i don't think it should be a disamb page, bcz i think there is little need to link to it once we have a Contiguous United States article, and probably only Contiguous United States needs an outgoing link; the other two IMO need to be discussed only to document the ambiguity, and articles on the other two senses are unlikely to be useful.
-- Jerzy 07:31, 2004 Feb 20 (UTC)
I've moved this text out, as the act in question shows it is surely mistaken:
I'm not satisfied with my substitute, and the hints this deleted text gives may aid further research. -- Jerzy (t) 06:05, 2004 Mar 3 (UTC)
I've restored the cap N in
even tho we lack an article for North Pacific Ocean.
After research, i find that:
IMO,
-- Jerzy (t) 07:29, 2004 Mar 9 (UTC)
If the 48 continguous states are referred to as the continental US ... what are the other two states referred to as other than non-continental. It is a question on my granddaughters homework frankly. "These two states (Alaska and Hawaii) are in what part of the country?" Any suggestions? Smile
The actual term used by the Government applied to anything not CONUS, for purposes of paying things such as per diem to Government and Military personnel, is OCONUS. It means Outside Contiguous United States. -J
I removed this text:
That would make sense if the title of this article were "contiguous US" or "conterminous US", but it's not, it's "continental US". So this text is irrelevant. Alaska is not in the "continental US" because of common usage, not because of logic.
Axlrosen 23:28, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
What's the area? - Jerryseinfeld 21:23, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article said the following:
I changed it to this:
The style manual at Wikipedia:Manual of Style, like many style manuals, says that when writing about a word or phrase rather than using the word to write about what it refers to, one should italicize it. See also use-mention distinction. But also, to say "The continental United States refers to..." with the word "the" OUTSIDE of the highlighted part is to imply that the word "the" is not part of the expression that "refers to" something, and that would mean that it's not the expression that refers to that thing, but rather it's the continental United States itself that refers to that thing. I becomes like all those articles that say "A dog refers to an animal that barks" instead of "A dog is an animal that barks". Michael Hardy 00:16, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I would like to add the following to the " see also" section.
*[[Kingdom of the Netherlands]]
*[[Mainland China]]
*[[Metropolitan France]] —
Insta
ntnood 20:51, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
The original text read:
I think this could say "more logically" instead of "more correctly", but "more correctly" flies in the face of actual documented usage. But even as I've left it, this isn't a very useful comment, lacking any documentation of actual usage, since there is plenty of documentation for its usage as "the continguous states".
Unfortunately, without the aside, the text as I've left it doesn't make much sense. A more accurate resummary would be:
Moreover, the original comment clearly doesn't make any sense in context, because the very next paragraph is a list of other ways of saying "the continental US" without being ambiguous--but the way it is phrased is "the continental US is also sometimes referred to as:"--and if "the continental US more correctly refers to 49 states", then how can that also be referred to as "the lower 48"?!?
I think the only reasonable thing to do here is to move the comment about its more logical meaning to the end of initial section, and to revise it to state that the term is ambiguous or even illogical. But does anyone actually use it to refer to 49 states? Or do they just note that logically that's what it should mean, so it's ambiguous? -- 63.204.132.73 18:52, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This article has been kept following this VfD debate. Sjakkalle 08:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
The articles states that conterminous is better than contiguous because not all 48 states are touching. However, not all 48 states share a common boundary either. That is, Oregon and Maryland are neither contiguous nor conterminous.
However, this objection is specious. Contiguous is very commonly used in the loose sense of "in contact", so that the 48 states are both contiguous and conterminous. In the OED, "contiguously" is used in this broader sense in all of the examples where there are more than two things in contact:
(That is, the colors of the rainbow are contiguous, though they only contact the immediately adjacent colors)
The examples aren't as clear with the adjectival form, since most involve only two entities, but we do get
Thus the word contiguous is clearly correct when applied to the Lower 48.
Its definition is similar to one definition of conterminous:
Contiguous: Touching, in actual contact, next in space; meeting at a common boundary, bordering, adjoining.
Conterminous: (1) Having a common boundary, (2) bordering upon (each other).
However, conterminous is generally used with the first sense. Thus the US nation is conterminous with its states and counties (including AK and HI), because a stretch of the US border is also the border of a state and of a county. California is conterminous with Nevada and Arizona on the east, but California and Nevada are not conterminous states, because they do not have the same border overall. That is, the state of Hawaii is (more or less) conterminous with the islands of Hawaii, and the Pacific ocean is conterminous with Hawaii, but none of the states is completely conterminous with another. In the OED,
However, the word is sometimes used more loosely, in sense (2), as in the Conterminous US:
This was the only such example in the OED, and note that it was necessary to say that their ranges were separate, because if the author had only said their ranges were conterminous, we would understand this to mean that they completely overlapped.
Thus both words fit, but in general usage, contiguous is a better fit than conterminous, which only works in its secondary sense. kwami 18:42, 2005 August 15 (UTC)
Does the US have any islands near the coast? If so, are these considered part of CONUS? gpvos 17:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Its mentioned that this label is not factually correct because Hawaii is actaully the southernmost. Does its use come from a time before Hawaii achieved statehood?
I think the term "forty-eight/48 contiguous states," or just "contiguous states" or "contiguous United States" should also redirect here.
