Minnesota

Paleo-Indians lived in present-day Minnesota as early as 12,000 years ago, and later an extension of the Mississippian culture built villages and earth mounds there. For centuries Native peoples from as far away as the Appalachian and Rocky mountains came to southwestern Minnesota to quarry red pipestone at a site that is now Pipestone National Monument.⁠[1][2]

The confluence of the MississippiMississippiMississippi is a state of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico; Jackson is both its capital and its largest city. It was admitted to the Union on December 10, 1817, as the 20th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,961,279.Open the full entry and Minnesota rivers, called Bdote by the Dakota, has long been a sacred gathering place, and some oral traditions identify it as the place where the first Dakota people originated; Native people came to Bdote to hunt, fish, and gather as long as 10,000 years ago.⁠[3][4]

Until the mid-19th century two major peoples occupied what is now Minnesota: the Ojibwa (also called Chippewa or Anishinaabe) in the north and east and the Dakota (Sioux) in the south and west. Between European exploration and statehood the Ojibwa occupied the forested areas and pushed the Dakota south and southwest onto the prairie.⁠[2][5]

French explorers searching for the Northwest Passage reached the region in the mid-1600s, and French and British traders then began trading for furs. In 1679 Daniel Greysolon, sieur Dulhut, brokered peace between the Dakota and the Ojibwe near present-day Duluth. In 1680 the missionary Louis Hennepin explored the upper Mississippi and named Saint Anthony Falls in present-day Minneapolis; his party was captured by the Dakota in April and rescued by Dulhut in July.⁠[5][4][1]

After the French and Indian War the northeastern part of present-day Minnesota passed from French to British control in 1763; it passed to the United States after the American Revolution in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787. The 1783 Treaty of Paris described the northern boundary using an erroneous 1755 map by John Mitchell, so the route it set out was geographically impossible. The southwestern part was acquired through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and in 1818 the Convention of London set the boundary along a north–south line through the northwest point of Lake of the Woods and then the 49th parallel, with Britain ceding the northwestern part to the United States.⁠[5][6]

In 1805 the U.S. Army sent Lieutenant Zebulon Pike to find the source of the Mississippi and choose fort sites. At Bdote he made an unauthorized land agreement with two Dakota leaders; the agreement was not binding, and the trading post he promised was never built.⁠[3]

The Fifth U.S. Infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth arrived at the river junction on August 24, 1819. Construction of Fort St. Anthony began on September 10, 1820, under Colonel Josiah Snelling, and the St. Peters Indian Agency was built on the military reservation that year, with Lawrence Taliaferro as agent until 1839. The first Euro-American school in what would become Minnesota was built there in 1823; the fort was completed in 1825 and renamed Fort Snelling in Snelling’s honour, and the area’s first post office opened there on July 1, 1827.⁠[3]

The fort was built to protect American interests in the fur trade, and the American Fur Company post across the river at Mendota drew Dakota and Ojibwe people to trade; by 1823 the company controlled much of the regional fur trade. Although slavery was illegal there, fifteen to thirty enslaved people lived at the fort at any time in the 1820s and 1830s, mostly working as cooks, cleaners, and laundresses for officers, officials, and fur traders. One of them, Harriet Robinson, married Dred Scott in the mid-1830s, and the couple’s time at the fort became part of the basis of their freedom suit, decided as Scott v. Sandford in 1857.⁠[3][4]

In 1837 the United States signed treaties with the Dakota and the Ojibwe, including the Treaty of St. Peters.⁠[3]

The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842, using the joint survey of the 1820s, fixed the boundary from Lake Superior to the northwest point of Lake of the Woods; the line due south from that point to the 49th parallel created the Northwest Angle, giving the United States about 123 square miles north of the parallel. When IowaIowaIowa is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Des Moines. It was admitted to the Union on December 28, 1846, as the 29th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 3,190,369.Open the full entry was admitted in 1846, 43°30′ N became Minnesota’s southern boundary, and when WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Madison and its largest city is Milwaukee. Wisconsin was admitted to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,893,718 residents.Open the full entry was admitted in May 1848, Congress set its western line due south from a point on the St. Louis River to the St. Croix and then along the St. Croix and the Mississippi.⁠[6]

