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The Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol are aligned on the National Mall.

Nickname: Our Nation's Capital

Statehood: Washington, D.C., isn't a state or a city. It's a federal district that was formed in 1790.

Population (as of July 2015): 672,228

Capital: Washington, D.C., is a capital-of the United States of America!

Biggest City: There are no cities within Washington, D.C.

Abbreviation: DC

Bird: wood thrush

Flower: American beauty rose

In 1774 the First Continental Congress-a group of representatives from the colonies-needed a place to meet. The delegates first gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was essentially a capital city, as the capital is wherever the seat of government is. When the first U.S. president, George Washington, took office 1789, the capital was New York City.

But the 13 northern and southern states wanted a capital that would represent them equally-not too far north or too far south. (In those days, all the states were along the East Coast, from Georgia to New Hampshire.) So in 1790 Washington chose a spot in the middle, right between the states of Maryland and Virginia.

America's founders were concerned that people living in Washington, D.C., might unfairly influence Congress and therefore decided that those residents would not have representation in the House of Representatives or the Senate. Even today, D.C. residents don't have voting representatives in Congress. (But residents can vote in federal elections.)

The city was nearly destroyed during the War of 1812 against Great Britain. For a while the city's population remained small, but it suddenly expanded after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, when many newly freed slaves came to live there.

Today Washington, D.C., is a 68-square-mile federal district home to important government buildings, including the U.S. Capitol, where the Senate and the House of Representatives meet; the White House, where the president lives and works; and the Supreme Court Building, where many important court rulings are made. The city is also full of landmarks including the Washington Monument, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

You can probably guess that the "Washington" part of Washington, D.C., was named after the first president of the United States, George Washington. But what about the initials? They stand for District of Columbia, named after Christopher Columbus.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Washington, D.C., is bordered on the west by the Potomac River, which divides D.C. from Virginia. The Anacostia River runs through its east side.

D.C. also has several islands in the Potomac, such as Theodore Roosevelt Island, which has a number of walking trails and is often visited by locals. You can also check out Kingman Island, a man-made island in the Anacostia River, which is the site of a popular bluegrass festival each summer.

But if you're looking for a bit of wilderness in D.C., don't miss Rock Creek Park. About three square miles, the park has over 32 miles of hiking trails, horseback riding, and is home to deer, coyotes, raccoons, and foxes.

Though it's a bustling city, Washington, D.C., has lots of wildlife. Look for mammals such as Virginia opossums, groundhogs, brown bats, and flying squirrels. You might even spot the U.S. national bird: the bald eagle! Other birds include cardinals, great blue herons, and the official bird, the wood thrush. Look out for amphibians like bullfrogs, tree frogs, and toads, and several types of reptiles such as box turtles, garter snakes, and even venomous copperhead snakes. You'll also see native trees including maple, cherry, cedar, and oak, and lots of colorful flowers like columbine, bleeding hearts, sunflowers, geraniums, and bluebells.

-Many D.C. residents want the district to become its own state so they would have representation in Congress. If that ever happened, D.C. might be renamed "New Columbia." It might seem strange to drop the "Washington" out of the name but the first U.S. president never actually lived in the White House. The White House's first residents were President John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams.

-Bill Nye, Al Gore, and composer Duke Ellington were all born here and abolitionist Frederick Douglass lived in D.C. the last 17 years of his life. His house is now a National Historic Site open to the public.

-Even back in the days of the early U.S. presidents, D.C.'s wide boulevards reminded some visitors of another famous capital: Paris, the capital city of France. Makes sense- Pierre Charles L'Enfant was influenced by his native Paris when he designed Washington, D.C. Another European, James Smithson, gave Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution. At this group of 17 museums, you can see the Hope Diamond, the plane the Wright Brothers made history in, and Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

-Most of the Smithsonian museums line the National Mall, a nearly two-mile-long park that stretches from the Lincoln Memorial on the Potomac River to the steps of the U.S. Capitol. The park is filled with monuments, landmarks, and plenty of green space. The National Mall receives about 24 million visitors each year.

-D.C. is home to another cool institution: National Geographic! The National Geographic Society was founded in D.C. in 1888 and is still headquartered here. Come see us sometime!

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The big bridge over the New River Gorge was once the biggest arch bridge in the world.

After archaeologists discovered spear points used to hunt extinct species such as mastodons and mammoths, they realized that people have lived in what's now West Virginia at least 10,500 years. Many thousands of years after these ancient people lived, Native American tribes including the Cherokee, Iroquois, Manahoac, Meherrin, Monacan, Nottaway, Shawnee, Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Saponi populated the land.

After the British arrived in the 1600s, the area that now encompasses West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of North Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York was all called Virginia. In 1730, Virginia's British-controlled government offered a thousand acres free to each European family willing to move to the area that would become West Virginia. As a result, Native Americans' homelands were taken, and tribes began supporting the French in a land war against the British (often called the French and Indian War) from 1756 until 1763.

The British won that battle, so West Virginia was still part of Virginia during the Revolutionary War of 1775 to 1783. But at the beginning of the Civil War (1861-1865), West Virginia refused to secede (withdraw) from the Union along with the rest of the state. John Brown, an abolitionist-someone who wanted to abolish slavery-staged a famous raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Brown hoped weapons gained in the raid would be used in the fight against slavery, but his raid failed. West Virginia separated from Virginia in 1861, and two years later, it became its own state.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

West Virginia was originally going to be called "Kanawha," a name that honors a Native American tribe. However, even though the region separated from Virginia, officials still wanted that as part of its new name. (Virginia was named after a nickname of Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled in the late 1500s.)

West Virginia is called the Mountain State because it's the only state completely within the Appalachian Mountain region, and its average elevation is higher than any other state east of the Mississippi River!

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Some people think this state's shape looks like a leaping frog, with its nose in the southwestern corner. It's bordered by Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland in the north; Maryland and Virginia in the east; Virginia and Kentucky in the south; and Kentucky and Ohio in the west. Its wiggly western border is created by the Ohio River, while its winding eastern border is created by the Appalachian Mountains. It can be divided into two geographical regions.

The Appalachian Ridge and Valley Region includes the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains, which start in the northeast and run southwest. This region is known for its parallel ridges that were cut by streams, as well as canyons called "water gaps." Forests, caves, and high peaks dot this area, including the state's highest point, Spruce Knob.

The Allegheny Plateau spreads across the rest of the state, and has flat-topped hills and rounded peaks. Deep, stream-cut gorges and a wall of mountains called the Allegheny Front separates the state's two regions.

At least 70 kinds of mammals inhabit West Virginia, including Virginia big-eared bats, West Virginia northern flying squirrels, raccoons, skunks, and black bears, the state animal. Wild turkeys, ruffed grouse, barred owls, bald eagles, cerulean warblers, and ruby-throated hummingbirds are among the 300 species of birds that live in the state.

Cornsnakes, mountain earthsnakes, fence lizards, stinkpots (a kind of turtle), and five-lined skinks are some of the reptiles that slither and skitter through West Virginia. Amphibians such as tiny cricket frogs, mountain chorus frogs, Allegheny Mountain dusky salamanders, and West Virginia spring salamanders also live throughout the state.

Some of West Virginia's most common trees include hemlock, red spruce, cedar, ash, pitch pine, hickory, and cucumbertree, which has cucumber-shaped fruit. The state also has a large number of native wildflowers such as Virginia bluebells, Virginia buttonweed, Virginia potato (which has edible roots), and Virginia strawberry.

NATURAL RESOURCES

As the United States ' third most-forested state, West Virginia is known for its timber and protected woodlands. It's also famous for its salt: Wild buffalo and deer gathered to lick natural salt deposits, and Native Americans and colonists gathered salt to cure butter and preserve meats. Today salt deposits are still mined for rock salt, which is then used to create chemicals such as chlorine.

Coal, oil, and natural gas are also important to the state's economy.

-The New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville is the longest steel-arch bridge in the western hemisphere. Built in 1977, it turned a 40-minute mountain drive into a one-minute crossing. It's even pictured on the West Virginia quarter.

-Visitors to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park can learn about life in the 1800s, including old-timey trades such as dressmaking, blacksmithing, and dairy making. Tour guides in period dress hang out around the historical buildings and homes. Hiking trails take you to places such as the Point, where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet for a view of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia at the same time!

-Pedestrians and cyclists can follow the Wheeling Heritage Trail System along old, no longer used railway tracks for more than 13 miles.

-Wild onions called ramps are grown in West Virginia in spring. They're so popular that they have their own annual festival called the Feast of the Ramson!

-Author and civil rights activist Pearl S. Buck, Confederate general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and pilot Chuck Yeager (the first person to break the sound barrier in flight) were all born in West Virginia.

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Tourists in Colonial Williamsburg can walk through history.

Experts think the first people to live in what is now Virginia arrived as many as 18,000 years ago. Thousands of years later Native American tribes such as the Powhatan, Cherokee, Croatoan, and Tuscarora lived on the land.

In 1607, Jamestown-the first English colony in what would become the United States -was founded in Virginia. One of the Jamestown settlers, John Smith, was captured by the Powhatans. According to Smith, he was about to be killed when Pocahontas, the chief's daughter, threw herself in front of him to save his life. (Though historians think this story is unlikely to have happened.)

In 1776 another famous Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, wrote the Declaration of Independence. And in 1788, following the Revolutionary War, Virginia became the tenth U.S. state. But in 1861 Virginia seceded, or withdrew from the Union, what was then the United States. This came at the beginning of the Civil War, a conflict between southern states that wanted to pull out of the Union including Virginia and the states in the North. Virginia rejoined the Union in 1870, about five years after the Civil War ended.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Virginia was named after Queen Elizabeth I, who was called the Virgin Queen.

The area that's now Virginia was home to the first English colony in North America, and Virginia was thought of as one of England's dominions, or territory. That's why it's nicknamed the Old Dominion State.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Virginia is bordered by West Virginia and Maryland in the north; Maryland, Washington, D.C., and the Atlantic Ocean in the east; North Carolina and Tennessee in the south; and Kentucky and West Virginia in the west.

Travel the state from west to east, and you'll pass through five different geographical areas. Farthest west is the Appalachian Plateau, which is covered in forests, winding rivers, and flat-topped rock.

Continue east, and you'll cross the Appalachian Ridge and Valley, which is full of caverns, sinkholes, and natural bridges. It's also where you'll find Shenandoah National Park.

