- The state of Minnesota is located in the Midwestern United States.
- Nearly sixty percent of Minnesota's residents live in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area known as the "Twin Cities", the center of transportation, business and industry, education and home to an internationally known arts community.
- Total Area: 12th among states, 225,181 sq km (86,943 sq mi).
- Because of its thousands of lakes, Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined.
- The large majority of residents are of German or Nordic descent, but ethnic diversity has increased in recent decades.
- During the winter of 1888, residents of St. Paul built an ice palace at the winter festival. Before melting, it was considered one of the largest buildings in the world, measuring 14 stories high and covering an acre of land.
- The word Minnesota comes from the Dakota name for the Minnesota River: Mnisota. The root mni (also spelled mini or minne) means, "water". Mnisota can be translated as sky-tinted water or somewhat clouded water.
- Minnesota claims homeland to the following inventions: Masking and Scotch tape, Wheaties, Bisquick, Aveda beauty products, the bundt pan, HMOs, Green Giant vegetables, and the Snickers candy bar.
- Minnesotan baseball commentator Halsey Hal was the first to say 'Holy Cow' during a baseball broadcast.
- Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water".
- Minnesota Inventions: Masking and Scotch tape, Wheaties cereal, Bisquick, HMOs, the bundt pan, Aveda beauty products, and Green Giant vegetables
- The Mall of America in Bloomington is over 9.5 million square feet in size.
- Minneapolis is home to the oldest continuously running theater (Old Log Theater) and the largest dinner theater (Chanhassan Dinner Theater) in the country.
- The first library to have a Children’s department was the Minneapolis Public Library in 1889.
- The Guthrie Theater is the largest regional playhouse in the country.
- Minnesota is home to the first automatic pop-up toaster, the first canned ham, Spam, Greyhound Lines (the first bus line), and Tonka Trucks.
- Minneapolis has more golfers per capita than any other city in the country.
- Minneapolis and Saint Paul became major cities partly thanks to French immigrant engineer Edmund La Croix, a resident of the area who perfected a device to purify white flour in the early 1870s.
- Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River, was discovered and named by Henry R. Schoolcraft in 1832.
Fast Minnesota facts
