Abbreviated as MN on abbreviationfinder.org, Minnesota is one of the states of the North American Confederation, the 9th in descending order of surface (219,317 sq km), but the largest of the seven making up the central northwest area. It is so called from the homonymous river (750 km., Of which 480 navigable during floods; tributary of the Mississippi), which crosses the southwestern part (Minnesota, in the Dakota language, meaning “clear river”). The territory includes rather different areas also for morphological characters. The northern region, up to the confluence of Minnesota with Mississippi, is essentially the continuation of the shield Canadian, and consists of a penepian intensely modeled by the action of the Pleistocene glaciers, which eroded it and accumulated their deposits. To the south of that confluence you enter the large wheat area that crosses the whole continent from north to south, closed here to the West by the Red River valley, which flows into Lake Winnipeg, and to the east by a strip of the so-called driftless area (that is to say, of the region that remained ice-free during the glacial period), characterized by a hilly landscape with well-organized hydrography. Towards southwest the prairie area rises with a sensitive slope towards the Coteau des Prairies escarpment, which however does not exceed 430 m at any point. high, more or less as in north, where one barely exceeds 500 m. in the main alignments of hills (Mesabi Iron Range, Sawteeth Mountains), which extend not far from Lake Superior.
Minnesota is known in the United States as one of the richest territories of lakes (over 10 thousand, partly intermorenic, partly with the bottom dug into the rock), the largest of which are located in its northern half, still cloaked in magnificent coniferous forests. They cover a total area of 9,940 sq km. Typical, as in all moraine regions, the indecision of the hydrographic network, which here is aimed at three different basins (S. Lorenzo, Mississippi and Red River).
The climate is cold continental, with very cold winters (the January average is −12 °, 0 in Duluth; lowest in the W) and quite hot summers (July averages not less than 20 ° in the prairie area), but healthy; the precipitations, although they are decreasing very rapidly towards the west, are generally sufficient for the crops.
Declared a territory in 1849, Minnesota was admitted to the states of the Union in 1858. Since then its agricultural and industrial development has been one of the fastest. Today it has the national primacy in the production of barley (17.06 million hl. In 1932), and collects considerable quantities of wheat (5.08 million hl.), Corn (46.1 million hl.), oats (59.89 million hl.), rye, fodder, etc. Its zootechnical patrimony includes over 3 mil. cattle (1.5 million dairy cows); 927 thousand sheep; 805 thousand horses; 3.3 million pigs and 4.5 million poultry heads. Agricultural income rose to $ 51 million in 1931; that of livestock to 217 million. The forests, especially extended in the area close to Canada, cover an area of just under 480,000 hectares.
Also large are the mineral resources. Minnesota is in first place among the states of the Union for the extraction of iron (hematite of the regions of Vermilion, Mesabi and Cuyuna Range; 17.5 million tons in 1931), which is for the most part exported from nearby Duluth on Lake Superior.
The industries (1930) number 4315 enterprises with 126 thousand workers: the milling plants are at the head, concentrated essentially around Minneapolis, for which Minnesota is not surpassed by any other state of the Union (value of production, 460 million dollars in the 1929); followed by food (canned food, $ 201 million), dairy ($ 129 million), metallurgical, mechanical, etc.
The population has grown from 6077 residents in 1850 to 172,023 in 1860, to 439,706 in 1870, to 1,310,283 in 1890, to 1,751,394 in 1900. The increase was 18.5% from 1900 to 1910, 15% from 1910 to 1920, of the 7.4% from 1920 to 1930. Currently the state counts 2,563,933 residents (density 11.6 inhabitants per sq. km.). Negroes represent just 0.4% of the total; those born abroad 15.1%. Of these, the most numerous groups are the Swedes (23.3%), the Norwegians (18.4%) and the Germans (15.5%). The Italians were 7757 in 1930. 49% of the population lives in centers over 2500 residents (34.1% in 1900). Of these, three exceed 100,000 inhabitants. (Minneapolis, St Paul, the capital, and Duluth); no one else touches 50,000. Most of the large agglomerations are gathered in the south-eastern section of the state.
History
The first explorations on the territory of this state, conducted by Haddison and Grosseilliers in the winter of 1658-59 between the Sioux and the Thousand Lakes area, found the entire region divided between two powerful Indian tribes, the Ojibway or Chippeway, which they occupied the mountainous part of the north and the whole district along the Mississippi River, and the Sioux or Dakota who had their seat in the flat country extending between the south and the west along the valley of Minnesota. Subsequently de Lusson in 1761, in Sault-Sainte-Marie, in front of the representatives of fourteen Indian nations, proclaimed French sovereignty over the Great Lakes region. From the year 1679, in which Daniel Greysolon, lord of Luth, agent of a company of Canadian merchants, planted the insignia of Louis XIV all over the basin,
The treaties of November 1762 and the Treaty of Versailles of 1763 assigned the western part of the state to Spain and the area east of the Mississippi to Great Britain. The subsequent Treaty of Paris in 1783 extended Britain’s dominion over this area more and more, keeping the area west of the Mississippi under the control of Spain. But in 1803 with the purchase of Louisiana, the king gione passed to the United States. However, explorations continued, especially for the purpose of researching the headwaters of the Mississippi; that of General Lewis Cass (1820), of the Italian Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, a bizarre figure of traveler and explorer, in 1823, and finally in 1832 the expedition of the scientist Henry Schoolcraft, who discovered the source of the Mississippi in Lake Itasca. Only after the constitution of July 1857 was the entire population of Minnesota admitted to join the Union: which happened on May 12, 1858.
The new state, organized in its definitive form of unitary government, had to endure long and severe struggles against the Sioux Indian tribes, led by a rebel of the Kaposia gang, Little Crow. In 1862 the hostilities degenerated into a great insurrection that spread throughout the state; there was a real massacre of the whites, who saw their villages plundered and destroyed. Finally, on September 23, Colonel HH Sibley definitively defeated the rebels, whose last resistance was extinguished only in the following year by generals Sibley and Sully.
A period of flourishing development for the new state began, especially after the construction of the railway between St Paul and Minneapolis.
Saint Paul
According to countryaah.com, Saint Paul is the capital of Minnesota. Founded in 1838 near Fort Snelling, it was enriched in a few years thanks to the commercial traffic on the Mississippi (skins from the North, tea and tobacco from the South); it assumed considerable importance from 1846 and the expansion of the city’s river trade continued until 1860. The railway gave a further impetus to development: from 1862 it was connected to Chicago and later became a hub for transcontinental lines.
Duluth
City of the USA (86,918 inhabitants in 2000; 274,308 in 2007 considering the whole urban agglomeration), In the Minnesota northeastern, at the western end of the Lake Superior, where the river St. Louis, which separates it from the adjoining city of Superior. Founded in 1856.
More than to industries (steel, paper, wood and cement, oil refining), it owes its importance to the lake port.
Minneapolis
City of the United States, the largest in the state of Minnesota, built in 1838 on the banks of the Mississippi. With Saint Paul, capital of the state, it forms a conurbation (twin cities), which has become a large commercial, financial and industrial district.