After Iowa and Wisconsin became states, the land from the St. Croix River west to the MissouriMissouriMissouri is a state of the United States bounded on the east by the Mississippi River; its capital is Jefferson City, its largest city is Kansas City, and its second-largest is St. Louis. It was admitted to the Union on August 10, 1821, as the 24th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,154,913.Open the full entry and White Earth rivers was left without territorial government. Henry H. Sibley, the delegate to Congress, worked with Senator Stephen A. Douglas, chairman of the Senate committee on territories, and Congress passed the Organic Act creating Minnesota Territory on March 3, 1849. The territory was bounded by Canada on the north, Wisconsin (and MichiganMichiganMichigan is a state of the United States nearly surrounded by the Great Lakes and made up of the Upper and Lower peninsulas; its capital is Lansing and its largest city is Detroit. It was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, as the 26th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 10,077,331.Open the full entry’s part of Lake Superior) on the east, Iowa on the south, and the Missouri and White Earth rivers on the west, taking in the eastern parts of present-day North DakotaNorth DakotaNorth Dakota is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Bismarck. It was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 39th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 779,094.Open the full entry and South DakotaSouth DakotaSouth Dakota is a U.S. state bordered by North Dakota to the north, Minnesota and Iowa to the east, Nebraska to the south, and Wyoming and Montana to the west. Its capital is Pierre and its largest city is Sioux Falls. It was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 40th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 886,667 residents.Open the full entry; its northern, southern, and eastern boundaries remained unchanged at statehood.⁠[7][6][5]

The act provided for a governor, secretary, judicial system, legislative assembly, and delegate to Congress; legislators and the delegate were elected, while the other officers were appointed by the president with Senate consent. The first legislature had a council of nine and a house of 18, and the supreme court had a chief justice and two associate justices, with three district courts. Sections 16 and 36 of each township were reserved for schools, and $20,000 was appropriated for public buildings. The first territorial legislature convened on September 3, 1849, at the Central House in St. Paul, which has been the capital ever since. The territory’s population in 1850 was 6,077.⁠[7][8][4]

The Treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota, signed in 1851, transferred millions of acres of Dakota land to the United States and moved most Dakota in Minnesota Territory onto reservations along the Minnesota River.⁠[9][4]

After debate over an alternative site at St. Anthony, the territorial legislature chose St. Paul as the permanent capital in 1850–1851 and on February 7, 1851, approved an act for erecting public buildings. On June 28, 1851, Charles and Annie J. Bazille deeded the site to the territory for one dollar, and on July 16 Joseph Daniels was contracted to build the capitol for $17,000. When funds ran short Congress added $12,500 in March 1853, bringing the total cost to $31,642.81. The legislature first met in the building on January 4, 1854.⁠[10]

The Enabling Act passed Congress and was approved on February 26, 1857. Delegates to the constitutional convention were elected on June 1, 1857, as Republicans and Democrats, and the convention assembled in St. Paul on July 13 and ran until August 29. The two parties refused to meet together and held separate sessions in different rooms of the first capitol, the Democrats presided over by Henry H. Sibley and the Republicans by John W. North and then St. Andrew D. Balcombe. A conference committee of five from each side produced a report that both conventions adopted on August 28; because neither party would sign the other’s document, two copies of the constitution resulted, one on white paper signed only by Republicans and one on blue-tinted paper signed only by Democrats. Voters ratified the constitution on October 13, 1857, by 30,055 votes to 571.⁠[8]

The admission act was adopted by Congress and signed by President James Buchanan on May 11, 1858, giving the new state the shape of present-day Minnesota apart from its Lake Superior portion, and Henry H. Sibley was elected the first governor. That year the Treaty of Washington confined the Dakota to a smaller area south of the Minnesota River, and Fort Snelling closed, with the fort and its reservation sold to Franklin Steele. In 1860 the population, not counting Native Americans, was 172,023.⁠[8][6][9][3][4]

