Yes, a ‘beauty score’ exists. No, North Carolina didn’t win. Here’s where we rank.
Travelers recognize the United States of America as a highly, geographically diverse nation.
Charming coasts, pristine tropical beaches, mountains, cities, forests, deserts — we truly do have it all. But where does North Carolina fit in among these 50 states?
According to APR Travel, North Carolina ranks as the 9th most naturally beautiful state in the United States. But, that isn’t based solely on opinion.
APR used a technical methodology to assign each state a “beauty score.” Beauty scores are calculated by considering which states feature mountains with highest elevations and the number of named mountains, national parks, waterfalls, large natural lakes and beaches each state boasts.
For each state, every category was scored out of 10 and then averaged to assign the official beauty score of that state. North Carolina’s beauty score landed at 6.26.
States that beat North Carolina were Colorado (6.36), Wyoming (6.60), Montana (6.87), Hawaii (6.97), Oregon (7.79), Alaska (7.89), California (8.64) and Washington (9.29).
The winning state of Washington is home to 8,000 lakes, 3,167 named mountains, 3,132 waterfalls, and 1,368 beaches.
There are over 800 waterfalls in North Carolina, according to the World Waterfall Database. Peak Visor, a mountain-tracking database, says there are more than 2,700 named mountains in North Carolina, 40 of them reaching over 6,000 feet in elevation.
The state also features 322 miles of shoreline consisting of 25 distinct beaches, Raleigh Magazine reported.
Natural lakes and national parks is where North Carolina falls short, though. The state hosts only five large freshwater lakes — Lake Mattamuskeet (30,000 acres), Scuppernong Lake (16,600 acres), Lake Waccamaw (8,938 acres), Alligator Lake (6,000 acres) and Pungo Lake (2,700 acres).
Because APR’s score doesn’t take into account man-made lakes, the largest lake in North Carolina, Lake Norman, was excluded from consideration along with Lake Wylie, a man-made lake shared with South Carolina and Fontana Lake, a reservoir in Swain and Graham counties.
The only official national park in North Carolina is the The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a World Heritage Site that is shared with Tennessee.
Alaska takes the cake for state with the most mountains over 1,500m at 64, while California takes first place for state with most named mountains at 8,008 and most national parks at 9.
Florida takes first place in lakes at over 30,000 large, natural water formations.
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