Farther east is the Blue Ridge, a steep part of the Appalachian Mountains with craggy peaks and deep ravines. It includes Virginia's highest peak, Mount Rogers.

Next is the Piedmont, a plain that spreads across most of central Virginia. The Piedmont leads to the Atlantic Coastal Plain, a lowland with swamps and salt marshes that stretches to the ocean.

Black bears, Virginia opossums, Virginia northern flying squirrels, and Appalachian cottontails are among the mammals you might see in this state. Bald eagles, golden eagles, and peregrine falcons soar over the area's mountains, while piping plovers and seagulls nest along the coast. Virginia's 28 species of frogs include green tree frogs, mountain chorus frogs, and southern leopard frogs. The poisonous northern copperhead, bright red northern scarletsnake, and eastern glass lizard (a legless lizard that looks like a snake) are some of the reptiles that live in the state.

The state's tree varieties include hickory, oak, maple, pine, and magnolia. Here, you can also see a dwarf pawpaw-a tree with fruit that tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. Look for native flowers such as wild columbine, purple milkweed, wild geraniums, and coneflowers.

NATURAL RESOURCES

One of Virginia's top natural resources is its forests, which cover 62 percent of the state. Virginia profits by selling timber, which generates about $17 billion each year. The region is also known for mining coal.

-Eight U.S. presidents were born in Virginia: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson.

-These presidents' homes are open to visitors, including Washington's home, Mount Vernon; Jefferson's home, Monticello; Madison's home, Montpelier; Monroe's home, Highland; Harrison's birthplace, Berkeley Plantation; and Tyler's home, Sherwood Forest Plantation.

-Many words we use today came from Virginia's Native American languages. Raccoon, moccasin, hickory, moose, skunk, and chipmunk are a few such words.

-Actors recreate life in Colonial Williamsburg, a working 18th-century village where blacksmiths work, colonial meals are served, and more. Many of the buildings here are the originals from the 1700s.

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The Green Mountains extend 250 miles.

Archaeologists think people have lived in the land we now call Vermont for about 13,000 years. Native American tribes including the Abenaki, the Mohican, the Pennacook, the Pocomtuc, and the Massachusett, have lived on the land; and members of the Abenaki tribe still live in Vermont today.

In 1609 French explorer Samuel de Champlain claimed part of the region for France. Then in 1724 the British built the first permanent European settlement and claimed the area for themselves. War broke out in 1754 between the two European powers for nine years, until Britain emerged victorious. Great Britain's King George III folded the area into a part of New York, but in 1777, a year after the Declaration of Independence was signed, Vermont declared its own independence ... from New York. Although Vermont had at first fought for the American cause in the Revolutionary War, the Green Mountain State remained separate from the United States for 14 years-meaning it had its own currency, postal service, constitution, and president-until it became the 14th state in 1791.

During the Civil War (1861-1865), Vermont would fight on the side of the Union.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Vermont's name comes from two French words: vert, which means "green," and mont, which means "mountain."

The nickname honors the Green Mountain Boys, an army first created to protect Vermont's land from New York, and which was later reconstituted to serve in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Spanish American War.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Vermont is one of the six New England states (states whose first European settlers were Puritans from England). It's bordered by Canada in the north, New Hampshire in the east, Massachusetts in the south, and New York in the west. Much of the state is covered in mountains and forests.

In the center of the state, the most famous range is the Green Mountains. Formed over 400 million years ago, the rocks are thought to be some of the oldest in the world. This range includes the state's highest point, Mount Mansfield.

The rugged Northeast Highlands in the, well, northeastern part of the state and known for granite peaks divided by streams. Running north to south in the eastern part of the state, the Vermont Piedmont is the biggest geographic region. This hilly area includes the fertile Connecticut River Valley. Lots of lakes dot the Piedmont in the north.

The Taconic Mountains rise in southwestern Vermont, with high peaks, streams, and lakes. The Vermont Valley is a narrow area in the western part of the state, between the Taconic and the Green Mountains. It's known for its rivers and valleys.

The Champlain Valley, also called the Vermont Lowland, is on the edge of Lake Champlain. In the summer, breezes that blow off the lake make the air in the fertile farming area cooler; in winter, the lake absorbs heat and warms the region.

Black bears, moose, white-tailed deer, red foxes, fishers, and martens are among Vermont's mammals. Barred owls, ospreys, peregrine falcons, ruffed grouse, American robins, and eastern bluebirds are a few of Vermont's winged residents.

Vermont's reptiles include snapping turtles, common five-lined skinks, and red-bellied snakes, while Jefferson salamanders, American bullfrogs, and mudpuppies (a kind of salamander) are some of the amphibians that hop and skitter throughout the state.

Vermont's famous maple syrup is made from sap from the sugar maple, the state tree. Other common trees include yellow birch, pine, spruce, and cedar. The Green Mountain State is also known for its wildflowers, including wild bleeding heart, bulbous buttercup, pink fairies, and sweet white violet.

NATURAL RESOURCES

About 78 percent of Vermont's land is forest, which provides about 1.5 billion dollars' worth of revenue for the state each year. Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the United States, turning out almost two million gallons a year-that's enough to fill about 40,000 bathtubs!

Vermont is also known for mining granite, marble, and slate-the official state rocks.

-President Calvin Coolidge, Mormon leader Brigham Young, and inventor and farm equipment leader John Deere were all born in Vermont.

-Visitors to Vermont can taste maple sugar candy, maple lollipops, even maple ice cream.

-The hiking trails and gardens of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park inspires conservation and teaches history. Beside the park is the Billings Farm and Museum, a working dairy farm that has an 1890 farmhouse, Jersey dairy cows, draft horses, and sheep. It even offers cheese tastings!

-The Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory is in Waterbury, and it's open for tours and tastings.

-Legend has it a lake monster named Champ lives in Lake Champlain, which sits on the border of Vermont and New York.

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Zion National Park covers over 200 square miles in Utah.

Archaeologists know that people have lived in the land now called Utah for more than 12,000 years, thanks to a recently discovered Ice Age campsite. There, experts found a spear point used to hunt mammoths, as well as bones from waterfowl that prehistoric people probably cooked.

Native American tribes formed over thousands of years, including the Navajo, Goshute, Ute, Paiute, Bannock, and Shoshone. Their descendants still live in the state today.

The first Spanish explorers reached the land around 1776. But soon, in 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain and claimed parts of the area for itself. But that didn't last, either. In 1848, the United States won the Mexican-American War, and as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded (gave up) Utah to the United States. In 1896 Utah became the 45th state.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Experts don't agree on Utah's name. Some say it comes from the Spanish nickname for the Ute Native American tribe, Yuta. But others say the name could come from the Ute word yutas, which is said to mean "the people," or "people of the mountains."

Utah is nicknamed the Beehive State because the early pioneers considered themselves as hardworking as bees. The name is thought to have been coined by people of the Mormon faith, who came to Utah in 1847 seeking religious freedom.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

This western state is bordered by Idaho and Wyoming in the north, Colorado in the east, Arizona in the south, and Nevada in the west. Its southeastern corner touches Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Called "Four Corners," it's the only place in the country where four states come together!

Utah has three major geographic areas: the Rocky Mountains, the Basin and Ridge Region, and the Colorado Plateau.

The Rocky Mountains region runs from northeastern Utah through the center of the state. It includes the 13,528-foot Kings Peak, Utah's highest point.

The Colorado Plateau spreads across the southern third of Utah. It might sound like it's totally flat, but mountains, canyons, and valleys dot the region. Monument Valley's red mesas and rock spires have appeared in many western movies, and Zion National Park's Zion Canyon is another red rock hot spot. Bryce Canyon is known for its "hoodoos," rock pillars that look like crazy man-made statues but were naturally formed by erosion.

The Basin and Ridge Region crosses western Utah and includes mountains and salt flats. Here is where you'll find the Great Salt Lake, which is even saltier than the ocean!

The Rocky Mountain elk is the state animal, common in Utah's mountains. Desert bighorn sheep, mountain lions, white-tailed jackrabbits, piute ground squirrels, and Hopi chipmunks are also among Utah's mammals.

Some birds that fly through the state include red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, golden eagles, red-winged blackbirds, and green-tailed towhees.

Side-blotched lizards, Utah mountain kingsnakes, and desert tortoises are among the state's reptiles, and Great Plains toads and Arizona tiger salamanders are two of the amphibians that hop and slither through Utah.

Utah's state tree is the quaking aspen, which is found in all 29 counties in Utah. Utah juniper, canyon maple, pinyon pines, and Joshua trees are also among Utah's common foliage.

The sego lily is the state flower. Its bulbs were used as food by early settlers. Other wildflowers include Utah honeysuckle, Utah serviceberry, and smallflower woodland-star, which looks like a snowflake.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Manmade ponds in Moab, Utah, produce potassium chloride, which is used in fertilizer, medicines, and foods. The state also mines uintaite (also called gilsonite), a shiny black rock used in making cement, asphalt, and paint. Copper is the state mineral, and Utah contains one of the world's largest open-pit copper mines. It's so deep that two 1,454-foot Willis Towers (the second-tallest tower in the United States) could fit stacked inside it!

Rock hounds can visit Utah for its semi-precious stones including rare red beryl, the purple bertrandite, and topaz, the state gem.

-Infamous outlaw Butch Cassidy, hotel chain founder J.W. Marriott, and early television inventor Philo T. Farnsworth were all born in Utah.

-The Sundance Film Festival, an annual independent film festival is held in Park City, Utah.

-Visitors to Utah State University can taste ice cream made only here: blue mint with Oreos and white chocolate chips. Staff and students in the school's food science program might have invented it!

-A top spot for seeing Utah's famous red rocks is the 200-million-year-old natural "staircase" called Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Another show-stopping rock formation is "the Wave" on the Arizona border. The striped layers of hardened, windblown sand sweep into giant curves that look like waves.

-Utah's license plate claims the state has the "greatest snow on Earth" because the snow falls light and dry on the mountains.

-Utah is home to Fishlake National Forest.

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The Alamo in San Antonio is the site of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo.

People first came to the area that is now Texas at least 16,700 years ago. Thousands of years later Native American tribes, including the Akokisa, Karankawa, Mogollon, and Comanche, lived on the land.