When the Civil War began on April 12, 1861, Governor Alexander Ramsey pledged 1,000 Minnesota troops; Fort Snelling reopened to train recruits, and about 25,000 soldiers passed through it during the war. Settlers poured in during these years, and by 1870 the population was nearly half a million.⁠[4][1]

Forced assimilation, restricted movement, and unfulfilled treaty obligations fuelled the conflict. In the summer of 1862 annuity payments were late, crops were poor, game was scarce, and many Dakota were starving. On August 17 four Dakota hunters killed five settlers in Meeker County, and that night Mdewakanton men persuaded Taoyateduta (also known as Little Crow) to lead an all-out war. On August 18 Dakota forces attacked the Lower Sioux Agency and settlements in BrownBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry and Renville counties, and attacks on New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, Birch Coulee, and other places followed.⁠[9]

On September 23 forces led by Henry Sibley defeated Taoyateduta’s forces at Wood Lake, ending the war, and on September 26 settlers held hostage or protected by Dakota factions were released at Camp Release. More than 600 settlers were killed; fewer than 1,000 of the more than 7,000 Dakota took part in the fighting, and Dakota casualties were not recorded. On November 5 a military commission sentenced 303 Dakota men to death after rushed, unauthorized trials, and President Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Born to a frontier farming family in Kentucky, he had less than a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the presidency as the Republican candidate in 1860. During the Civil War he preserved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, and died the next day.Open the full entry pardoned all but 38; on December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged at Mankato, the largest mass execution in U.S. history.⁠[9][11]

About 1,600 Dakota non-combatants, mostly women, children, and elderly people, surrendered at Camp Release and were marched to Fort Snelling, where they were held in an internment camp below the fort through the winter of 1862–1863 before being forcibly removed to reservations in Dakota Territory and what is now NebraskaNebraskaNebraska is a state of the United States bordered by South Dakota to the north, Iowa and Missouri to the east, Kansas to the south, and Colorado to the southwest, with its panhandle bordering Wyoming to the west; its capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha. It was admitted to the Union on March 1, 1867, as the 37th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,961,504.Open the full entry; nearly 2,000 Ho-Chunk people living at Blue Earth were removed as well. The government nullified its treaties with the Dakota and dissolved their reservation, and only a few peace-supporting Dakota families were allowed to stay; in 1889 the federal government gave land to their descendants, forming today’s Dakota communities.⁠[11][9][1]

After the Civil War railroads spanned the state, and wheat farming and flour milling grew. Lumbering peaked between 1870 and 1905; most of the valuable pine, balsam, and spruce of central and northeastern Minnesota was cut before 1900, after which the industry declined rapidly.⁠[1]

On the evening of March 1, 1881, during a legislative session, fire broke out in the dome of the first capitol and destroyed the building; no lives were lost, and newspapers estimated the loss at $180,000. The next day the newly completed Market House became the temporary seat of state government, and a new capitol opened in 1883.⁠[10]

Commercial iron-ore production began in 1884, and in 1890 huge iron reserves were discovered on the Mesabi Range, after which Duluth’s population grew rapidly.⁠[5]

During World War II more than 300,000 men and women joined the military at Fort Snelling. The fort was decommissioned as an active post in 1946 and taken over by the Veterans Administration, with a final retreat ceremony on October 14, 1946. Mineral-based industries developed in the state after the war.⁠[4][1]

In 1947 Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan adopted a compact defining their boundaries in Lake Superior.⁠[6]

Plans announced by the state highway department in 1956 for Highway 55 to cut through the fort drew public opposition. In 1960 Fort Snelling became Minnesota’s first National Historic Landmark; Fort Snelling State Park was dedicated in 1962, and the Minnesota Historical Society began restoration in 1965.⁠[4]

