North Dakota

Big-game hunting cultures appeared after the continental glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, and hunting, gathering and farming peoples occupied the region from about 2000 BC to 1860.⁠[1]

When the first white explorers arrived, the Dakota or Lakota (historically called “Sioux”), Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara lived in the area; Chippewa (Ojibway) groups moved into the northern Red River valley around 1800, and the Cree, Blackfeet and Crow frequented the western buffalo ranges. The sedentary Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara lived in earthlodges near the Missouri River and cultivated extensive gardens, and their fortified villages became trading centers in the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries, while the nomadic groups depended mainly on the bison. The horse reached the Northern Plains in the 18th century.⁠[1]

In 1738, the French explorer La Vérendrye, seeking a water route to the Pacific, reached the Missouri River from Canada and visited a cluster of earthlodge villages near present-day Bismarck; his sons followed in 1742.⁠[1][2]

The 1763 Treaty of Paris gave Great Britain the French lands drained by Hudson Bay, including the country tributary to the Red River of the North; a year earlier France had ceded the lands drained by 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 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 rivers to Spain, and these returned to France in 1800. In 1803 Napoleon sold the French possessions to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase, beginning American ownership of lands now in North Dakota.⁠[3]

Fur traders from Hudson’s Bay and Montreal began arriving regularly in the 1790s. In 1801, Alexander Henry, Jr. established a post at Pembina, the first permanent trading post in the area; after 1812 it became the center of a British-sponsored agricultural colony.⁠[2][3]

In 1804, Lewis and Clark led the American expedition up the Missouri River from St. Louis; in 1804–05 they built Fort Mandan and spent the winter among the Mandan people.⁠[1][4][2]

The London Convention of 1818 set the 49th parallel as the northern boundary, bringing the Red River Valley under American control and adding the present state’s northeastern corner to the United States. A boundary survey in 1823 found many colonists near Pembina to be in the United States, and many of them moved north into Canada.⁠[3][4]

In the early 19th century, major trading posts such as Fort Union and Fort Clark served mainly Native trappers and hunters, who traded meat and furs for guns, metal tools, cloth and beads, and the trade also brought disease. In 1837 smallpox virtually wiped out the Mandan people at Fort Clark, reducing them from about 1,800 to 125 within a few months.⁠[3][2]

From 1843, Red River cart caravans hauled buffalo robes and pemmican to St. Paul. The Métis, descended from Euro-American fur trade employees and Chippewa women, formed a new nation in the Red River Valley with its U.S. center at St. Joseph (now Walhalla); it faded as buffalo became scarcer east of the Missouri River.⁠[3]

Fort Abercrombie, founded in 1857, was the first in a chain of military outposts that extended federal power in the region.⁠[5]

Dakota Territory was created on March 2, 1861. American settlement of the Northern Plains began in earnest after Congress organized the territory.⁠[6][7]

In 1862, a violent Santee Dakota uprising took place in MinnesotaMinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the north-central United States and the most northerly of the 48 contiguous states; its capital is St. Paul and its largest city is Minneapolis. It was admitted to the Union on May 11, 1858, as the 32nd state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,706,494.Open the full entry. From 1863 to 1865, major military expeditions searched the Northern Plains for Santee Dakota who had taken part; battles at Whitestone Hill in 1863 and at Killdeer Mountain and in the Badlands in 1864 reduced Dakota resistance and pushed many onto reservations to avoid starvation.⁠[5]

The federal Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged farming, which developed gradually after the first claim west of the Red River was filed in 1868. The discovery of gold in MontanaMontanaMontana is a state in the northwestern United States, with the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Great Plains in the east; its capital is Helena and its largest city is Billings. Montana became the 41st U.S. state on November 8, 1889, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 1,084,225 residents.Open the full entry in 1862 also increased steamboat traffic on the Missouri River.⁠[7][2]

The westbound Northern Pacific Railway was built to the Missouri River in 1872 and 1873, followed by significant immigration; Fargo and Bismarck both began as rough-and-tumble railroad towns.⁠[7]

In 1876, Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry left Fort 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 near Bismarck to search for Dakota who refused reservation confinement, and Custer’s immediate command was annihilated at the Little Big Horn River in Montana Territory. The slaughter of the northern bison herds after 1870 eventually forced the nomadic tribes to submit; some Dakota bands fled to Canada, and remnants surrendered at Fort Buford in 1881. In 1890, Sitting Bull, who opposed reservation life and was associated with the Ghost Dance religion, was killed when Standing Rock Reservation Indian police tried to arrest him.⁠[5]

During the Dakota Boom of 1879–1886, more than 100,000 people, mostly homesteaders, entered the territory. Some investors organized large, highly mechanized and well-capitalized farms, making names such as Dalrymple and Grandin well known, and several lasted into the 20th century. In the 1880s, North Dakota wheat made Minneapolis the nation’s milling center.⁠[7][2]

In 1883, the territorial capital moved from Yankton to Bismarck, a move that showed the power of outside corporate interests; Alexander McKenzie of Bismarck led political efforts to attract investment.⁠[7]

