36°30' parallel north
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The parallel 36°30' north is a circle of latitude that is 36.5 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane, and is particularly significant in the history of the United States as the Missouri Compromise Line.
In the United States, the parallel forms the boundary between the State of Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Kentucky between the Tennessee River and the Mississippi River, the boundary between the State of Missouri and the State of Arkansas west of the White River, and the northernmost boundary between the State of Texas and the State of Oklahoma. Many other state boundaries lie on or between the parallel 36° north and the parallel 37° north.
The parallel 36°30' north is part of a nearly straight east-west line of state borders (with small variations) starting on the Atlantic Ocean with the Virginia-North Carolina border (although this border lies a few miles north of 36°30' in at least some places) and extending to the Arizona-Utah-Nevada border.
In southeast Missouri, the Bootheel along the Mississippi River drops about 50 miles south to the 36th parallel north for about 30 miles because communities along the river felt they had more in common other Mississippi River towns in Missouri than with the Arkansas Territory to which it would have been assigned. The parallel 36°30' north forms the rest of the border between Missouri and Arkansas.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 established the latitude 36°30' north as the northernmost limit for slavery in the western territories. In 1850, the parallel 36°30' north was established as the northernmost boundary of the slave state of Texas. The creation of the New Mexico Territory and the Utah Territory in 1850, the Kansas Territory in 1854, and the Colorado Territory[1] in 1861 moved the boundaries of the western territories north to the 37th parallel north. The gap between the northern boundary of Texas on the parallel 36°30' north and the southern boundaries of Kansas and Colorado on the parallel 37° north created the No Man's Land of the Oklahoma Panhandle.
During the American Civil War, all of the states south of the parallel 36°30' north, plus Virginia and except California, joined the Confederate States of America while all states north of the parallel stayed in the Union, although Kentucky and Missouri had Confederate governments in exile.
From west to east, the parallel passes through (or forms part of the boundary of) the following states: California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.