Spanish settlers promoting Christianity, called missionaries, were some of the first Europeans to live in what is now Texas. In 1821 Mexico took control of the land, eventually calling the area Coahuila y Tejas. But in 1835 settlers living in this province-often just called Texas-rebelled, beginning the Texas Revolution. The rebels suffered a terrible defeat by the Mexican army at the 1836 battle at the Alamo, a mission in San Antonio. But the loss only inspired the settlers to fight on. With a cry of "Remember the Alamo!" many joined the rebel army, and soon Mexico gave up.

Texas became an independent nation called the Republic of Texas in 1836. But fending off hostile tribes and Mexican troops was difficult for a small country, and Texas joined the United States in 1845. In 1861 Texas left the Union and rejoined after the Civil War ended in 1870.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

It's said that the Caddo tribe greeted Spanish settlers by saying Tay-yas, which means "friends"-and sounds like "Texas."

Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State because in 1836, when the Republic of Texas declared itself an independent nation, it flew a flag with a single star on it.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Texas is bordered by New Mexico in the northwest; Oklahoma in the north and northeast; Arkansas, Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico in the east; and Mexico in the southwest.

The hilly southern and eastern part of the state is called the Gulf Coastal Plains. It includes the Pine Belt, where most of Texas' commercial timber grows. The Interior Lowlands cover the northeast and have some of the state's biggest ranches. The Great Plains stretch across the north and west parts of the state, and extend all the way to Canada. Far west is the Basin and Range Province, Texas' only mountainous region. It's bordered on the south by the Rio Grande, the river that marks the boundary between the United States and Mexico.

In Texas you might spot black bears, armadillos, coyotes, cougars, endangered cats called jaguarundis, tiger salamanders, and leopard frogs. And don't miss the birds! Texas has more species of birds than any other state, including screech owls and hummingbirds. Plant life includes trees such as pinyon pines, Texas mesquite, and cottonwood, plus a wide range of cacti.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Though you might have heard of Texas' oil rigs-hundreds of them pump beneath the earth-the state is also famous for another natural resource: cattle. Texas has about 12 million cattle, more than any other state in the country. Texas also produces wool and cotton, and has one of the largest wind-power-producing farms in the world with more than 100,000 acres of wind turbines. At one point the turbines provided 45 percent of the state's electricity needs.

- Juneteenth, the federal holiday that celebrates freedom for enslaved people, started in Texas.

-Frontiersman and politician Davy Crockett moved to Texas around 1835 and died while fighting at the Alamo. Two U.S. presidents were born in Texas: Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson. Houston's Johnson Space Center, also known as Mission Control, carries President Johnson's name.

-Because it's so close to Mexico, Texans have developed a cuisine that's a mix of Mexican food and American cooking called Tex-Mex.

-Want to feel like a cowboy? Visit one of Texas's thousands of ranches and rodeos.

-Six flags have flown over Texas: British, French, Mexican, Texan, United States, and Confederate. That's how Six Flags amusement park got its name!

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Mount Rushmore impresses visitors to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

People arrived in what is now South Dakota at least 13,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, Native American tribes such as the Cheyenne, Arikara, Ponca, Lakota, and Dakota Sioux lived on the land. Today nine Native American tribes still reside in South Dakota.

The first Europeans in the area were the Vérendrye brothers, who claimed it for France in 1743. In 1803 the land was sold to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase, which included about 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. In 1804, famous explorers Lewis and Clark traveled through the newly acquired region on their way to the Pacific Ocean, as they surveyed the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. The Dakota Territory, which originally also included what's now North Dakota, was made into two states in 1889.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Dakota is a Native American Sioux word that means roughly "friendly" or "allies."

The state's nickname comes from Mount Rushmore, an enormous sculpture of the faces of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt carved into the Black Hills. The presidents' faces are roughly 60 feet tall!

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

South Dakota is bordered by North Dakota in the north, Minnesota and Iowa in the east, Nebraska in the south, and Wyoming and Montana in the west.

The Missouri River runs north to south through the middle of the state. East of the river is the Drift Prairie, an area with lakes, low hills, and fertile farmland. The state's southeastern corner is called the Dissected Till Plains, filled with streams and hills.

The western two-thirds of the state are the Great Plains, with canyons and flat-topped hills called buttes. It's also home to the Badlands, one of the richest fossil beds on Earth where explorers have found remains of saber-toothed cats, three-toed horses, and marine animals from an ancient sea.

The Black Hills in the southwest is a range of mountains that includes the 7,242-foot Black Elk Peak, the state's highest point. This area is sacred to the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Omaha tribes.

Buffalo, deer, antelope, elk, porcupines, jackrabbits, and prairie dogs call South Dakota home. Golden and bald eagles, ring-necked pheasants, and burrowing owls soar above. Tiger salamanders and softshell turtles, whose shells are covered by a flexible skin, swim in rivers and streams.

Common trees include ponderosa pines, weeping willows, and Black Hills spruce (the state tree), and three-foot-tall grasses tower in the plains. Wildflowers bloom across the state, as do thistles, wild roses, daisy-like Indian blanketflowers, and wild geraniums.

NATURAL RESOURCES

South Dakota's number one industry is agriculture, thanks to its fertile soil. Common crops include corn, wheat, soybeans, and sunflowers, which are grown for their seeds.

Mining is also important in South Dakota. Until 2001 the state was one of the country's top spots for gold, but today construction materials such as limestone, granite, sand, and gravel are among its most-mined resources.

-Nearly three million people visit Mount Rushmore each year.

-Famous folks who lived in South Dakota include newscaster Tom Brokaw, Sioux Indian chief Crazy Horse, author Laura Ingalls Wilder, Calamity Jane, and Dakota Indian chief Sitting Bull.

-Started in 1948, the Crazy Horse Memorial is still being carved today in the Black Hills. When finished, the statue will be 563 feet high, almost twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty!

-Drive a covered wagon, make a corncob doll, and spend a day living the pioneer life at Laura Ingalls Wilder's historic homestead in De Smet, South Dakota.

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GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Shaped roughly like a triangle, South Carolina is bordered by North Carolina in the north, the Atlantic Ocean in the east, and Georgia in the south and west. The state can be divided into three regions.

The Blue Ridge Mountain Province stretches across northwestern South Carolina. Its forested peaks include the state's highest point, Sassafras Mountain.

The Piedmont Province stretches southeastward from the mountains to the midlands of the state, covering about a third of the state. Its hills rise higher toward the west. Along its eastern edge are the Sandhills, which are topped with coarse sand that scientists believe was created by ancient oceans.

The Atlantic Coastal Plain covers the remaining two-thirds of the state, extending west from the ocean, where the land is generally flat and includes rivers and swamps. The coastline also features sandy beaches such as Myrtle Beach. Farther inland are fertile hills. The central part of the plain contains the forested Pine Barrens.

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Archaeologists don't agree on when the first humans came to the area we now call Pennsylvania, but they've found artifacts that are at least 19,400 years old. Native American tribes including the Lenape, Susquehannocks, Erie, Seneca, and Oneida, lived on the land that's now Pennsylvania thousands of years later.

In 1681 Englishman William Penn, a member of a Christian group called the Quakers, founded the British colony of Pennsylvania. Because Penn's colony offered settlers religious freedom, it attracted people of other denominations. A wave of German immigrants including Quakers, Mennonites, and Amish moved to the area. These settlers eventually developed their own dialect and their descendants are now called the Pennsylvania Dutch.

The French and English fought for control of the land during the French and Indian War, which lasted from 1754 to 1763. The English won but ended up in debt from fighting. To make back the money, they taxed the colonists-something many people didn't think was fair. Anger over this action helped lead to the Revolutionary War, which started in 1775.

In 1775 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, held the second Continental Congress. This was when representatives from each of the colonies met for the second time after deciding to go to war with Britain. And it was during this time that Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. That same year George Washington led the colonial forces known as the Continental Army across the Delaware River-and to an important victory-in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In 1787, after the war ended, Pennsylvania became the second U.S. state.

Pennsylvania supported the Union during the Civil War. One of the most important battles took place at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1863. The Union won the battle, marking a turning point toward eventual victory in the war.

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GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Oregon is bordered by Washington in the north, Idaho in the east, Nevada and California in the south, and the Pacific Ocean in the west. The land can be divided into six areas of lowlands, plateaus, and mountains.

The Columbia Plateau is Oregon's largest geographical region, and it fills almost the entire eastern half of the state. Hells Canyon, the deepest river gorge in North America, is here. The canyon is on average 5,500 feet deep-nearly five stacked Eiffel Towers could fit inside!

South of the Columbia Plateau is the Basin and Range Region, which is mostly semi-arid and contains a few steep mountains.

Running north to south through the state are the Cascade Mountains, an area of major highs and lows. These include Mount Hood, Oregon's highest point at 11,245 feet, and Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States at a depth of 1,943 feet.

The Willamette Lowland is a narrow, fertile area in the northwest.

The Coast Range in the west has low, forested mountains, small lakes, and cliffs that follow the Pacific coast.

The Klamath Mountains-a rugged, forested area-cross Oregon's southwest corner. Here you'll find Oregon Caves National Monument.

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GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Oklahoma is bordered by Colorado and Kansas in the north, Missouri and Arkansas in the east, and Texas in the south, and New Mexico in the west.

The state can be divided into 10 different geographic regions. The Ozark Plateau is in the northeast. It includes a bit of the Ozark mountain range, which has ridges, steep valleys, caves, and sinkholes.

In the northeast is the Prairie Plains, fertile farmlands where animals graze.

In the southeast is the Ouachita Mountains region, which includes Ouachita National Forest (part of this forest is also in Arkansas.)

East-central Oklahoma contains the Sandstone Hills region that has low, rocky hills.

In south-central Oklahoma, the Arbuckle Mountains are one of North America's oldest ranges, at 1.3 billion years old. They've been heavily eroded, or worn down.

Travel southwest to reach the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, the state's biggest wildlife refuge.

The Red River Valley runs along Oklahoma's border with Texas. In addition to the Red River, which forms the wiggly boundary between the two states, this area has sandy, fertile soil and some forests.

In the center of the state is Oklahoma's largest land region, the Red Beds Plains, with gentle hills made of red sandstone and shale.

Farther west are the Gypsum Hills, low hills capped with up to 20 feet of sparkling gypsum, a soft mineral.

The High Plains are flat grasslands in the northwest. They include the Oklahoma panhandle, the 34-mile-wide strip that stretches west beneath Colorado. This is the highest and driest part of the state.

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Theodore Roosevelt first came to the North Dakota territory to hunt buffalo but quickly fell in love with the land.

