Minnesota
Fast facts
- Languages
- English 88.9% * Spanish * Hmong
- Capital
- Saint Paul, Minnesota
Facts from Wikipedia’s “Minnesota” page (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States.
The capital of Minnesota is Saint Paul. The largest city is Minneapolis. Over 3,000,000 people live in the two cities and the suburbs that surround it, which were separated by the Mississippi River. They are known as the Twin Cities. Minnesota borders the U.S. states of North Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario. Minnesota is divided into 87 counties.
Minnesota became a state on May 11, 1858. It was the 32nd state in the United States of America. The name Minnesota is Sioux (a Native American language) for “sky-tinted water” or “cloudy water”. Eagle Mountain is the highest point in Minnesota. The state bird is the Common Loon.
Minnesota has a humid continental climate. The winters in Minnesota are long and severe. Hence the state has a short growing season. During the summer, the south of the state is hot; the north is warm.
In the 1984 presidential election, Minnesota was the only state that voted for Democratic candidate Walter Mondale.
Minnesota also has an exclave, the Northwest Angle, housing the northernmost point in the Contiguous United States.
Flag
The Minnesota state flag was mostly not changed from 1893-2024. The flag was changed to a new design in 2024.
Written for younger readers
Minnesota, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: North America
Minnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S. and it is the twenty-first most populous. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. The state is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”. Those lakes and rivers that gave the state its name, and its forests, parks, and wilderness areas offer residents and tourists a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities. Minnesota’s capital is Saint Paul and its largest city is Minneapolis.
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Minnesota” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.
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