Dakota Territory was divided in 1889, and on November 2, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison approved the admission of North Dakota to the Union, with 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 admitted the same day. The first governor, John Miller, presided over a turbulent initial legislative session that debated lotteries and prohibition.⁠[8][2]

A second boom after 1905 raised the population from 190,983 in 1890 to 646,872 in 1920. Norwegians were the largest single ethnic group; many Germans arrived after 1885 from enclaves in Russian Ukraine; and by 1915 more than 79% of North Dakotans were immigrants or the children of immigrants.⁠[7]

The Nonpartisan League was founded in 1915 under the leadership of A. C. Townley; in 1916 it used the primary election to take control of the Republican Party, and in 1918 it dominated all of state government. The Bank of North Dakota opened at Bismarck in 1919, and the State Mill and Elevator was completed at Grand Forks in 1922. In 1921, the Independent Voters’ Association forced a recall election that removed Governor Lynn J. Frazier and other members of the Industrial Commission.⁠[9]

The North Dakota Farmers Union was founded in 1927.⁠[2]

North Dakota’s population peaked in 1930 and declined steadily until 1950. During the Depression, low commodity prices and heavy farm debt caused foreclosures and bank failures, and thousands lost their farms and moved to towns or out of state; one historian estimated that more than 70% of residents needed some form of public assistance. Federal relief programs improved highways, state parks and city services, and a State Highway Patrol was created in 1935.⁠[10]

The new skyscraper State Capitol was begun in 1932 and completed in 1935.⁠[10]

Construction of Garrison Dam began in 1946, justified by Missouri River flood control and by diverting water for irrigation and industrial development; the dam was completed in 1954, creating Lake Sakakawea.⁠[11][2]

In 1951, oil was discovered near Tioga, setting off an “oil rush,” and refineries were established at Williston and Mandan. The use of lignite for electricity also expanded, with coal-fired plants built near Velva in 1952 and near Mandan in 1954.⁠[11]

The state’s first television station went on the air in Minot in 1952, and construction of the federal controlled-access highway system began in 1956. Car ownership rose after World War II until the state had more than two vehicles per person, and by the end of the 1950s the railroads mainly hauled freight.⁠[11]

By 1960, two large Air Force bases had been built at Grand Forks and Minot, and missile sites and antiballistic-missile installations were built in the state in the 1960s.⁠[11][2]

In the 1960s, Governor William Guy promoted massive use of the state’s lignite reserves, and rising electricity demand made coal-fired plants economical; in the 1970s, national concern with energy self-sufficiency brought huge investments by generating companies and cooperatives in western North Dakota. The legislature passed reclamation regulations in 1973, 1975 and 1977. By 1981 a dozen generating facilities and large strip mines were operating, and in 1983 the nation’s first coal-to-synthetic-natural-gas plant began production near Beulah.⁠[12]

Congress authorized the Garrison Diversion plan in 1968, but by 1976 court challenges over environmental impacts had stalled construction, with landowners, environmental groups and Canadian officials in opposition; a 1986 compromise allowed a greatly reduced project to continue.⁠[13]

After 1978, high international crude oil prices set off an exploration and development boom in western North Dakota; the populations of Williston, Dickinson and Watford City surged, and some municipalities went deeply into debt to serve new residents. When world oil prices declined in 1981, many oil workers left, and some localities could not repay large municipal debts.⁠[12]

Record grain prices in the early 1970s, following huge sales to the Soviet Union, led many farmers to expand or take on heavy debt, but commodity prices never returned to those levels; by the end of the 1970s many farmers could not service their debts, and state government created special credit counseling services. In the 1980s, land values dropped substantially and the number of farms declined steadily.⁠[14]

Several severe floods occurred in the 1990s, and flooding continued in the early 2000s, especially in the Red River and Devils Lake basins.⁠[2]

After the 2020 census apportionment, North Dakota kept its single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, unchanged from 2010, and it has 3 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[15][16]

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, in the North Dakota Badlands, designed by Snøhetta, opened on July 4, 2026, as part of the state’s America 250 celebration. The state describes Roosevelt as having often called his years as a young rancher in the North Dakota Badlands formative to his identity and leadership.⁠[17]

Kelly Armstrong took office as the 34th governor of North Dakota on December 15, 2024. He previously served in the North Dakota Senate from 2012 to 2019, representing District 36, and was elected in 2018 to the U.S. House of Representatives for the state’s at-large district.⁠[18]

The Legislative Assembly has 47 senators and 94 representatives, each serving a four-year term; it meets biennially, for 70 to 80 days between January and April of odd-numbered years.⁠[19]

North Dakota lies in the north-central United States, bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. The Missouri River crosses the state, the Red River forms its eastern boundary, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park lies within it.⁠[20][4]

U.S. Census Bureau area data (boundaries as of January 1, 2010) give the state a total area of 70,698 square miles (183,108 km²), of which 69,001 square miles (178,711 km²) is land and 1,698 square miles (4,397 km²) is water, all of it inland water.⁠[21]