Experts aren't sure when people arrived in the land that is now North Dakota, but archaeologists have found 10,000-year-old artifacts from hunters in the area.

Native American tribes such as the Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, and Dakota Sioux have lived in the area, and about 30,000 Native Americans from several different tribes still call North Dakota home.

France controlled the area after an explorer named Pierre Gaultier La Vérendrye became the first European to arrive, in 1738. Later Spain and then England took over. In 1803 the land was acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. For a long time the region was called the Dakota territory, and included both North and South Dakota. Railroads were built in the late 1800s, bringing American settlers with them, and North Dakota was declared its own state in 1889.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Dakota is a Native American Sioux word that roughly means "friend" or "ally."

The International Peace Garden, which stands on the border between North Dakota and Canada, represents a 1932 pledge by the United States and Canada to never go to war with one another.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

North Dakota is bordered by Canada in the north, Minnesota in the east, South Dakota in the south, and Montana in the west. Elevation rises from east to west as the Rocky Mountains appear.

The Red River Valley in the east is a flat area that was once the floor of an ancient lake. It follows the Red River, which creates the state's wiggly border with Minnesota. The mineral-rich soil here makes it one of the world's most fertile areas, which is packed with farms.

Heading west, the Drift Prairie region is dotted with hills, valleys, lakes and wetlands.

West of the Drift Prairie is the Missouri Plateau, the state's highest region. It includes the Badlands, a harsh stone valley that wind and water have sculpted into pyramids, domes, and buttes (steep, flat-topped hills). The Badlands contain North Dakota's highest point, 3,506-foot White Butte. But North Dakota was once underwater and it bears the fossils of ancient sea creatures including swimming reptiles called mosasurs, clams, and other fish.

North Dakota's wide-open land is home to mammals such as bison, bighorn sheep, moose, and pronghorns, plus bobcats, eastern spotted skunks, arctic shrews, and muskrats. Bald eagles, prairie falcons, and American kestrels hunt overhead while red-headed woodpeckers knock their beaks into trees. Amphibians such as tiger salamanders scurry about, and bizarre reptiles like the softshell turtle and smooth green snake keep things interesting: The softshell turtle has a skin-covered shell, and the green snake's mouth appears to be smiling!

Ash, elm, pine trees, and willows dot the landscape, and colorful flowers such as black-eyed Susans, oxeye daisies, Queen Anne's lace, and white violets decorate the fields.

NATURAL RESOURCES

North Dakota contains the world's biggest deposit of lignite, a type of soft, brown coal. It's been mined since 1873, with enough to last for about another 800 years. The state is also rich in petroleum, oil, and gas.

-Inside the Peace Chapel at the International Peace Garden, you can walk from the United States to Canada and back!

-President Theodore Roosevelt was once a cattle rancher in North Dakota. Open for tours, his log cabin home is part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

-Stand beside the world's largest (fake) buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota. Called "Dakota Thunder," the statue stands 26 feet tall-taller than a two-story house!

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-The pirate Blackbeard called North Carolina home, and spent time ransacking ships off the coast in the early 1700s. In 1799 a shiny nugget twinkled in Little Meadow Creek, North Carolina and became the first gold discovered in what is now the United States.

-Fast forward about a century to see brother inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright complete the first successful airplane ride in the dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903. (That's why the state's license plates and quarters read "First in Flight" and "First Flight," respectively.)

-Plenty of famous folks were born in North Carolina, too, including jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, President James K. Polk, and maybe President Andrew Jackson (he was born on the border of North and South Carolina).

-You might want to visit the Outer Banks, a group of islands with beaches, state parks, and shipwreck-diving sites. One of those islands, Roanoke Island, was home to the first colony of English settlers in the New World. In the late 1500s the settlers disappeared, and historians are still trying to solve the mystery of the Lost Colony.

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<p>The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, arrived to the U.S. in 214 crates. It was assembled and then unveiled in New York Harbor in 1886.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

Native Americans came to the area now called New York about 5,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, their descendants included Native American tribes such as the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca.

In 1624 the Dutch established a colony on what's now Manhattan Island called New Amsterdam. It was renamed New York once the British took control of the area in 1664.

But after the American Revolution in 1776, New York became a U.S. colony, then a state in 1788. One year later, George Washington was sworn in as the United States' first president in New York City, then the country's capital. (It would move to Washington, D.C., the next year, in 1790.)

On September 11, 2001, hijackers flew planes into the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center; the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C.; and a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Learn more about the history-making attack and meet some of the heroes who helped save lives that day.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

New York was named after the British Duke of York. Many experts believe it's nicknamed the Empire State because George Washington called New York "the seat of the Empire."

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

New York is bordered by Canada and Lake Ontario in the north; Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Atlantic Ocean in the south; Lake Erie in the west; and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont in the east.

The St. Lawrence-Champlain Lowland runs along the edge of the Adirondack Mountains and the Canadian border. In this hilly area, you can see Lake Champlain and Thousand Islands, a collection of small islands that sit between New York and Canada.

The Adirondack Upland, known for the Appalachian Mountains and its forests, waterfalls, and lakes includes New York's highest peak, Mount Marcy. The Hudson-Mohawk Lowland contains much of the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, and the Allegheny Plateau, stretching from Lake Erie along the border with Pennsylvania, includes the 11 Finger Lakes and the forested Catskill Mountains.

The Erie-Ontario Lowland is a plain dotted with oval-shaped mounds called drumlins. It reaches the shores of two Great Lakes: Erie and Ontario. Stretching out toward the ocean is the Atlantic Coastal Plain. It includes the sandy beaches and bays of Staten Island and Long Island.

New York is home to large mammals such as black bears, bobcats, and moose, plus smaller mammals like weasels, raccoons, and skunks. Golden eagles, peregrine falcons, and wild turkeys are common birds, as well as blue jays, cardinals, and woodpeckers. Reptiles include snapping turtles, diamondback terrapins, and queen snakes. Also be on the lookout for amphibians such as the eastern hellbender, a 30-inch-long salamander.

You're likely to see oaks, pines, and sugar maples, the state tree. Flowers like azaleas, rhododendrons, and New England asters are all common.

NATURAL RESOURCES

New York is known for supplying construction materials such as limestone, salt, sand, and gravel. It's also one of the top states for garnets, though they're used for industrial purposes instead of jewelry. And New York is the only state that mines wollastonite, used for manufacturing ceramics and paints.

-Hear the roar of 750,000 gallons of water crashing down every second over Niagara Falls, which borders New York and Canada. You can even sail close enough to get soaked on a boat tour.

-New York City is the most populous city in the United States, with around 8.5 million residents. You can look down from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, climb 377 steps to the Statue of Liberty's crown, and tour Ellis Island, where over 12 million immigrants entered the United States between 1892 and 1924.

-Famous New York residents include U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.

-New York is the only state that borders both the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.

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GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

New Mexico is bordered by Colorado in the north, Oklahoma and Texas in the east, Mexico in the south, and Arizona in the west. Its northwest corner touches Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, creating the only spot where four states meet.

The state can be divided into three regions. Sweeping across the east, the Great Plains region contains a high plateau with deep canyons. The area also features Carlsbad Caverns, which has more than 119 caves to explore.

The Rocky Mountain region is in the northern part of the state, and it has New Mexico's highest point: Wheeler Peak.

In the central-southwest is the Basin and Range region. A river called the Rio Grande runs through the center of this area, which is known for its mountainous ridges, flat deserts, and White Sands National Monument. That's the world's largest field of sand dunes made of the mineral gypsum.

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As you wander along some Cape May beaches, you might be lucky enough to find quartz pebbles called&nbsp;Cape May diamonds.

The first people came to the area that's now New Jersey at least 12,000 years ago. Thousands of years later, Native American tribes including the Lenape, Munsee (or Minsi), and Unalachtigo lived on the land.

Around 1524 Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano became the first European to arrive in the region. Then Swedish, Finnish, and Dutch colonists built settlements and fought over land until England took control of the region in 1664. New Jersey became one of 13 American colonies ruled by the British.

But eventually the colonists living here wanted independence. This led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775. New Jersey was the site of more Revolutionary War battles than any other state. In 1776 George Washington crossed of the Delaware River into Trenton, New Jersey, where he defeated British forces. The battle was a turning point in the war, as one of the first major military victories in the Revolutionary War. In 1787 New Jersey became the third U.S. state and the first to sign the Bill of Rights.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

The state was named in honor of British colonist George Carteret, who'd previously been governor of the Isle of Jersey, a British island in the English Channel, between the United Kingdom and France.

New Jersey was nicknamed the Garden State in 1876, because of the huge amount of food grown there during that time.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

New Jersey is bordered by Pennsylvania and New York in the north, Pennsylvania in the west, Delaware and Delaware Bay in the south, the Atlantic Ocean in west, and Long Island (a part of New York) in the east. It can be divided into four different geographical regions.

The Atlantic Coastal Plain, which features low hills, pine forests, and salt marshes, sweeps across the southern three-fifths of the state. This area includes the Barrier Islands, which have sandy beaches.

Northeast of the Coastal Plain is the 20-mile-wide Piedmont, where the Hudson, Passaic, Remapo, and Raritan rivers cross. This region has rolling hills and narrow valleys, and it's where most of the state's major cities are located.

Toward the west is the New England Upland, also called the Highlands. This area has flat-topped rock ridges and many lakes.

The Appalachian Ridge and Valley is a mountainous region in New Jersey's northwest corner. It includes the Kittatinny Mountains and the Delaware Water Gap, an opening created when the Delaware River cut through the Appalachian mountains millions of years ago.

New Jersey's mammals include black bears, bobcats, red foxes, raccoons, and Tuckahoe masked shrews, which are similar to moles. Red-bellied woodpeckers, chickadees, northern cardinals, and American goldfinches (the state bird) are common birds here. The state is home to reptiles such as spotted turtles, five-lined skinks, and coastal plain milk snakes. Marbled salamanders, red-spotted newts, and New Jersey chorus frogs are among its amphibians.

The state's many trees include sugar maple, American chestnut, flowering dogwood, pitch pine, and American elm. Black-eyed Susans, orange daylilies, Queen Anne's lace, and violets (the state flower) are some of the wildflowers that grow here.

NATURAL RESOURCES

New Jersey has plenty of granite, sand, and gravel for mining; and is a leader in seafood production, particularly clams harvested off the coast.

