What state am I flying over right now? How to tell from your seat

Without Wi-Fi, the easiest way to know what state you're flying over is a map of your route that works offline, showing where the plane is now. With that, the river, lake or city below gets a name quickly. From the window alone, state lines are invisible, but big natural features, coastlines and city lights make it possible to place yourself.

Ways to find out

1. The seatback map, if your plane has screens. It usually shows your position and nearby cities.
2. Wi-Fi, if your flight has it: a live flight status or tracking page shows the plane's position.
3. An offline flight map on your phone. Save your flight before takeoff. FlyingOver doesn't use GPS: it keeps a map of your route and estimates where the plane is from the saved route and schedule, from any seat, in airplane mode. Read how to track your flight without Wi-Fi.
4. Your phone's GPS, which on most phones still works in airplane mode, but often only with the phone pressed to the window, and only with maps you downloaded. Read does GPS work in airplane mode?

How far you can see from cruising altitude

Airliners cruise between flight levels 290 and 410, roughly 29,000 to 41,000 feet. A simple formula gives the distance to the horizon: about 1.23 times the square root of your height in feet, in miles. From 35,000 feet, that's around 230 miles.

In practice, haze, clouds and low contrast can limit what you actually see to much less. On a clear day, though, big features stand out far beyond the towns directly below.

What's easy to recognize

• Coastlines and the Great Lakes. Their shapes match the map, even when towns don't.
• Big rivers such as the Mississippi, with their wide bends.
• Mountain ranges such as the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, often snow-capped.
• Canyons and deserts in the Southwest, where the ground has few clouds and strong colors.
• Field patterns. Over much of the Midwest and Great Plains, the land is laid out in a grid of square fields and roads. Circular fields come from center-pivot irrigation.
• Cities at night, traced by lights along highways.

Which side of the plane you see these from depends on the route that day, and routes change with winds and air traffic control. See why planes fly curved routes.

Why the map in your phone might disagree with the view

An offline estimate follows the planned route and schedule. If the plane is rerouted around weather, holds before landing, or flies a different track, the estimate can be off until live data arrives. Once you're back online, FlyingOver corrects it. Read why is my plane circling?