In 1971 the Legislature created a constitutional study commission, which two years later recommended restructuring the constitution for easy reference and rewriting it in modern language. Voters approved the change on November 5, 1974; the amendment did not alter the meaning of the constitution.⁠[8]

In the late 20th century the Twin Cities and Duluth took steps to make their city centres more attractive to people and businesses. In the early 2000s the numbers of Hispanic, African American, Southeast Asian, and African immigrants increased.⁠[1]

On April 26, 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2020 census apportionment results. Minnesota kept 8 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the same as after the 2010 census, with an average of 713,719 people per seat, giving it 10 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[12][13][14]

The 2023 State Emblem Redesign Commission, created by the Legislature, chose a flag concept by Andrew Prekker from 2,128 submissions and modified it to use an eight-point star and remove three bars on the right, and chose a seal design by Ross Bruggink from 399 submissions, altering it to replace the French motto with the Dakota phrase “Mni Sóta Makoce.” The new flag and seal became official on May 11, 2024, and the historic flag and seal were retired.⁠[15][16][17]

The new flag has a white eight-point star on dark blue at the left, with one point aimed north to represent the state motto, matching the star in the floor of the Capitol rotunda; the dark blue area is a stylized outline of the state representing its land, and the rest of the flag is bright blue, representing water. The new seal has an outer ring of 98 golden bars representing the state’s 87 counties and 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes, and at its centre wild rice, a common loon with a red eye, a white four-pointed star, trees representing the Norway pine, and a stylized body of water.⁠[15][16]

The Minnesota Legislature is bicameral, with 201 members: 67 senators serving four-year terms (two-year terms when elected in years ending in “0”) and 134 representatives serving two-year terms. The state constitution leaves its size to be prescribed by law; since statehood membership has ranged from 63 to 202, and districts are redrawn after each U.S. census.⁠[18][19]

The governor, the lieutenant governor (elected as a team with the governor), the secretary of state, the state auditor, and the attorney general are elected to four-year terms. As of November 2026 the governor is Tim Walz, who was sworn in as Minnesota’s 41st governor in St. Paul on January 7, 2019, and the lieutenant governor is Peggy FlanaganPeggy FlanaganPeggy Flanagan is a Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) politician and member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe who has served as lieutenant governor of Minnesota since 2019 and previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives. On November 3, 2026, she was elected to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, becoming the first Native American woman elected to the Senate.Open the full entry.⁠[18][20][21][22]

The Supreme Court has seven justices—a chief justice and six associate justices—serving six-year terms. It is the court of last resort for challenges involving Minnesotans’ constitutional rights; most of its cases come on petitions for review from the Court of Appeals, while some, such as first-degree murder appeals, go directly to it. The Court of Appeals has 19 judges and the district courts 289 judges in ten judicial districts, all serving six-year terms.⁠[18][23]

Minnesota borders the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north, with Voyageurs National Park along part of the boundary; Lake Superior and Wisconsin lie to the east, Iowa to the south, and North Dakota and South Dakota to the west. The Red River of the North forms the North Dakota border, the Rainy River separates the state from Ontario, and the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers form part of the Wisconsin border. The larger western and central region has thousands of lakes and the flat Red River valley, the east has forests and rolling hills, and the northeast is forested, with lakes, peat bogs, and ridges.⁠[1]

In the Census Bureau’s state area measurements (boundaries as of January 1, 2010), Minnesota has a total area of 86,936 square miles (225,163 square kilometres), of which 79,627 square miles (206,232 square kilometres) is land and 7,309 square miles (18,930 square kilometres) is water, including 4,763 square miles (12,336 square kilometres) of inland water and 2,546 square miles (6,594 square kilometres) of Great Lakes water. Since 1990 the Census Bureau has counted adjoining waters in state areas, adding these 2,546 square miles of Lake Superior.⁠[24][6]