-New Jersey's celebrities include U.S. president Grover Cleveland (the only President born in New Jersey), astronaut Buzz Aldrin, author Judy Blume, and performer Frank Sinatra.

-Inventor Thomas Edison's early light bulbs, phonographs, and laboratory equipment are on display at Menlo Park Museum in the town where Edison worked.

-At Washington Crossing State Park in Trenton, visitors can see where George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware River and launched a successful attack on the Hessians (soldiers fighting for the British army).

-In the 19th century southern New Jersey remained largely agricultural, while the northern part of the state rapidly industrialized.

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Lake Tahoe is a beautiful freshwater lake high in the Sierra Nevada mountains between California and Nevada.

Experts aren't exactly sure when people first came to the area now called Nevada, but they have found petroglyphs (rock carvings) up to 14,800 years old there. Starting thousands of years ago Native American tribes, including the Northern and Southern Paiute, Washoe, and Western Shoshone lived on the land.

The area was claimed by Spain in 1519, but once Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, the land became part of Mexico. Then in 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War, the United States took over the area.

In 1859 gold and silver were found in the region, and thousands of settlers rushed there in hopes of getting rich. Nevada became a state in 1864.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Nevada's name comes from the Spanish word nieve, which roughly means "snow-capped." The state's name refers to the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

It's nicknamed the Silver State in honor of a major silver deposit that attracted settlers and strengthened the area's economy.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Nevada is bordered by Oregon and Idaho in the north, Utah and Arizona in the east, and California in the west, and California and Arizona in the south. It's the most mountainous state in the United States and also the driest.

The state's land can be divided into three different regions. The Columbia Plateau formed over hardened lava in Nevada's northeastern corner. Its high ridges and deep canyons were carved as water slowly eroded the land over thousands of years.

The steep Sierra Nevada mountain range crosses part of southern Nevada. In one of its valleys along the California border, you'll find Lake Tahoe, North America's largest alpine lake.

The remainder of the state is covered by the Basin and Range Region, an area of more than 150 mountain ranges, plus many buttes (flat-topped hills), hot springs, and geysers. The region is also home to the state's highest point, Boundary Peak, which rises up about 13,140 feet. Also in this region, in the southern part of the state, the low Mojave Desert crosses the California border into Nevada.

Nine types of squirrels, antelope, desert bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain goats, and black bears are some of Nevada's many mammals. Chuckwallas (a type of lizard), desert tortoises, banded gila monsters, and western diamondback rattlesnakes are among the reptiles that live here. Look up to spot a peregrine falcon, bald eagle, or mountain bluebird, the state bird. Nevada's amphibians include Great Plains toads and Columbia spotted frogs.

Pinyon pine, Utah juniper, mesquite, and Great Basin bristlecone pine are trees that grow in the state. Flowering plants such as sagebrush (the state flower), tar-scented creosote bush, Indian blanketflower, and blooming cacti such as beavertail prickly pear also grow in Nevada.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Nevada produces about three-quarters of all of the gold mined in the United States. Its underground treasures also include silver, copper, and some of the world's best black opals.

-Famous folks from Nevada include tennis pro Andre Agassi and Patricia Ryan Nixon, former first lady of the United States.

-Hidden Cave, discovered in the 1920s, was filled with thousands of artifacts such as arrowheads and other tools that ancient peoples may have stored there for safekeeping.

-Las Vegas is the state's largest city, and it gets more than 42 million visitors a year. Here tourists can find the Stratosphere, the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States. It's over a thousand feet tall, and brave visitors can bungee jump off it!

-So many people claim to have seen extraterrestrials along the 98-mile (158-km) stretch of State Route 375 that the state transportation board named it Extraterrestrial Highway in 1996.

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Meramec Caverns is a system of caves in the Ozarks near Stanton, Missouri.

People may have lived in the land now called Missouri for as many as 20,000 years. Many centuries later Native American tribes, including the Chickasaw, Illini, Missouri, and Osage, lived on the land.

In 1682 a huge swath of land called the Louisiana Territory, which included the land that would become Missouri, was claimed by France. Spain took control of it eighty years later, but that wouldn't last long: Spain returned the territory to France in 1800. In 1803 the United States bought the land when they signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. A year later American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from the city of St. Louis to explore and map this vast land. In 1821 Missouri became its own state.

Missouri would become home to a historic lawsuit in 1846 when Dred Scott, a slave, sued for his freedom and lost in 1857. It was one of the events that would lead to the Civil War, which was fought between states that wanted to abolish (or end) slavery in the country and those that wanted to keep it legal.

During the Civil War, which started in 1861, slavery was legal in Missouri, but the state never seceded (or withdrew) from the Union, something that other states with slavery did.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Missouri is named after the Missouri Native American tribe. It comes from the word ouemessourita, which roughly translates to "wooden canoe people," or "those who have dugout canoes."

Not everyone agrees on how Missouri got its nickname, the Show Me State. The most popular legend says the name was coined when a Missouri congressman said "I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." His statement meant that actions speak louder than words.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Missouri is bordered by Iowa in the north; Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee in the east; Arkansas in the south; and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska in the west. The state's wiggly eastern border is almost entirely created by the Mississippi River. Missouri can be divided into four geographical regions.

The Dissected Till Plains cross the far north, above the Missouri River. The area is mostly flat prairie with fertile soil, rivers, and streams.

The Osage Plains in western Missouri are largely flat with a few hills. The soil is shallower and less rich than it is in the Till Plains. Tallgrass, which can grow high enough to cover a horseback rider on a horse, used to cover 15 million acres of the state. But now very little of it remains. Prairie State Park in this region is one of the few places these supertall grasses are preserved.

The Ozark Plateau is Missouri's largest geographical region, and it covers most of the state's southern half. Gradual water erosion here created high, forested ridges, springs, and caves. The state's highest point, Taum Sauk Mountain, is in this area. So is the Lake of the Ozarks, a reservoir where many visitors come to fish, camp, and boat.

The Mississippi Alluvial Plain is lowland in the southeastern corner of the state (which is called the state's "Boot Heel"). Mississippi River flooding has made this land very fertile, and cotton, soybeans, and rice are farmed in this region.

Missouri is home to the biggest mammal in North America, the American bison. Black bears, bobcats, mountain lions, and endangered gray wolves also live in the state. Peregrine falcons, eastern screech-owls, and purple finches are some of the birds that fly through Missouri. The state's reptiles include alligator snapping turtles, Great Plains rat snakes, and prairie massasaugas (a type of rattlesnake). Meanwhile, cave salamanders and American bullfrogs are a few of the amphibians that live here.

Missouri has a wide variety of trees such as eastern redbud, white oak, black walnut, and eastern wahoo. But the state is even better known for its prairies, where hundreds of species of grass grow, among them switchgrass, Indian grass, bluestem, and June grass.Missouri's wildflowers include putty root (which has sticky roots once used as glue), yellow lady's slipper; and Ozark bluestar.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Missouri is the top producer of mined lead in the United States, and it's mainly used in car batteries. The state also produces the most lime in the nation. (Lime is a mineral used for steel manufacturing, among other things.)

-Author Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), inventor George Washington Carver, author T.S. Eliot, Molly Brown (known as the Unsinkable Molly Brown after surviving the R.M.S. Titanic tragedy), and former President Harry Truman were all born in Missouri.

-The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is the tallest manmade monument in the United States. At 630 feet, it's more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty!

-With nearly 200 officially registered fountains, Kansas City has earned its nickname, the City of Fountains.

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Gooseberry Falls State Park near Lake Superior features several spectacular waterfalls.

The first people probably came to the area now called Minnesota about 12,000 years ago. Native American tribes including the Dakota Sioux, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Iowa, Omaha, Winnebago, and Ojibwe, among others, lived on the land many centuries later.

After winning the American Revolution, the United States took control of land previously owned by Britain that's now part of the Midwest. Then in 1803 the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. Portions of land from both of these areas, and land gained by making treaties with Native Americans, were combined to form the Minnesota Territory.

Minnesota was later expanded through treaties with the Dakota Indians, and in 1858 it became the 32nd state. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, Minnesota-a Union state-was the first state to volunteer troops to fight.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

The name Minnesota comes from the Dakota tribe's word for the Minnesota River, mnisota, meaning "cloudy, muddy water" or "sky-tinted water."

Minnesota's official nickname comes from its French state motto, adopted in 1861: l'étoile du nord meaning, "the star of the north." Another unofficial nickname is the Land of 10,000 Lakes because, well, Minnesota has thousands of lakes-11,842 to be exact!

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Minnesota is bordered by Canada in the north, Lake Superior and Wisconsin in the east, Iowa in the south, and North and South Dakota in the west. Most of the state's topography (or the shape of the terrain) was created thousands of years ago by glaciers. These slow-moving masses of ice carved out the Minnesota's plains and low hills. They also created the state's many lakes.

Northern Minnesota boasts deep lakes and streams, rocky ridges, thick forests, and the state's highest point, Eagle Mountain. This area borders Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake by surface area.

Running west from the Canadian border to the edge of South Dakota is the Red River Valley, a mostly flat area with fertile soil.

Southwestern Minnesota is characterized by thick glacial deposits of clay and gravel.

The far southeastern part of the state is the only area that wasn't affected by glaciers during the last ice age. It has stream-cut valleys, caverns, and high bluffs.

American martens, bobcats, muskrats, raccoons, and white-tailed deer are a few of Minnesota's mammals. Gyrfalcons, great horned owls, and snipes are among the birds that fly through the state. Minnesota's amphibians include western chorus frogs, eastern red-backed salamanders, and northern map turtles. The state is also home to reptiles such as prairie skinks, garter snakes, and venomous timber rattlesnakes.

Among Minnesota's 52 native tree species are quaking aspen, American elm, mountain maple, white spruce, and red pine (the state tree). Doll's eyes (known for their eyeball-like berries), black-eyed Susans, sunflowers, white meadowsweet, and sweet pea are a few of the state's wildflowers.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Minnesota's Mesabi mountain range has been a huge producer of iron ore. The state is also known for mining manganese, which is used to make aluminum and steel, and can also be found in batteries.

-Downtown Minneapolis has a nine-mile-long system of aboveground walkways that stretches between city buildings. Connecting more than 73 blocks, it's considered the world's biggest skyway.

-Famous Minnesotans include "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, Wizard of Oz actress Judy Garland, and musicians Prince and Bob Dylan.

-Minnesota's Mall of America is the biggest mall in the United States. It has more than 500 stores, a seven-acre amusement park, and full-size roller coasters inside!

