Memorizing 50 of anything often seems hard. As always, the way to make it easier is to break it down. First of all most people have an easy time remembering the more distinctive states like California, Texas, Florida, Hawaii and Alaska. Some states are easy to remember because they have famous cities in them like such as Nevada (Las Vegas), Louisiana (New Orleans) and New York (New York City). Washington and Maine are often easy to remember because they are in the upper corners of mainland USA. Washingtons State is in the northwest and Maine is in the northeast. If we eliminate these easy states, that cuts it down 20% to only 40 states that you need to remember.

One method for remember some of the other states is to think of them in relation to some of the easiest states to remember. Oregon, for example is in between Washington and Calornia. Arizona is next to California and Nevada. Texas has a fairly unique shape and New Mexico is relatively boxy-looking. So you can think of New Mexico's boxy shape right next to Texas' more intricate shape. Similarly you can think of Oklahoma as if it is sitting on top of Texas.

A similar method of remembering a few states is based on their proximity to several large rivers and lakes--particularly the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Of course Mississippi is next to the mouth of the Mississippi river. Michigan is easy to remember because it's not just next to the great lakes it's split in two by the Great lakes.

Yet another similar method of remember states is to remember states that have unique shapes. Idaho and Montana, for example are next to each other and divided from each other to make fairly unique shapes. Other states that have fairly unique or interesting shapes include: Minnesota, Massachusetts, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Deleware. If you get this far in memorizing the states, you're over halfway there!