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MNMinnesota Fun Facts
The northernmost point of the lower 48 is not in Maine or Washington. It is a piece of Minnesota called the Northwest Angle, left above the 49th parallel by an 18th century treaty drawn from a map that got the source of the Mississippi wrong. Roughly 120 people live there, and the only way to drive to them from the rest of the United States is to cross into Manitoba and back out again.
Facts most people get wrong
- "Land of 10,000 Lakes" undercounts. The state Department of Natural Resources counts 11,842 lakes of at least ten acres. The slogan was a round number chosen for a license plate, not a survey result.
- Minnesota is not the coldest state. Alaska is, and North Dakota averages colder over a full year. Minnesota's record low is still genuine: 60 below zero at Tower on February 2, 1996.
- Lake Itasca is not an Ojibwe name. Henry Schoolcraft coined it in 1832 by lifting the middle letters out of the Latin veritas caput, true head. The Mississippi leaves the lake ankle deep and narrow enough to cross on stepping stones.
- Saint Paul is the capital, not Minneapolis. The city spent its early years known as Pig's Eye after a whiskey trader named Pierre Parrant, and a priest gave it the current name in 1841.
- The Mall of America is not the world's largest mall. It is the largest in the United States at 5.6 million square feet, and several in Asia are bigger. It stands on the old Metropolitan Stadium site, and one red seat inside marks where a Harmon Killebrew home run landed in 1967.
Records and firsts
- 11,842 lakes of ten acres or more, plus the Boundary Waters, over a million acres and the most visited wilderness in the country.
- Ralph Samuelson strapped boards to his feet on Lake Pepin in 1922 and invented water skiing at 18.
- Richard Drew invented masking tape at 3M in 1925 and cellophane tape in 1930, both in the Saint Paul plant.
- Earl Bakken built the first wearable external pacemaker in a Minneapolis garage in 1957. The company became Medtronic.
- Hormel introduced Spam in Austin in 1937, and the town still runs a museum devoted to it.
- Duluth is the farthest inland port in North America that ocean-going ships can reach, roughly 2,300 miles from the Atlantic by way of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Geography that surprises
- Water leaving Minnesota reaches three different oceans. The northeast drains to the Atlantic through Lake Superior, the north to Hudson Bay through the Red River, the middle to the Gulf down the Mississippi. The three watersheds meet on a low rise near Hibbing.
- Eagle Mountain, the high point at 2,301 feet, sits about 15 miles from Lake Superior, the low point at 601 feet. Few states pack their extremes that close together.
- The Northwest Angle is cut off from the rest of Minnesota by Lake of the Woods, and its residents cross an international border on ordinary errands.
- Minnesota borders two Canadian provinces, Manitoba and Ontario, along with Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota.
Where the name comes from
Minnesota is a Dakota word for the river, Mnisota, built from mni, water, and sota, which means clouded or sky-tinted rather than plain blue. Dakota speakers have explained it by pouring milk into a glass of water. Territorial officials took the river's name in 1849 and the state kept it in 1858. The motto stayed French, L'Etoile du Nord, star of the north, a fur trade holdover and the only French motto among the 50 states.
Questions people ask about Minnesota
What is Minnesota known for?
Lakes, 11,842 of them at ten acres or larger, the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca, the Mall of America, Prince and Bob Dylan, Spam, the Boundary Waters, and a record low of 60 below at Tower.
Does Minnesota really have 10,000 lakes?
It has more. The state counts 11,842 lakes of at least ten acres, plus thousands of smaller ponds and basins. The 10,000 figure was a marketing round number that stuck to the license plates.
What is the weirdest law in Minnesota?
Liquor stores could not open on Sunday until July 2017. The ban had been on the books since statehood in 1858, making Minnesota one of the last states in the country to drop it.
Why is part of Minnesota inside Canada?
The Northwest Angle is a survey leftover. The 1783 treaty ran the border west from Lake of the Woods to the source of the Mississippi, which sat nowhere near where the mapmakers thought, and the fix stranded a piece of Minnesota above the 49th parallel.
What does Minnesota mean?
It comes from the Dakota name for the Minnesota River, Mnisota: mni for water, sota for clouded or sky-tinted. Water that reflects the sky is the usual English rendering.