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What Are These Perfect Circles Across The American Landscape, And How Are They Created?

Hint: It has to do with water

By Rain Noe - November 10, 2017

in Object Culture

Flying across America provides a bird's eye view of how we humans have decided to cut the land up. In regions where we've completely mastered the topography, you'll see completely unnatural-looking, perfect grids like this, punctuated with perfect circles:

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So what the heck are those, and how/why are they created? Here's the 30-second answer:

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That's a snippet from this five-minute-plus video on why certain parts of America look very different from the air, depending on which colonial master first took control of which region. It's worth a watch if you've got the time.

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Noodle Time

7 years ago

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good ol pivot lines.... they work great when there are large open, square areas. Some are not fully circular, as you can equip a swing line that swings out in the corners, reaching some of the wasted square space.

for more rectangular areas, they have linear wheel lines, both automatic and manual. and if neither of those work, hand lines fill in.

beauty of pressurized irrigation is that it is much more efficient than flood irrigation, and can handle uneven terrain. (former hydro-engineer, aka pipemover)

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Eitan Mendelowitz

7 years ago

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The words "center pivot irrigation"

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