-Waterskiing was invented in Minnesota in 1922.

-Legend has it giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his blue ox created Minnesota's lakes with their footprints. But the lakes were actually created by melting glaciers!

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The Tigers are a Major League Baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan.

People have lived in the land now called Michigan for at least 12,000 years. Many centuries after those first inhabitants arrived, Native American tribes lived on the land, including the Kickapoo, Miami, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Menominee, and Fox and Sauk. Eleven Native American tribes still live in Michigan today.

French explorers reached the area around 1618. France controlled the land until the mid-1700s, when England defeated the country in the French and Indian War, which lasted between 1754 and 1763. (Many Native Americans fought with France against England.) In 1805, Michigan became a U.S. territory. Settlers began pouring in around 1825, once the newly built Erie Canal made traveling across the country much easier. Michigan joined the Union as a free state in 1837.

Just before 1900, automakers Ransom E. Olds (as in Oldsmobile) and Henry Ford built some of the first cars in Detroit. The city is still called "Motor City" because so many cars are made there.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Experts aren't sure, but Michigan might have been named after Lake Michigan, which got its name from a Native American word that roughly translates to "big lake."

Experts don't agree on why Michigan is called the Wolverine State ... especially since not many wolverines live there! One theory is that fur traders used to exchange animal pelts, including wolverines', in Michigan. Another idea involves an 1835 land skirmish with Ohio. At the time, people from Ohio called their Michigan neighbors "wolverines" as an insult.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Four of the Great Lakes share borders with Michigan: Superior, Huron, Michigan, and Erie. No wonder it's sometimes called the Great Lakes State! It's bordered by Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin in the south, and the Great Lakes and Canada in the east, north, and west. It's also the only U.S. state that's split into two big pieces: the Upper Peninsula in the north and the Lower Peninsula-known as "the mitten"-in the south. They're connected by the five-mile Mackinac Bridge.

The Upper Peninsula is forested with low hills. It includes the state's highest point, Mount Arvon-but even that's a relatively short 1,979 feet.

The Lower Peninsula is mostly flat with some hills in the north. It's also home to thousands of miles of shoreline, including Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where 400-foot dunes give a clear view of Lake Michigan.

Over 40 percent of the state is covered in water-that's more than any other state! Michigan even has islands, including Isle Royale, a national park in the middle of Lake Superior.

Michigan is home to many types of animals-especially the widespread white-tailed deer (the state animal). Once wiped out by hunters, native elk and moose have made comebacks after herds were relocated from Wyoming and Canada, respectively.

Michigan is also home to 360 bird species, including the rare Kirtland's warbler. Raptors such as osprey, short-eared owls, and peregrine falcons live in Michigan as well, as do many water birds such as trumpeter swans, great blue herons, and piping plovers.

Red-bellied snakes, spiny soft-shell turtles, and five-lined skinks are a few of the reptiles that slink and creep through the state. Marbled salamanders, bullfrogs, and green frogs are among Michigan's amphibians.

With more than half the state covered in forests, Michigan is filled with white pine (the state tree), American mountain ash, boxelder, sugar maple, and red mulberry. Michigan rose, orange coneflower, evening primrose (check it out blooming at night!), and yellow monkey flower are some of the wildflowers that grow in the Wolverine State.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Michigan is known for fishing, thanks to its 3,288-mile coastline, the longest freshwater coastline in the United States. Forestry is another important industry, as 90 percent of the Upper Peninsula is covered in trees. The state also produces iron oxide pigments, which are used for making red, orange, yellow, and black pigment-often for makeup.

-Who was born in Michigan? Just singers Madonna, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder; tennis player Serena Williams; and pilot Charles Lindbergh!

-Motown Records was founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959 (the name came from a combination of "motor" and "town," since the city was a car manufacturing hub). The record company produced music by the Temptations, Diana Ross, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, and many others. The studio where much of this music was recorded is now the Motown Museum and is open to visitors.

-Corn Flakes were "born" in Battle Creek in 1898. The Kellogg brothers were trying to make granola but accidentally created flakes instead!

-The Henry Ford Museum is filled with examples of American genius. Thomas Edison's laboratory, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and even the bus that Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks rode are all on display.

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Old Sturbridge Village depicts a rural New England town of the 1830s, including homes, a school, country store, working farm, and water-powered mills.

People started living in what's now called Massachusetts about 12,000 years ago, when retreating glaciers uncovered the land. Some artifacts have even been discovered in lakes and rivers created by melting glaciers. Thousands of years later Native American tribes including the Wampanoag, Mohegan, and Mohican lived on the land.

In 1620 a ship called the Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod carrying settlers called Pilgrims. These people were escaping religious persecution in England and created the first permanent European settlement in New England, called Plymouth. (New England is a region in the northeastern United States that was settled by people from England.) Soon after the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving with members of the Wampanoag tribe, which still exists in Massachusetts today.

Massachusetts has been the scene of many historical events. In 1639 America's first post office opened in Boston. In 1692 and 1693, untrue rumors led to witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts. And in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the first telephone.

But Massachusetts may be most historically significant for the role its people played in the Revolutionary War. Anger erupted in 1770 after five colonists were killed by British soldiers in what's known as the Boston Massacre. Three years later, colonists disguised as Native Americans threw cases of tea into Boston Harbor to protest high taxes from England. The event is now known as the Boston Tea Party. In 1775 the Battles of Lexington and Concord became the first fight of the Revolutionary War. The movement of the British troops prompted silversmith Paul Revere to make his famous midnight ride to warn the colonists. Five years after the war ended, Massachusetts became the sixth U.S. state in 1788.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Massachusetts' name might come from the Massachusett tribe, whose name can be translated to "near the great hill" or "near the range of hills." It refers to the Blue Hills, southwest of Boston.

The state's nickname the Bay State may originate from its many bays, or it might refer to the Massachusetts Bay Company, which was given a royal charter to colonize the land.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Massachusetts is a New England state bordered by New Hampshire and Vermont in the north, the Atlantic Ocean in the east, Rhode Island and Connecticut in the south, and New York in the west.

What looks like a big hook in Massachusetts' eastern coastline is actually land created by glaciers that exposed many rocky bays. Called the Coastal Lowland, this hilly, wet area includes Cape Cod Bay, Martha's Vineyard, and the Nantucket Islands, all great for fishing, boating, and vacationing.

The center of the state has streams and plains with gentle hills. Toward the west, the land rises into mountains. It includes a popular spot for fall-leaf watching called the Berkshires, as well as Massachusetts' highest point, Mount Greylock. In the far west are the Taconic Mountains.

Mammals such as black bears, bobcats, eastern coyotes, moose, and white-tailed deer roam around Massachusetts. Bald eagles, wild turkeys, northern cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, and American robins fly through the state, and snapping turtles, eastern ribbonsnakes, and five-lined skinks are among Massachusetts' reptiles. Eastern newts, American bullfrogs, and American toads are a few of the Bay State's best-known amphibians.

Sugar maples, eastern white pines, sycamores, and American elms (the state tree) grow in the state's forests. Massachusetts is also filled with wildflowers such as New England asters, blue violets, wild bleeding hearts, black-eyed Susans, and oxeye daisies.

NATURAL RESOURCES

The state's fertile soil and its harbors (the Bay State has more than 1,500 miles of coastline), produce plenty of crops and seafood. Local farmers grow about 25 percent of the cranberries in the United States!

-Boston cream pie-chocolate-iced white cake filled with custard-is the official state dessert. But it's not the only famous Massachusetts goodie: Chocolate chip cookies were invented here!

-Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, Susan B. Anthony, and Dr. Seuss (whose real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel) were all born in Massachusetts.

-You can visit Plymouth Rock, the boulder that's said to be the exact spot where the Pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower. It's less than half the size today as it was in the 1600s-tourists kept chipping off pieces!

-Boston's Freedom Trail is a painted line through the city that leads history buffs to 16 official Revolutionary sites-including the Paul Revere House, where Revere lived at the time of his famous midnight ride.

-In the late 1600s about 20 people died because they were accused of witchcraft in a series of hearings called the Salem witch trials.

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The Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse in Annapolis is a National Historic Landmark.

The first people to live in what's now Maryland arrived at least 13,000 years ago, though humans may have been in the area as many as 21,000 years ago. Archaeologists know this because they've found arrowheads, beads, and other ancient items in and around Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. Centuries layer Native American tribes lived in the region, including the Lenape, Nanticoke, Powhatan, Susquehannock, and Shawnee tribes.

In 1608 Captain John Smith became one of the first Europeans to arrive in the area. Then in 1632 Englishman George Calvert was given permission by the king of England to establish the colony of Maryland (though George died before settling the colony; his son Cecilius organized the expedition of colonists instead.) Yet British rule wouldn't last: Maryland signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. After the United States won the Revolutionary War in 1783, Annapolis, Maryland, became the new country's capital-but for less than a year. Maryland was made the seventh U.S. state in 1788, and gave up part of its land two years later to help create Washington, D.C.

In 1850 Maryland would become an important part of the Underground Railroad thanks to Harriet Tubman, a Maryland native who fled the state to escape slavery but returned to rescue and lead others to freedom.

Eleven years later, tensions between northern and southern states, particularly over slavery, led to the Civil War. Although Maryland was just south of the Mason-Dixon Line-the name for the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, which was considered the line dividing the North and South-it sided with the Union in the North. The war's bloodiest battle, Antietam, took place in Sharpsburg, Maryland. In 1864 slavery was finally abolished in Maryland.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Maryland was named after Queen Henrietta Maria of England. She was married to King Charles I, who granted permission for Maryland to become a colony.

Legend has it that Maryland's nicknamed the Old Line State in honor of 400 Revolutionary War soldiers who faced off against 10,000 British soldiers in a battle in 1776. These soldiers, which were called the "Maryland Line," held off the British just long enough to allow the rest of the American army-lead by George Washington-to escape.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Maryland is bordered by Pennsylvania in the north, Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean in the east, the Atlantic Ocean and Virginia in the south, and West Virginia in the west. The state can be divided into five geographical regions.

The Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain spreads across the south and east of the state. It's a low area with marshes along the eastern shoreline and fertile farmland along the western shore. This region contains the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp, a forested wetland.

The Piedmont crosses northeastern Maryland, and has low hills, ridges, valleys, and streams.

The Blue Ridge region is a narrow, mountainous region west of the Piedmont. It was named for its trees, which have a bluish haze when seen from a distance.