Not realizing there was an entry for "continental United States," I started writing one for 48 contiguous states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/48_contiguous_United_States
I guess it could be merged. -- Kushibo ( talk) 20:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
The article has been re-written and copy-edited to be tighter and better organized. Please stop reverting to older versions and using "blanking" in the edit summary, to give the impression that you're fixing vandalism. If you want to discuss the edits, please do so here, but continued reversion now will run afoul of 3RR and will be reported. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 22:34, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Since there seems to be some outstanding question about whether there is a difference between what is meant by "contiguous United States" and "continental United States", I've added three references which contain 4 examples (one from NASA, two from the National Parks Service, and one from a commercial website) of maps which have been labeled "Continental United States" which show only the contiguous 48 states and DC, but not Alaska and Hawaii. (I stopped with these, but I could have posted many more.) I offer these not because they prove that they are the same thing, but to show that in ordinary usage, they are equivalent terms.
If someone has found an authoritative text which claims that, officially or academically, "continental United States" should include Alaska (as logic would dictate) while "contiguous United States" should not, I'd be very interested in seeing that, but, in point of fact, the two terms are used interchangeably. Alaska or Alaskans may not like it (I don't think I would were I them), but that's the way usage has evolved. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 08:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The continental United States is a term referring to that part of the United States which is situated on the North American continent, but most commonly refers to the 48 contiguous states plus the District of Columbia in central North America [1] [2] [3] – in other words, the U.S. excluding Alaska and Hawaii. [4]
Regarding this section:
Well, first of all, are these terms "equivalent"? Depends on whether one means the contiguous states or the literally continetal states, does it not?
Secondly, I personally find this list aesthetically displeasing. I don't like the inclusion of "states" within brackets for the lower 48 (one learning the term here could easily be confused as to whether or not the word "states" needed to be said with the "lower 48"; it's just not list-like). And I don't like the clarifying use of "a military abbreviation" here in the list. Yes, this should be explained, but not within the list.
Nonetheless, I must add that I like the inclusion of "CONUS" here in the list, rather than in the opening sentence, as in some previous versions. I know that this is a real term, but, as best as I can determine, it truly is quite exclusive to military personnel and their adherents. Nonetheless, is this a list or not? It just looks awkward to me in its current form. Unschool ( talk) 04:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I didn't find that one, but here's one where "CONUS" is used with great frequency: [1]. In fact, it seems to be in regular use at Penn State, as you can see from this Google search [2]. Moving on, here's a NOAA site that uses it [3], and a GSA site as well [4], so it seems to be in fairly regular bureaucratic use by the Federal government. No, I thin your perception that CONUS is strictly a military term is mistaken. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Regarding this paragraph—
It just seems awkwardly written. And, now that I look at it, it includes unfounded speculation. Let me try a re-write:
I've omitted the total speculation about Hawaii and the Spanish American War; I don't see what they have to do with this. The comment about coming after the purchase is almost too irrelevant to include, and, given that I've logically shown that it could not have been used until 1912, I've left out the 1867 mention. I've also left out the last sentence entirely; it might actually be something interesting and relevant, but, as written, I can't even figure out what it is trying to say. Unschool ( talk) 05:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, this is a lot of energy expended over a quite simple subject. I think the article is pretty much fine as is, and doesn't need more tinkering unless someone's got some citations to contribute. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 06:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
When I open this page, I don't see a "Contents" box at the top, that thing that allows you to navigate to a particular section without scrolling down. I don't mean that it's hidden (you know, with the show/hide toggle), I mean its not even there? Do others see it, or is this just my problem? I see it on other pages. Unschool ( talk) 05:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Here are some usage examples from http://books.google.com sorted by date. -- Jtir ( talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Some of the sources define the acronym "OCONUS". ISTM, that it would be a useful addition to this article. There is currently a redirect from OCONUS to Military slang. -- Jtir ( talk) 10:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Some of the sources use the definite article ("the continental United States") and some do not. ISTM that it would be useful to point this out in the article. -- Jtir ( talk) 11:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Regarding this revert, I still have to see evidence that "lower" means "further south" in this context. Granted, I don't like my own wording either, because it sounds speculative, but at least I think we need to acknowledge that there are dozens of meanings of the word, and we can't say that its usage here is incorrect based on a selective choice unless we have a source saying that specific meaning was intended. See also #"Lower 48" above. -- Jao ( talk) 05:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
When I lived in Alaska in the late 1950s, the term "Outside" was already very widely used. What is the source for saying that it has been used increasingly since the 1980s? That is not supported by the sources given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.86.92.198 ( talk) 17:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Note: Not unreasonably, User:JimWae made some comments above in response to an old thread of discussion. Nothing wrong with that; we've all run across dead threads and left our thoughts in the middle of a talk page, months after everyone else is done talking. But as his comments (and my responses) grew lengthier, it appeared to me to have become difficult to follow the conversation, which was now effectively happening in the middle of prior discussion. I have opted to move the discussion down here, and hope that that is acceptable to all.
Since there seems to be some outstanding question about whether there is a difference between what is meant by "contiguous United States" and "continental United States", I've added three references which contain 4 examples (one from NASA, two from the National Parks Service, and one from a commercial website) of maps which have been labeled "Continental United States" which show only the contiguous 48 states and DC, but not Alaska and Hawaii. (I stopped with these, but I could have posted many more.) I offer these not because they prove that they are the same thing, but to show that in ordinary usage, they are equivalent terms.
If someone has found an authoritative text which claims that, officially or academically, "continental United States" should include Alaska (as logic would dictate) while "contiguous United States" should not, I'd be very interested in seeing that, but, in point of fact, the two terms are used interchangeably. Alaska or Alaskans may not like it (I don't think I would were I them), but that's the way usage has evolved. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ( talk / cont) 08:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
We appear to have two articles about the same thing with a different first word (Continental/Contiguous). I propose merging them. Lumbergh ( talk) 03:19, 15 February 2009 (UTC)