Panhandle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

This article is about the geographical feature. For the act of panhandling (approaching strangers to ask for money), see beggar.

Locations of panhandles within states

A panhandle is an informal geographic term for an elongated tail-like protrusion of a geo-political entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state. The term derives from the analogous part of a cooking pan and its use is generally confined to the United States. A panhandle is similar to a peninsula in shape, but unlike a peninsula it is not surrounded by water on three sides and connected to a geographical mainland. Instead, a panhandle is delimited by a land border on at least two sides and extends out from the larger geographical body of the administrative unit. The panhandle shape is the result of arbitrarily drawn international or subnational boundaries, although the location of some administrative borders takes into account other considerations such as economic ties or topography. In the United States, a protrusion with a less elongated shape is informally called a bootheel.

Panhandles of the United States of America
State	Largest city	Population	Area (sq. mi)	Population density (per sq. mi)
Alaska	Juneau	72,954	35,138	2
Connecticut	Stamford	220,209	96	2,294
Florida	Tallahassee	1,222,492	11,304	108
Idaho	Coeur d'Alene	295,160	21,013	14
Maryland	Frederick	469,376	2,194	214
Nebraska	Scottsbluff	90,410	14,258	6
Oklahoma	Guymon	29,112	5,687	5
Texas	Amarillo	402,862	25,824	16
Eastern West Virginia	Martinsburg	212,483	3,499	61
Northern West Virginia	Wheeling	141,060	601	235

The northwest part of Cook County, Illinois
The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway was often called the Panhandle, as it crossed the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia.
San Francisco, (California) Panhandle

[edit] Panhandles outside the United States

This section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (September 2007)

Outside of the United States, the term is not in common usage, with the arguable exception of the nearby New Brunswick Panhandle. Nonetheless, some people would describe the following characteristic territorial protrusions elsewhere as a corridor or an arm extending into an administratively different territory. Such shapes of territory can be a result of linguistic (or ethnic) lines, in addition to geographic features and other reasons.