Minnesota

Minnesota Forklift Parts - Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The 12th largest state of the United States, it is the 21st most crowded, with 5.3 million people. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the 32nd state on May 11, the year 1858. Called the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the state's name was derived from a Dakota word which means "sky-tinted water." Those waters, along with parks, wilderness areas and forests, provide residents and tourists different outdoor recreational opportunities.

Most of the residents in Minnesota State, maybe as much as 60 percent Minnesotans reside within the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. This area is called the "Twin Cities," and is the hub for business, industry and education, and home to a globally known arts community. The remainder of Minnesota State comprises western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and the less inhabited North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.

The Minnesota economy, that was once primarily a producer of raw materials, has been mostly transformed over the past 200 years to a main focus on services and finished products. Diversity is perhaps a vital characteristic of the economy, which the relative outputs of its business sectors closely match the rest of the country. Minnesota economy had a gross domestic product of $262 billion during the year 2008. 33 of the United States' top 1,000 publicly traded businesses, according to 2008 revenues, are headquartered in the state of Minnesota, like for instance United Health Group, Target, General Mills, 3M Medtronic, Ameriprise, U.S. Bancorp, Hormel, Land O' Lakes, Best Buy, Valspar and SuperValu. Private businesses based in Minnesota consist of Carlson Companies, the parent company of Radisson Hotels and Cargill, the biggest privately owned company based within the United States.

The earliest industries within the state were agriculture and fur trading. St. Anthony Falls helped to power the flour mills around the city of Minneapolis during its formative years. In the agricultural sector, less than 1% of the people is employed, as it still remains essential to the state's economy. This sector ranks 6th in the country in the value of agricultural products sold. The state is the U.S.'s largest producer of sweet corn, sugar beats, and green peas for processing, and farm-raised turkeys. Forestry remains strong, as well as pulpwood processing, logging and forest products manufacturing and paper production. Minnesota State was well-known for its soft-ore mines, that produced a large portion of the world's iron ore for over a century. Even though the high-grade ore is now depleted, taconite mining continues, making use of methods developed locally to save the industry. During the year 2004, Minnesota State produced 75 percent of the nation's usable iron ore. The mining boom created the port of Duluth which continues to be important for shipping coal, agricultural products and ore. The manufacturing sector presently comprises biomedical and technology companies along with the older food processors and heavy industry. The nation's first indoor shopping mall was Edina's Southdale Center and its biggest is Bloomington's Mall of America.