Hardiness Zones 101. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map consists of 13 individual zones that take in all of the contiguous United States, plus Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

The map of the US is divided into zones, separated by ten degrees. It starts with 1a (Alaska) and goes all the way up to 13b (Puerto Rico), and the mainland U.S. tends to live between zones 5 and 10.

2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (Courtesy USDA) Most urgently, the 2023 PHZM reveals that Alaska is “warmer” when compared to the 2012 map, a USDA press release stated .

Overall, the 2023 map is generally about one quarter-zone warmer than reported in the 2012 map throughout much of the United States, as a result of a more recent averaging period (1976-2005 vs ...

The new map, created by USDA's Agricultural Research Service and Oregon State University, is based on 30 years of data from 13,412 weather stations, almost twice as many as the old map.

CERES – Farmers in Stanislaus County expressed concern over industrial operations happening in agricultural zones. They are worried about environmental hazards from the potential dumping and ...

Those agricultural zones are there to protect that land for agricultural use, she said. “It represents economic development. It represents jobs,” Roethemeier said of Fayette County’s farmland.