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North Dakota ( də-KOH-tə) is a landlocked U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana to the west. North Dakota is part of the Great Plains region, characterized by broad prairies, steppe, temperate savanna, badlands, and farmland. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area, but with a population of just under 800,000, the fourth-least populous and fourth-least densely populated. The state capital is Bismarck and the most populous city is Fargo, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the state's population; both cities are among the fastest-growing in the U.S., although half of North Dakotans live in rural areas.
The area of North Dakota was inhabited for thousands of years by Native American tribes, including the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara along the Missouri River; the Ojibwe and Cree in the northeast; and several Sioux groups (the Nakota, Dakota, and Lakota) in the rest of the state. European explorers and traders first arrived in the early 18th century, mostly in pursuit of furs.
The United States acquired the region in the early 19th century, gradually settling it amid growing resistance by increasingly displaced natives. The Dakota Territory, established in 1861, became central to American pioneers, with the Homestead Act of 1862 precipitating significant population growth and development. The traditional fur trade declined in favor of farming, particularly of wheat. The Dakota Boom of 1878 to 1886 saw giant farms stretched across the rolling prairies, with the territory becoming a regional economic power. The Northern Pacific and Great Northern railway companies competed for access to lucrative grain centers; farmers banded together in political and socioeconomic alliances that were central to the Midwest's broader Populist Movement. North and South Dakota were admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 39th and 40th states. President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first; consequently, the two states are officially numbered in alphabetical order. In subsequent decades, interest rose in radical agrarian movements and economic cooperatives, of which one legacy is the Bank of North Dakota, the nation's only state-run bank. This coincided with the gradual winding-down of the pioneer period, and the state was fully settled by around 1920.
Beginning in the mid-20th century, North Dakota's rich natural resources became more critical to economic development; into the 21st century, oil extraction from the Bakken formation in the northwest has played a major role in the state's prosperity. Such development has led to population growth (along with high birth rates) and reduced unemployment. It is believed to contain North America's geographic center, in Rugby, and is home to what was once the tallest artificial structure in the Western Hemisphere, the KVLY-TV mast.
Native American people lived in what is now North Dakota for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The known tribes included the Mandan people (from around the 11th century), while the first Hidatsa group arrived a few hundred years later. They both assembled in villages on tributaries of the Missouri River in what would become west-central North Dakota. Crow Indians traveled the plains from the west to visit and trade with the related Hidatsas after the split between them, probably in the 17th century.
Later came divisions of the Sioux: the Lakota, the Santee and the Yanktonai. The Assiniboine and the Plains Cree undertook southward journeys to the village Indians, either for trade or for war. The Shoshone Indians in present-day Wyoming and Montana may have carried out attacks on Indian enemies as far east as the Missouri. A group of Cheyennes lived in a village of earth lodges at the lower Sheyenne River (Biesterfeldt Site) for decades in the 18th century.
Due to attacks by Crees, Assiniboines and Chippewas armed with firearms, they left the area around 1780 and crossed Missouri some time after. A band of the few Sotaio Indians lived east of Missouri River and met the uprooted Cheyennes before the end of the century. They soon followed the Cheyennes across Missouri and lived among them south of Cannonball River.
Eventually, the Cheyenne and the Sutaio became one tribe and turned into mounted buffalo hunters with ranges mainly outside North Dakota. Before the middle of the 19th century, the Arikara entered the future state from the south and joined the Mandan and Hidatsa. With time, a number of Indians entered into treaties with the United States. Many of the treaties defined the territory of a specific tribe.
The first European to reach the area was the French-Canadian trader Pierre Gaultier, sieur de La Vérendrye, who led an exploration and trading party to the Mandan villages in 1738 guided by Assiniboine Indians.
From 1762 to 1800, the region formed part of Spanish Louisiana, part of New Spain, administered from Mexico City.
On October 1, 1800, the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso was signed, and the territory of Spanish Louisiana was transferred to France as part of French Louisiana, which was later sold to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase.
The northeastern portion of the state, corresponding to the Red River Valley and the drainage basin to the Hudson Bay was, at the time, part of Rupert's Land, a British North American territory. It remained under control of the Hudson's Bay Company until the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which set the border between it and the United States to the 49th parallel.
European Americans settled in Dakota Territory only sparsely until the late 19th century, when railroads opened up the region. With the advantage of grants of land, they vigorously marketed their properties, extolling the region as ideal for agriculture.
Differences between the northern and southern part caused resentments between the settlers. The northern part was seen by the more populated southern part as somewhat disreputable, "too much controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders" and too frequently the site of conflict with the indigenous population. The northern part was generally content with remaining a territory. However, following the territorial capital being moved from Yankton in the southern part to Bismarck, the southern part began to call for division. Finally, at the 1887 Dakota Territory division referendum, the voters approved splitting the territory into two. The division was done by the seventh standard parallel. Other account(s) state that the real reason for the split was a political lure for four Republican senators instead of two from the Republican dominated Dakota Territory and in their push to split the territory, Republican congressmen also ignored the uncomfortable fact that much of the land in the anticipated state of South Dakota belonged to the Sioux.
Congress passed an omnibus bill for statehood for North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington, titled the Enabling Act of 1889, on February 22, 1889, during the administration of President Grover Cleveland. His successor, Benjamin Harrison, signed the proclamations formally admitting North Dakota and South Dakota to the Union on November 2, 1889.
