User:Denelson83/Geographical collation of states in the United States

Whenever I work through a list of points in the United States, I sort them by state and territory, and I sort the states and territories in a fixed geographical order. The fundamental rule that dictates this order is you have to be able to travel on the surface of the Earth from one state or territory to the next without passing through any other state or territory. Here's the order:


 * 1) U.S. Virgin Islands
 * 2) Puerto Rico
 * 3) Maine
 * 4) New Hampshire
 * 5) Vermont
 * 6) Massachusetts
 * 7) Rhode Island
 * 8) Connecticut
 * 9) New York
 * 10) New Jersey
 * 11) Delaware
 * 12) Pennsylvania
 * 13) West Virginia
 * 14) Maryland
 * 15) District of Columbia
 * 16) Virginia
 * 17) North Carolina
 * 18) South Carolina
 * 19) Georgia
 * 20) Florida
 * 21) Alabama
 * 22) Mississippi
 * 23) Tennessee
 * 24) Kentucky
 * 25) Ohio
 * 26) Michigan
 * 27) Indiana
 * 28) Illinois
 * 29) Wisconsin
 * 30) Minnesota
 * 31) Iowa
 * 32) Missouri
 * 33) Arkansas
 * 34) Louisiana
 * 35) Texas
 * 36) Oklahoma
 * 37) Kansas
 * 38) Nebraska
 * 39) South Dakota
 * 40) North Dakota
 * 41) Montana
 * 42) Wyoming
 * 43) Colorado
 * 44) New Mexico
 * 45) Arizona
 * 46) Utah
 * 47) Idaho
 * 48) Nevada
 * 49) California
 * 50) Hawaii
 * 51) American Samoa
 * 52) Guam
 * 53) Northern Mariana Islands
 * 54) Oregon
 * 55) Washington
 * 56) Alaska