Minnesota

The 32nd state

Minnesota was the home of the Dakota and Ojibwe peoples long before French fur traders arrived in the 1600s. The eastern part of today’s state came to the United States after the Revolution, and the western part with the Louisiana Purchase. Congress organized the Minnesota Territory in 1849, settlers poured in, and on May 11, 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state. Minnesotans still mark May 11 as Statehood Day; it was the day the new flag and seal took effect in 2024.

Land of sky-tinted water

Minnesota is named for the Minnesota River, whose Dakota name is built on mni, “water.” The Minnesota Historical Society translates the Dakota homeland name, Mni Sota Makoce, as “land of cloudy waters,” noting that “cloudy” can mean mist, churned-up water, or clear water reflecting the sky. That Dakota phrase now encircles the state seal.

Water defines the state. Its slogan, “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” is an understatement: Minnesota has 11,842 lakes larger than ten acres, scraped out by glaciers. The Mississippi River begins at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, and Lake Superior forms part of its northeastern edge.

North Star, Gopher, Twin Cities

The state motto, adopted in 1861, is French: L’Étoile du Nord, “The Star of the North,” and it gave Minnesota its nickname, the North Star State. Its other famous nickname, the Gopher State, goes back to an 1857 cartoon mocking railroad promoters as human-headed gophers pulling a train. None of the nicknames is set in law.

A capital saved by a missing bill

Saint Paul has been the capital since 1849. In 1857 the territorial legislature voted to move the capital to St. Peter, but a legislator named Joseph Rolette, who chaired the committee responsible for the bill, disappeared with it until the session ended, and a judge later ruled the move invalid. Saint Paul’s Capitol, designed by Cass Gilbert and opened in 1905, has a dome of white Georgia marble modeled on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The capital page tells the story.

A new flag and seal

In 2024 Minnesota replaced both its flag and its seal. The old seal showed a settler plowing while a Native American rode away, and the old flag put that seal on blue; critics called it cluttered and objected to its imagery. A state commission chose new designs from thousands of public entries, and since May 11, 2024, the flag has shown a white eight-pointed North Star on a dark blue shape based on the state’s outline, beside a field of light blue for its waters. The new seal shows a common loon, wild rice and a pine.

Loons, walleye and morels

Minnesota has 22 official symbols. The common loon, whose haunting call echoes across northern lakes, is the state bird; Minnesota has more breeding loons than any other state outside Alaska. The showy lady’s slipper, a large pink and white orchid, is the state flower, and the red pine the state tree. The walleye is the state fish, wild rice the state grain and the morel the state mushroom; Minnesota was the first state to name one. The Honeycrisp apple, developed at the University of Minnesota, is the state fruit, ice hockey the state sport and the rusty patched bumble bee, an endangered species, the state bee. See every symbol on the Minnesota symbols page.

Land and people

Minnesota covers 86,936 square miles, 12th among the states, and had about 5.83 million residents in 2025, 22nd in the country. It borders North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin, and shares a long border with the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario; its Northwest Angle is the northernmost point of the 48 contiguous states. Minneapolis, with about 430,000 people, is the largest city, followed by Saint Paul, Rochester, Bloomington and Duluth.