There was a rivalry between the two new states over which one would be admitted first. So Harrison directed Secretary of State James G. Blaine to shuffle the papers and obscure from him which he was signing first to keep both the states happy and to avoid showing favor to either state. The actual order went unrecorded, thus no one knows which of the Dakotas was admitted first. However, since North Dakota alphabetically appears before South Dakota, its proclamation was published first in the Statutes At Large.
Unrest among wheat farmers, especially among Norwegian immigrants, led to a populist political movement centered in the Non Partisan League ("NPL") around the time of World War I. The NPL ran candidates on the Republican ticket (but merged into the Democratic Party after World War II). It tried to insulate North Dakota from the power of out-of-state banks and corporations.
In addition to founding the state-owned Bank of North Dakota and North Dakota Mill and Elevator (both still in existence), the NPL established a state-owned railroad line (later sold to the Soo Line Railroad). Anti-corporate laws virtually prohibited a corporation or bank from owning title to land zoned as farmland. These laws, still in force today, after having been upheld by state and federal courts, make it almost impossible to foreclose on farmland, as even after foreclosure, the property title cannot be held by a bank or mortgage company. Furthermore, the Bank of North Dakota, having powers similar to a Federal Reserve branch bank, exercised its power to limit the issuance of subprime mortgages and their collateralization in the form of derivative instruments, and so prevented a collapse of housing prices within the state in the wake of 2008's financial crisis.
The original North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck burned to the ground on December 28, 1930. It was replaced by a limestone-faced art-deco skyscraper that still stands today. A round of federal investment and construction projects began in the 1950s, including the Garrison Dam and the Minot and Grand Forks Air Force bases.
Western North Dakota saw a boom in oil exploration in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as rising petroleum prices made development profitable. This boom came to an end after petroleum prices declined.
In 2010, the state had lower rates of unemployment than the national average, and increased job and population growth. Much of the growth has been based on development of the Bakken oil fields in the western part of the state. Estimates as to the remaining amount of oil in the area vary, with some estimating over 100 years' worth.
For decades, North Dakota's annual murder and violent crime rates were regularly the lowest in the United States. In recent years, however, while still below the national average, crime has risen sharply. In 2016, the violent crime rate was three times higher than in 2004, with the rise occurring mostly in the late 2000s, coinciding with the oil boom era. This happened at a time when the national violent crime rate declined slightly. Workers in the oil boom towns have been blamed for much of the increase.
North Dakota is located in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. It lies at the center of the North American continent and borders Canada to the north. The geographic center of North America is near the town of Rugby. Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, and Fargo is the most populous city.
North Dakota is in the U.S. region known as the Great Plains. The state shares the Red River of the North with Minnesota to the east. South Dakota is to the south, Montana is to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are to the north. North Dakota is near the middle of North America with a stone marker in Rugby, North Dakota marking the "Geographic Center of the North American Continent". With an area of 70,762 square miles (183,273 km2), 69,001 square miles (178,712 km2) of which is land, North Dakota is the 19th largest state.
The western half of the state consists of the hilly Great Plains as well as the northern part of the Badlands, which are to the west of the Missouri River. The state's high point, White Butte at 3,506 feet (1,069 m), and Theodore Roosevelt National Park are in the Badlands. The region is abundant in fossil fuels including natural gas, crude oil and lignite coal.
The Missouri River forms Lake Sakakawea, the third largest artificial lake in the United States, behind the Garrison Dam.
The central region of N.D. is divided into the Drift Prairie and the Missouri Plateau. The eastern part of N.D. consists of the flat Red River Valley, the bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz. Its fertile soil, drained by the meandering Red River flowing northward into Lake Winnipeg, supports a large agriculture industry. Devils Lake, the largest natural lake in the state, is also found in the east.
Most of N.D. is covered in grassland; crops cover most of eastern North Dakota but become increasingly sparse in the center and farther west. Natural trees in North Dakota are found usually where there is good drainage, such as the ravines and valley near the Pembina Gorge and Killdeer Mountains, the Turtle Mountains, the hills around Devils Lake, in the dunes area of McHenry County in central North Dakota, and along the Sheyenne Valley slopes and the Sheyenne delta. This diverse terrain supports nearly 2,000 species of plants.
Soil is North Dakota's most precious resource. It is the base of the state's great agricultural wealth. North Dakota also has enormous mineral resources. These mineral resources include billions of tons of lignite coal. In addition, North Dakota has large oil reserves. Petroleum was discovered in the state in 1951 and quickly became one of North Dakota's most valuable mineral resources. In the early 2000s, the emergence of hydraulic fracturing technologies enabled mining companies to extract huge amounts of oil from the Bakken shale rock formation in the western part of the state.
North Dakota has a continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. The temperature differences are significant because of its far inland position and being roughly equal distance from the North Pole and the Equator.
On February 21, 1918, Granville, North Dakota experienced a record-breaking 83 °F (28 °C) temperature increase over a 12-hour period, from a low of −33 °F (−36 °C) to a high of 50 °F (10 °C). Another weather record set in Langdon in the winter of 1935–36, with the temperature staying below 0 °F (−18 °C) for 41 consecutive days, January 11 though February 20. This is a record for any location in the contiguous United States.
At the 2023 estimate, North Dakota's population was 783,926 on July 1, 2023, a 0.62% increase since the 2020 United States census. North Dakota is the fourth least-populous state in the country; only Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming have fewer residents.
Text from the Wikipedia article “North Dakota”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.