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources figures give the state a length of 406 miles, a width of 348 miles, and a mean elevation of 1,200 feet; the highest point is Eagle Mountain in Cook County at 2,301 feet and the lowest is the Lake Superior shore at 602 feet. The state has 11,842 lakes larger than 10 acres and 6,564 rivers and streams totalling 69,200 miles; the major rivers are the Mississippi, the Minnesota, and the Red River of the North, and the state’s waters flow north to Hudson Bay, east to the Atlantic, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.⁠[25][26]

Winters are cold. Between 1895 and 2021 winter daily minimum temperatures rose by 7.3 °F in northern Minnesota, 6.0 °F in central Minnesota, and 4.9 °F in southern Minnesota, and over the past 50 years lakes have lost an average of 10 to 14 days of ice cover.⁠[1][26]

The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimate put Minnesota’s population at 5,830,405 on July 1, 2025, up 2.2% from the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 5,706,733; population density in 2020 was 71.7 people per square mile. In the 2020 census Minneapolis had 429,954 residents and St. Paul 311,527. The state has 87 counties.⁠[27][28][29][26]

In QuickFacts population estimates, 22.0% of residents were under 18 and 19.1% were 65 or older; 79.8% were White alone, 8.3% Black alone, 1.7% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 5.9% Asian alone, 7.2% Hispanic or Latino, and 74.3% White alone, not Hispanic or Latino. In American Community Survey data for 2020–2024, 8.7% of residents were foreign-born, 39.4% of people aged 25 and older held a bachelor’s degree or higher, median household income was $89,062 (in 2024 dollars), and 9.3% of people were in poverty.⁠[27]

Early settlers came from the eastern United States, followed by immigrants from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and other countries. About 68,000 Native Americans live in the state, belonging to 11 federally recognized tribes: seven Ojibwe tribes on reservations and four Dakota tribes in communities.⁠[1]

Minnesota’s nominal GDP (all industry total, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data) was $515,116.4 million in 2025, $497,205.9 million in 2024, and $479,586.8 million in 2023.⁠[30]

Cropland and pasture cover nearly half the state, and the main crops are corn, soybeans, and wheat; food processing, including meatpacking and dairy, is significant, as is the manufacture of metal products, machinery, and high-technology equipment. 3M3M3M is an industrial manufacturer headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, organized into Safety and Industrial, Transportation and Electronics, and Consumer segments, with brands including Scotch and Post-it. It was founded in 1902 as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, and its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MMM.Open the full entry (the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company) is known for adhesive tape and notepads, and the company behind the Target discount stores began in downtown Minneapolis in 1902. Since the late 1990s services have provided most of the state’s income and jobs, with finance, insurance, health care, high technology, and tourism growing in the Twin Cities and other urban areas. Mineral resources include iron ore, granite, and limestone.⁠[1][5]

The state’s name comes from the Dakota phrase “Mni Sóta Makoce,” which the Secretary of State’s office renders as “Land of the sky tinted water.” Its nicknames are the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” “The Gopher State,” and “The North Star State.” The motto, the French “L’Étoile du Nord” (The North Star), was established in 1861, together with the state seal, by Laws of Minnesota 1861, Chapter 43.⁠[16][26][31][17]

The previous flag design was established in 1957 by Laws of Minnesota 1957, Chapter 155. The state bird is the loon (1961), the flower the pink and white lady slipper (1967), the tree the red or Norway pine (1953), the fish the walleye (1965), the gemstone the Lake Superior agate (1969), the grain wild rice (1977), the drink milk (1984), and the sport ice hockey (2009). The state song, “Hail! Minnesota,” was written in 1904, gained a second verse in 1905, and was adopted in 1945. In 2025 Ursa Minor and the giant beaver were designated the state constellation and state fossil.⁠[17][26]

Office of Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan: Official website: https://mn.gov/governor/ (opens in a new window).⁠[22]

Minnesota Legislature: Official website: https://www.leg.mn.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19]

Minnesota Secretary of State: Official website: https://www.sos.mn.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[31]

Minnesota Historical Society: Official website: https://www.mnhs.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]