Minnesota

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: Spoonbridge and Cherry

Minnesota: Split Rock Lighthouse

Minnesota, constituent state of the United States of America. It became the 32nd state of the union on May 11, 1858. A small extension of the northern boundary makes Minnesota the most northerly of the 48 conterminous U.S. states. (This peculiar protrusion is the result of a boundary agreement with Great Britain before the area had been carefully surveyed.) Minnesota is one of the north-central states. It is bounded by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north, by Lake Superior and the state of Wisconsin to the east, and by the states of Iowa to the south and South Dakota and North Dakota to the west.

Minnesota’s thousands of rivers flow northward via the Red and Rainy rivers to Hudson Bay, eastward through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and southward through the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, Minnesota received its name from the Dakota (Sioux) word for the Mississippi’s major tributary in the state, the Minnesota River, which means “sky-tinted water.”

Lake Itasca

Minnesota consists of extensive woodlands, fertile prairies, and innumerable lakes—the basis for one of the state’s nicknames, “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” though Minnesota actually has more than 10,000 lakes that are larger than 10 acres (4 hectares) in area. The nearly 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) of inland fresh water is a dominant feature in Minnesota. Its climate is continental, with cold winters and warm summers. About one in four Minnesotans is at least partly of Scandinavian origin, but those of German descent constitute the single largest ethnic group in the state. By the end of the 20th century, services had become the dominant activity of Minnesota’s economy, surpassing farming, mining, and manufacturing, which had been the major sources of income for the state since settlement. St. Paul is the state capital, and the Twin Cities region (Minneapolis–St. Paul) is the major administrative, economic, and cultural hub of Minnesota. Area 86,935 square miles (225,161 square km). Population (2020) 5,706,494; (2022 est.) 5,717,184.