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 Forklift Masts Minnesota - Minnesota State is located in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota is the twelfth largest state within the union, and the twenty-first most densely inhabited state with 5.3 million inhabitants. The state, the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory was admitted to the Union on the 11th of May, the year 1858, as the thirty-second state. Called the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the state's name was derived from a Dakota word meaning "sky-tinted water." Those waters, together with wilderness areas, forests and parks, provide tourists and residents different outdoor recreational opportunities.
Nearly all of the inhabitants in the state, maybe as much as 60 percent Minnesotans live within the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. This area is referred to as the "Twin Cities," and is the hub for transportation, business, industry and education, and home to an internationally 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 populated North Woods, used for forestry, recreation and mining.
Once primarily a producer of raw materials, Minnesota's economy has transformed in the last 200 years to emphasize services and finished products. Perhaps the most significant characteristic of the economy is its diversity; the relative outputs of its business sectors closely match the United States as a whole. The economy of Minnesota State 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, including Target, United Health Group, 3M, Medtronic, General Mills, Ameriprise, U.S. Bancorp, Land O' Lakes, Hormel, Valspar, SuperValu and Best Buy. Private businesses based in Minnesota State consist of Carlson Companies, the parent company of Radisson Hotels and Cargill, the biggest privately owned business based within the United States.
The earliest businesses in the state of Minnesota were agriculture and fur trading. St. Anthony Falls helped to power the flour mills around Minneapolis City during its formative years. In the agricultural sector, less than 1% of the people is employed, as it still remains vital to Minnesota's economy. This sector ranks 6th in the US in the value of agricultural products sold. The state of Minnesota is the U.S.'s biggest producer of sweet corn, sugar beats, and green peas for processing, and farm-raised turkeys. Forestry remains strong, including pulpwood processing, logging and paper production, and forest products manufacturing. Minnesota was well-known for its soft-ore mines, which produced a large portion of the world's iron ore for over a century. Although the high-grade ore is presently depleted, taconite mining continues, using processes locally developed in order to save the industry. In 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 ore, coal, and agricultural products. The manufacturing sector presently consists of biomedical and technology companies along with the older heavy industry and food processors. The country's very first indoor shopping mall was Edina's Southdale Center and its Bloomington's Mall of America is its largest.
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