Because of old surveys and a handful of court decisions, Colorado’s border isn’t a perfect shape at all. How Congress Imagined Colorado’s BordersPeterHermesFurian PeterHermesFurian loading...Congress tried to keep things simple by setting Colorado’s borders between 37°N and 41°N latitude, and 25°W to 32°W longitude. Picture a map, like the one from FascinatingMaps.com, dotted with 697 points along Colorado’s edges. In 1925, the court ruled those “mistakes” were the official line—cementing Colorado as the first state with 697 sides. Our state’s tidy-looking rectangle is technically a polygon with 697 sides.