From east to west the state has three regions. The Red River Valley in the east is flat, with good soil and poor drainage, and is the lowest part of the state: Grand Forks lies at 824 feet and Fargo at 904 feet above sea level. The Drift Prairie in the middle, formed by glacial deposits, has small ponds, hills and rocky soil, and the Turtle Mountains rise about 300 feet above its northern part. The Missouri Plateau in the west is the highest land in the state, at 1,600 to 3,500 feet above sea level, and the Badlands, shaped by wind and water, lie on its western edge.⁠[22]

The highest point in the state is White Butte, in Slope County in the southwest between Amidon and Bowman, at 3,506 feet (about 1,069 m) above sea level.⁠[23][22]

Its location at the geographic center of North America gives North Dakota a strongly continental climate: the difference between average July and January temperatures is about 65 °F in the east and northeast and about 56 °F in the southwest. The highest temperature on record is 121 °F (about 49 °C), at Steele on July 6, 1936, and the lowest is −60 °F (about −51 °C), at Parshall on February 15, 1936. Average annual precipitation ranges from about 14 inches in the northwest to about 22 inches in the southeast, and annual snowfall of 25 to 45 inches is less than in other northern states.⁠[24]

North Dakota’s estimated population on July 1, 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau, V2025), was 799,358, up 2.6% from the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 779,136. Population density in 2020 was 11.3 people per square mile (2020 land area: 68,995.86 square miles).⁠[25]

In the V2025 estimates, 23.3% of residents were under 18 and 17.3% were 65 or older; 85.7% were White alone, 5.3% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 4.0% Black alone, 2.1% Asian alone and 5.1% Hispanic or Latino. In 2020–2024, 4.7% of residents were foreign-born, and 32.7% of those aged 25 and over held a bachelor’s degree or higher.⁠[25]

The state’s larger cities include Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot. From 2024 to 2025, the Williston micropolitan area grew by 2.5%, to 41,767 on July 1, 2025, fifth among U.S. micropolitan areas by percent growth.⁠[4][26]

The North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission’s 1999 profile lists four federally recognized tribes and one Indian community in the state: the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (Fort Berthold Reservation, headquartered in New Town), the Spirit Lake Nation (Fort Totten), the Standing Rock Nation (Fort Yates), the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (Belcourt) and the Trenton Indian Service Area (Trenton); the reservation of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Nation, primarily in South Dakota, also extends into North Dakota.⁠[27]

North Dakota’s nominal GDP in 2025 (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis) was $82,349.8 million (current dollars, not seasonally adjusted).⁠[28]

In October 2024, the state produced 1,177,992 barrels of oil per day, down 1.8% from September, and 3,418,379 thousand cubic feet of natural gas per day; 39 drilling rigs were active, and the number of producing wells reached a preliminary all-time high of 19,334. The record for daily oil production is 1,519,037 barrels per day, set in November 2019.⁠[29]

After 1915, agriculture became increasingly mechanized and farms grew larger; median household income in 2020–2024 was $76,657 (in 2024 dollars).⁠[2][25]

The name was taken from that of the Dakota or Sioux Indian tribe; “Dakota” is a Sioux word meaning “friend.” The nickname “Peace Garden State” appeared on license plates in 1956 and was formally adopted by the legislature in 1957. The state motto is “Liberty and Union Now and Forever, One and Inseparable” (Article XI, Section 2 of the state constitution), and the Latin motto is “Serit ut alteri saeclo prosit.”⁠[6][30][31]

The state flag was adopted on March 3, 1911; the bill was introduced by Representative John H. Fraine on January 21, 1911. Under Section 54-02-02 of the North Dakota Century Code, the flag has a blue field with a yellow knotted fringe and an eagle with outspread wings holding arrows in one foot and an olive branch with three red berries in the other, a shield on its breast and a scroll bearing “E Pluribus Unum” in its beak, beneath thirteen stars and a sunburst; it must conform to the regimental flag carried by the First North Dakota Infantry in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection, except for the wording on the scroll below the eagle. The state coat of arms was created by the 1957 Legislative Assembly and first displayed on June 16, 1957.⁠[30][31]

Official state symbols include the meadowlark (state bird), the wild prairie rose (state flower), the American elm (state tree), the “North Dakota Hymn” (words by James W. Foley, music by C. S. Putnam), the “Flickertail March,” Teredo petrified wood (state fossil), western wheatgrass (state grass), the chokecherry (state fruit), milk (state beverage) and the Nokota horse (honorary state equine); the state fish is the northern pike.⁠[31][30]

State of North Dakota: Official website: https://www.nd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[32]

North Dakota Office of the Governor: Official website: https://governor.nd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

North Dakota Legislative Branch: Official website: https://ndlegis.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[33]

State Historical Society of North Dakota: Official website: https://www.history.nd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8]

North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission: Official website: https://www.indianaffairs.nd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[27]