Montana

Mountain country

Montana’s name comes from montana, a word in both Latin and Spanish for a mountainous region. It was attached to the area in 1864, when Congressman James M. Ashley, urged on by Sidney Edgerton, carried the bill creating a new territory and gave it the name. President Abraham Lincoln signed the act on May 26, 1864. The name describes the Rocky Mountain country of the west.

Gold camps and statehood

Montana Territory was born in a gold rush. Its first legislature met in 1864 at the gold camp of Bannack, and the next year the seat of government moved to another camp, Virginia City. Helena became the territorial capital in 1875.

Congress passed an enabling act opening the way to statehood on February 22, 1889, Montana’s voters ratified a state constitution that October, and President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed Montana the 41st state on November 8, 1889.

The capital fight

The new constitution left the permanent capital for the voters, and the contest turned into one of the most bitter campaigns in Montana history. A seven-city election in 1892 produced no majority, so the top two finishers, Helena and Anaconda, met in a runoff in 1894. It became a proxy war between two copper kings: Marcus Daly, whose company town was Anaconda, and his rival William A. Clark, who backed Helena. Helena won. Its Capitol, dedicated on July 4, 1902, has a copper dome, and inside, Charles M. Russell’s mural of Lewis and Clark meeting the Salish hangs in the House chamber. The capital page tells the story.

Treasure, big sky and shining mountains

Montana has several nicknames, none of them official. “The Treasure State,” for its gold, silver and copper, spread after it appeared on the cover of an 1895 promotional booklet. The same booklet used “Land of Shining Mountains,” an echo of the name the Verendrye brothers, French explorers, used for the northern Rockies. “Big Sky Country” came from A. B. Guthrie Jr.’s novel The Big Sky, and the state adopted it for tourism promotion in 1961. The motto on the seal, Oro y Plata, is Spanish for “Gold and silver.”

The state flag puts the seal, with its plow, pick and shovel and the Great Falls of the Missouri, on a blue field under the word MONTANA.

Grizzlies, bitterroots and dinosaurs

Montana has 20 official state symbols, and many were chosen by schoolchildren or citizen campaigns. The bitterroot, the oldest, was made the state flower in 1895 after a campaign by Mary Long Alderson, who saw it as a way for women to practice political organizing. Children voted for the western meadowlark as state bird in 1930; it is the state bird of six states. In 1982 schoolchildren held their own primary and general elections for a state animal, and the grizzly bear won. The state fossil is Maiasaura, the “good mother lizard,” whose nests near Choteau gave early evidence that some dinosaurs cared for their young. Montana also has two state gemstones, sapphire and agate; a state soil, Scobey, proposed by Bozeman fourth graders; and, since 2025, a state sport, the American rodeo. See every symbol on the Montana symbols page.

Land and people

Montana covers 147,040 square miles, fourth among the states after Alaska, Texas and California. It had about 1.14 million residents in 2025, 43rd in the country and up more than 5 percent from 2020, and with just 7.9 people per square mile it ranks 48th in density. It borders Canada to the north and Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota and North Dakota. Billings, with about 121,000 people, is the largest city, followed by Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman and Butte-Silver Bow. Helena, the capital, has about 35,000.