Minnesota
Minnesota is a US state in the Midwest, admitted to the Union in 1858. Its capital is Saint Paul, and it goes by the nickname "the North Star State". The USPS abbreviation is MN.
Its geographic centre sits at 46.28° N, 94.31° W, the reference point GEOPUNK measures your guesses against in the US state games.
- »Minnesota is called the Land of 10,000 Lakes but actually has around 11,800.
- »The Mississippi river rises here at Lake Itasca, shallow enough to wade across.
Minnesota touches four neighbours. Taking each direction from one centre to the other and measuring the boundary they share: Wisconsin southeast, 512 km, Iowa south, 422 km, North Dakota west, 361 km and South Dakota west, 296 km. The longest of those runs is with Wisconsin.
Saint Paul was originally called Pig's Eye, after a tavern keeper, until a priest built a chapel there and the name was changed.
218,067 km² (84,196 sq mi), 12th largest of 50 states by land area, almost exactly the size of Utah.
Set against the country archive, that puts it closest in size to Guyana.
Redesigned in 2024, replacing a seal-on-blue flag whose imagery had drawn objections for decades. The new design uses an eight-pointed star on a shape suggesting the state's outline.