By Mitch Smith
Tribune reporter
7:56 a.m. CDT, June 19, 2014
Illinois is flatter than every state but one, according to researchers, and is less hilly even than Kansas, a place once proven to be flatter than an IHOP pancake.
Jerome Dobson, a University of Kansas geographer, set out to compare how flat states actually are with how flat people think they are. In a 2013 survey that asked Americans which state is flattest, a full third of respondents guessed Kansas. But Dobson’s team found that Florida, with its low-lying coastal plains, was the flattest of the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C.
“That makes the interesting question, ‘What’s second?’ “ said Dobson, who is also president of the American Geographical Society. “I know that the flattest place I’ve ever seen is central Illinois.”