Minnesota state

                     Minnesota state General information

State Abbreviation - MN

State Capital - St. Paul

Largest City - Minneapolis

Area - 86,943 square miles [Minnesota is the 12th biggest state in the USA]

Population - 4,919,479 (as of 2000) [Minnesota is the 21st most populous state in the USA]

Name for Residents - Minnesotans

Major Industries - farming (corn, soybeans, sugar beets, wheat, dairy products), paper pulp, mining (iron ore)

Major Rivers - Minnesota River, Mississippi River, Rainy River, Red River of the North, St. Croix River

Major Lakes - Upper Red Lake, Lower Red Lake, Mille Lacs Lake, Vermillion Lake, Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods, Lake Superior, Leech Lake, Winnibigoshish Lake, Lake Pepin

Highest Point - Eagle Mountain - 2,301 feet (701 m) above sea level

Number of Counties - 87

Bordering States - Iowa, Michigan (across Lake Superior), North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin

Bordering Country - Canada

Origin of the Name Minnesota - Minnesota is from a Dakota Sioux Indian word that means "cloudy water" or "sky water" and refers to local rivers.

State Nickname - Gopher State. North Star State

State Motto - "L'Etoile du Nord" - The Star of the North

State Song - Hail Minnesota

Geo

Minnesota is the northernmost U.S. state apart from Alaska; its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods is the only part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th Parallel. The state is part of the U.S. region known as the Upper Midwest and part of the Great Lakes Region of North America. The state shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba to the north. With 86,943 square miles (225,180 km2),[7] or approximately 2.25% of the United States,[8] Minnesota is the twelfth-largest state.

Cities

Saint Paul, located in east-central Minnesota along the banks of the Mississippi River, has been Minnesota's capital city since 1849, first as capital of the Territory of Minnesota, and then as state capital since 1858.

Saint Paul is adjacent to Minnesota's most populous city, Minneapolis; they and their suburbs are known collectively as the Twin Cities metropolitan area, the fifteenth largest metropolitan area in the United States and home to about 60% of the state's population. The remainder of the state is known as "Greater Minnesota" or "Outstate Minnesota".

The state has seventeen cities with populations above 50,000 (based on 2010 census). In descending order of size they are Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Rochester, Duluth, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park, Plymouth, Saint Cloud, Eagan, Woodbury, Maple Grove, Coon Rapids, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Burnsville, Apple Valley, Blaine and Lakeville. Of these only Rochester, Duluth, and Saint Cloud are outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Minnesota's population continues to grow, primarily in the urban centers. The populations of metropolitan Sherburne and Scott Counties doubled between 1980 and 2000, while 40 of the state's 87 counties lost residents over the same decades.