The Appalachian Ridge and Valley is a slim strip of land in the north. It's mostly forested and contains farmland and steep ridges.

The Appalachian Plateau covers the northwestern corner of the state. It's home to the Allegheny Mountains and Maryland's highest point, Backbone Mountain.

Black bears, bobcats, and Appalachian cottontails are a few of the mammals that live in Maryland. Ospreys, gyrfalcons (the biggest type of falcon), and Baltimore orioles are some local birds. The state's amphibians include Allegheny Mountain dusky salamanders and barking tree frogs. And reptiles such as bog turtles, Coastal Plain milk snakes, and eastern fence lizards live here.

Bald cypress, loblolly pine, juniper, walnut, and white oak (the state tree) are among Maryland's native trees. The state's wildflowers include Maryland golden-aster, Maryland meadow beauty, and ladies' tresses-an orchid that resembles a spiraling lock of hair.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Maryland is known for fishing, and it produces the most blue crabs in the United States. The state is also known for mining coal, clays, natural gas, and limestone.

-Go fish! Visitors to the National Aquarium can check out jellyfish, a living reef, dolphins, and sharks.

-Famous Marylanders include Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled Banner; baseball player Babe Ruth; Jazz musician Billie Holiday; and civil rights activist Thurgood Marshall, who became the first African-American Supreme Court justice (or judge) in the United States.

-Visitors to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Park can explore the same land that Tubman crossed while guiding almost 70 people to freedom during the 1800s.

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Fishing is an important industry in Maine.

The first inhabitants of the land now called Maine probably arrived around 12,000 years ago. Over the course of this land's history, Native American tribes such as the Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot lived on the land.

Viking explorer Leif Ericsson and his crew possibly sailed to the area in the year 1000. About 600 years later British and French colonists established some of Maine's first permanent European settlements. In 1652 southwestern Maine became part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In defiance of Britain's high taxes, Maine's residents burned a shipment of British tea in 1774, one year after the Boston Tea Party. In response, British forces shelled and burned Falmouth, Maine. After the Revolutionary War started in 1775, Maine's residents participated in the first naval battle of the war.

When the American Revolution was over, Maine joined the United States as part of Massachusetts. But many Maine settlers wanted to have their own state. In 1820 Maine separated from Massachusetts, becoming the 23rd state in the union. This was done as part of the Missouri Compromise, a deal that admitted Missouri as a state as well.

Several Native American tribes still exist in Maine, including descendants of the original Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Penobscot tribes.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Some historians think Maine's name came from the nautical term "mainland" or "the main," which the colony's founders may have used to differentiate Maine from the islands off its coast. Or it might have been named after an English village of the same name.

Maine was given the nickname the Pine Tree State in honor of its many white pine trees, which are the biggest eastern conifers (or evergreen trees that bear cones) in the United States.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

The biggest state in New England, Maine is bordered by Canada in the north and east, the Atlantic Ocean in the south, and New Hampshire in the west. The land can be divided into three geographic areas.

The Coastal Lowlands start at the Atlantic coastline and stretch inland between 10 and 40 miles. This region has sandy beaches, salt marshes, bays, inlets, and thousands of coastal islands, the largest of which is Mount Desert Island. The islands started out as mountains, but the rising sea level during the last Ice Age put them underwater! A set of islands in northern Maine are now home to Acadia National Park.

The Eastern New England Uplands are northwest of the Coastal Lowlands, a region with fertile soil, lakes, streams, and the Longfellow Mountains.

The White Mountains are in the northwest of the state and include Maine's highest point, Mount Katahdin, as well as Baxter State Park.

The moose (the state animal), black bears, bobcats, white-tailed deer, and Canada lynx can be found in Maine. Bald and golden eagles, ospreys, great gray owls, and roseate terns are a few of the state's many birds. Maine's reptiles include northern redbelly snakes, smooth green snakes, and eastern garter snakes. And amphibians such as eastern painted turtles, eastern red-backed salamanders, and bullfrogs live here.

Maine is filled with black oaks, sugar maples, black walnuts, and American elms, in addition to its white pine trees. Wildflowers such as mountain wood sorrel, Canada violet, Queen Anne's lace, and calypso orchid grow in Maine. But the state flower isn't a flower at all-it's a pinecone!

NATURAL RESOURCES

About 90 percent of Maine is covered in forests, so it's no wonder that trees are among Maine's most important natural resources. Some trees are used for their wood and others for their maple syrup.

The state also mines semi-precious stones including some of the world's best tourmaline crystals. Maine produces a lot of gravel and limestone as well.

-Author Stephen King was born in Maine, and his hometown of Bangor was the model for many of the towns in his scary stories. Other famous Mainers include author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

-Maine lobster is one of the state's most famous foods. The state also serves up fiddleheads, which are the furled fronds of ferns and are eaten like any other vegetable.

-Because of its rocky coastline, Maine is famous for lighthouses-it has more than 60 of them. The oldest lighthouse in Maine is the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth.

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The French Quarter, marked by beautiful architecture, is the oldest neighborhood in New Orleans.

People first arrived in the area now called Louisiana around 12,000 years ago. During its history Native American tribes lived on the land including the Atakapa, Choctaw, Chitimacha, Natchez, and Tunica lived on the land.

In 1541 explorer Hernando de Soto claimed the territory for Spain. Then in 1682 France took possesion of the region. Ownership of the land would go back and forth between these nations until the United States bought the area that would become Louisiana from France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In 1812 Louisiana became the 18th state.

The city of New Orleans was founded in 1718, and just a few years later many African people were brought to the city as slaves. The mix of African, French, and Spanish influences gave Louisiana, and particularly the city of New Orleans, a unique culture.

In 1861, during the Civil War, Louisiana left the Union. It rejoined the United States in 1868. Today the Chitimacha, Coushatta, Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, and Tunica-Biloxi tribes still live in this state.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV when the land was claimed for France in 1682.

Louisiana is called the Pelican State because of its state bird.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Louisiana is bordered by Arkansas in the north, Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico in the east, the Gulf of Mexico in the south, and Texas in the west. The state can be divided into three geographic regions.

The East Gulf Coastal Plain is the low land east of the Mississippi River. It's marshy near the river and becomes hilly in the north.

The Mississippi Alluvial Plain runs west of the Mississippi River from Arkansas in the north down to the Gulf of Mexico. Ridges topped by fields called frontlands run along the river, and fields called backlands (with very fertile silt and clay) slope away. Wetlands cover the southern coastline.

Farthest west is the West Gulf Coastal Plain, which runs from Arkansas to the southernmost part of the state. Louisiana's highest point, Driskill Mountain, is in the northern part of this region. Going south, the land slopes down to become prairie, then marshland, and eventually the sandy islands that border the coastline called barrier beaches.

Coyotes, American beavers, muskrats, and swamp rabbits are some of Louisiana's mammals. The state's best-known reptilemight be the American alligator. But the area is also home to alligator snapping turtles, constrictors called Louisiana pine snakes, and venomous harlequin coral snakes. Bright pink roseate spoonbills, yellow-crowned night-herons, Louisiana waterthrushes, and purple gallinules are among Louisiana's many birds. Southern toads, crawfish frogs, and Louisiana slimy salamanders are a few of the state's amphibians.

Pecan, Louisiana hickory, magnolia, live oak and bald cypress (the state tree) are among Louisiana's most common trees. Plants and flowers that grow in Louisiana include little brown jug, American hogpeanut, and sensitive partridge pea.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Louisiana's top natural resources include fertile soil, natural gas, and oil. Louisiana is also the biggest U.S. producer of salt.

-Famous folks from the Pelican State include civil rights activist Madam C.J. Walker, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, and many jazz and blues performers such as Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton.

-Louisiana is known for its unique Creole (a mix of Spanish, French, African, and other) cuisine, including Jambalaya-a mixture of spicy rice, meat, and seafood.

-Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve includes a War of 1812 battlefield with reenactments and a national cemetery; a wetland preserve (where Louisiana's state bird, the brown pelican, can be spotted); and several cultural centers that tell the history of Louisiana's people, art and music.

-Reptiles must be kept at least 200 yards away from the Mardi Gras parade route.

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GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Kentucky is bordered by Indiana and Ohio in the north, where the Ohio River creates a wiggly boundary. It has West Virginia (separated from Kentucky by the Big Sandy River) and Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Missouri and Illinois to the west.

Kentucky contains six different geographical regions. Farthest east is the Mountain Region, a part of the Appalachian Mountain chain. Forests, high ridges, and narrow, V-shaped valleys are here, plus the state's highest point, Big Black Mountain. This is also a land of coal fields-10,500 square miles of coal are under this area, known as the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field.

Go west to the horseshoe-shaped Knobs region, where erosion has created hundreds of knob-shaped hills called monadnocks. Part of Daniel Boone National Forest is here.

In the middle of the Knobs is the Bluegrass region, named for the bluish-green grass that grows there. Its hills, sinkholes, caves, and springs were all created when the local limestone weathered, or broke down.

The Pennyroyal region (also spelled Pennyrile) is named after a type of mint plant that grows there. Spreading west across the center of the state, this area is rocky with trees, lakes, and lots of caves. One of these caverns is Mammoth Cave, the world's longest-it stretches over 350 miles!

Surrounded by the Pennyroyal is the Western Coalfield Region, a hilly area overlying 4,680 square miles of coal. John James Audubon State Park, named after the famous artist and naturalist, is in this region.

The Jackson Purchase in the far west, which was added to Kentucky in 1818, is lowland filled with ponds, lakes, and swamps.

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The Flint Hills is an area of Kansas with gently rolling hills covered in the largest continuous area of tallgrass prairie left in the world.

The first people settled in what's now Kansas at least 12,200 years ago. Archaeologists know this because they've found the bones of mammoths and other animals with markings from human tools on them, a sign that humans had hunted the creatures.

Thousands of years later, Native American tribes including the Kansa, Osage, Pawnee, Kiowa, and Comanche lived on the land.

The first European to reach the area was Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who came in 1541 looking for cities made of gold that were rumored to exist. (He didn't find any!) French explorers and fur traders arrived in the 1700s, and France took ownership of the area in 1800. It became a U.S. territory in 1803, when the United States bought this land-and much more-from France. This transaction was called the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1854 tension rose when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, allowing residents of both Kansas and Nebraska territories to vote on whether or not to allow slavery. That tension helped lead to the Civil War in 1861, the same year that Kansas became a state.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Kansas' name comes from the Kansa Native American tribe, which means "People of the South Wind."

Today some Kansans call themselves Jayhawkers. Before the Civil War, the term actually referred to Kansan bands of robbers. But once the war started, many Jayhawkers enlisted to fight in support of the Union in the North and the abolition of slavery.

Kansas' nickname, the Sunflower State, comes from the fields of sunflowers that bloom here. These flowers are grown for their seeds and oil.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Kansas is bordered by Nebraska in the north, Missouri in the east, Oklahoma in the south, and Colorado in the west. The state is known for its vast plains, but it isn't all flatlands.

Gentle hills with pastures and forests can be found in the northeast. This area is called the Dissected Till Plains. The land here was cut (or dissected) into hills and valleys by moving glaciers and wind over 400,000 years ago.

South are the Southeastern Plains. They include the Osage Plains, which are composed of eroded shale and limestone, and the Flint Hills, whose flint ridges stick up because flint doesn't erode (or break down) like other rocks and soil do.

Kansas' western half is covered by the Great Plains, which rise in elevation as you continue west toward the Rocky Mountains. Near the Colorado border is Mount Sunflower, the state's highest point.

Nine-banded armadillos, black-tailed jackrabbits, plains pocket gophers, and least shrews are common in Kansas. Reptiles include prairie king snakes, western worm snakes, prairie lizards, and Great Plains skinks. Black vultures, golden eagles, yellow-billed cuckoos, western meadowlarks, and prairie chickens are just a few of the state's many birds.

In the northeast part of the state, cedar, maple, oak, and walnut trees grow. Cottonwood, the state tree, crops up throughout the state. But Kansas is covered in a lot of grass: the west grows buffalo grass; the Southeastern Plains have bluestem grass, switch grass, and Indian grass; and the Great Plains grow bluegrass. Common wildflowers include sunflowers, verbena, purple coneflower, prairie phlox, and prickly poppy.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Fertile farmland is one of the state's top natural resources. The state's most abundant crop is wheat-no other U.S. state produces as much. In fact, Sumner County, Kansas, is sometimes called the Wheat Capital of the World!

-Famous Kansans include pilot Amelia Earhart, environmental activist Erin Brockovich, saxophonist Charlie Parker, and actress Vivian Vance, who played Ethel on the classic comedy I Love Lucy.

-Descend 650 feet beneath the earth to experience Strataca, Kansas' underground salt museum. It's part of a working salt mine, whose salt was formed about 275 million years ago.

-Step into frontier life at Old Cowtown Museum, a "town" of about 40 historic buildings furnished to look like as they did in the 1860s and 1870s! A general store, jail, and schoolhouse are all on display.

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The first people came to what's now Iowa at least 12,000 years ago. Thousands of years later Native American tribes including the Dakota Sioux, Illini, Ioway, Missouria, and Otoe lived on the land.

French explorers reached the area in 1673, and in 1682 the land was claimed by France. Over the next century Spain and France fought multiple wars over the region, and control of the land shifted back and forth between the two countries. In 1803 the United States acquired the territory through the Louisiana Purchase. Iowa became the 29th state in 1846.

Beginning in 1972 Iowa has kicked off every U.S. presidential race by holding the first caucuses (that's when people gather to choose delegates who will vote for their chosen candidate at the next convention-a step on the road to selecting a presidential candidate).

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Experts don't agree on how Iowa got its name. Some say that the name comes from the Ioway tribe.

There's also disagreement over the source of Iowa's nickname, the Hawkeye State. Some say the name honors a Native American chief, Black Hawk. Others claim it was inspired by a character named Hawkeye in James Fenimore Cooper's book, The Last of the Mohicans.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

This midwestern state is bordered by South Dakota and Minnesota in the north, Wisconsin and Illinois in the east, Illinois and Missouri in the south, and Nebraska and South Dakota in the west. Some sources divide Iowa into three different regions.

The flat, fertile Young Drift Plains region sweeps across northern and central Iowa. (Drift is a mixture of clay, sand, rocks, and gravel that glaciers left behind during the last ice age about 12,000 years ago.) This area also contains lakes and swamps.

The Driftless Area covers northeastern Iowa. This region consists of pine-forested hills and cliffs.

The Dissected Till Plains roll across southern Iowa and into the northwest. Rivers and streams have dissected (or cut into) the land, creating hills, ridges, and bluffs.

Red foxes, thirteen-lined ground squirrels, least weasels, and white-tailed deer are among Iowa's most common mammals. Cerulean warblers, grasshopper sparrows, and scarlet tanagers are a few of the state's birds. Iowa's reptiles include Great Plains skinks, western hognose snakes, and yellow mud turtles. Amphibians such as blue-spotted salamanders, central newts, Great Plains toads, and mudpuppies (a type of salamander) slither and hop through Iowa.

Sugar maple, sycamore, red cedar, and oak (the state tree) are a few of the most common trees that grow in Iowa. Indian blanketflower, squirrel corn, morning glory, and dalmatian toadflax are among the state's wildflowers.

NATURAL RESOURCES

The Hawkeye State's greatest natural resource is its rich soil, which farmers use to grow corn and soybeans-the state's top crops. Iowa produces the most corn in the nation, and it even converts some of its corn into a fuel called ethanol-in fact, Iowa is the top U.S. producer of this energy source.

-Over 200 prehistoric earthen mounds in the shapes of giant panthers, bison, deer, and other animals stand at Effigy Mounds National Monument. The mounds are considered sacred to many Native Americans, and they may have been used by tribes as territory markers.

-President Herbert Hoover, television host Johnny Carson, showman Buffalo Bill Cody, and Mildred Wirt Benson (who wrote the Nancy Drew detective series under the pen name Caroline Keene) were all born in Iowa.

-The house that inspired artist Grant Wood's famous painting "American Gothic" stands in Eldon, Iowa. It's a top selfie spot: Visitors are encouraged to copy the pose of the people featured in the painting!

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Archaeologists aren't sure exactly when the first people arrived in what's now Illinois. But archaeologists have uncovered ancient spear points and tools suggesting that humans lived here at least 10,000 years ago. Illinois' first-known Native American tribes, which include the Miami and the Illiniwek (also known as the Illinois), lived on the land thousands of years later.

The first Europeans to reach the area were French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, who arrived in 1673. In 1717 Illinois became part of the Louisiana territory, a French colony. But in 1763 at the end of the French and Indian War, the French ceded, or gave up, the region to Britain. After the American Revolution, Illinois became a U.S. territory, and in 1818 it was declared the 21st state.

During the Civil War (1861-1865) Illinois hosted no major battles, but more than 250,000 troops from Illinois fought for the Union.

Disaster struck in 1871 when a huge fire swept through Chicago, Illinois. But the reconstruction that followed the Great Chicago Fire made Chicago into a modern city that contained the world's first skyscrapers.

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GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Hawaii sits over 2,000 miles west of California.

One of world's longest island chains, Hawaii is the only U.S. state completely made up of islands. But only 7 of its 132 islands are inhabited: Hawaii (also known as the Big Island), Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau.

The Hawaiian Islands are volcanic islands. They have formed as the Earth 's crust, made up of giant rocky slabs called tectonic plates, moves over a particularly hot spot in the molten layer beneath the crust. The heat melts the rock that makes up the crust, turning it into magma. Then once the magma breaks through to the surface of the Earth's crust it cools and forms new land.

The Earth's crust is always moving just a little bit, but the hot spot that produces magma isn't. So over time as the crust moved, but the hot spot remained-creating a series of volcanic islands. Hawaii's most active volcano is Kilauea, and you can see it at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. Kilauea has been erupting for over 30 years, and each year, its lava expands Hawaii by over 40 acres.

Hawaii is known for its beautiful beaches-some of them with unusual colors. Many beaches are filled with white sand, but other Hawaiian shores are covered with green, red, pink, and even black sand.

Whether you like hiking, biking, kayaking, sailing, swimming, or just sitting on the beach, Hawaii is the state for you. Near the water, you can relax as palm trees blow in the island breeze. Travel toward to the center of one of the big islands and you can hike through dense tropical rain forests and experience stunning waterfalls. Don't forget to dive in the waters and snorkel near Hawaii's coral reefs.

On Hawaii you can experience yet another environment: the volcano Mauna Loa's dry lava is so much like parts of the moon's surface that astronauts once walked on it to practice for lunar voyages. Mount Waialeale on Kauai is considered on of the rainiest spots on Earth, getting 384 inches of rain a year on average.

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Several species of azaleas are native to Georgia and the southeast.

The first people arrived in what is now Georgia at least 13,000 years ago. By 1,000 B.C. Native American tribes including the Apalachee, Cherokee, and Choctaw lived here.

In 1733 Georgia was established as the 13th colony, and in 1788 it became the fourth U.S. state. But at the start of the Civil War in 1861, Georgia left the Union and wouldn't return until the end of the war in 1865.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Georgia was named after King George II, who approved the colony's charter in 1732.

Wonder how Georgia got its nickname? Cherokee Indians grew peaches in Georgia in the mid-1700s, and today the state produces about 2.6 million bushels a year, making it the third biggest producer of peaches in the United States, behind California and South Carolina.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Georgia is bordered by Tennessee in the north, South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean in the east, Florida in the south, and Alabama in the west.

In the northwest corner of the state is the Appalachian Plateau, with deep caves and the 2,393-foot-tall Lookout Mountain. East and south of the Plateau region is the Valley and Ridge region, which has steep, rocky ridges above fertile valleys.

In the northeast corner of the state are the Blue Ridge Mountains, with Georgia's highest peak soaring to 4,784 feet. The center of the state is the Piedmont region, with valleys, low hills, and forests full of oak, hickory, and poplar trees.

To the south is the Atlantic Coastal Plain, with rivers, waterfalls, and beaches. It's also home to the 700-square-mile Okefenokee Swamp. Full of twisting waterways, cypress trees, and alligators, the swamp is the largest in North America. Island-hoppers can take a quick drive to four of Georgia's barrier islands (Sea, Jekyll, Tybee, and St. Simons), or sail across salt marshes to discover more remote islands.

Black bears, bobcats, deer, and gophers are common in Georgia, and off the coast you can spot manatees, right whales, and humpback whales. Georgia is also home to bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and woodpeckers.

Some trees you're likely to see include live oak trees, magnolias, cottonwoods, sugar maples, and gum trees. But what's that spooky-looking vine all over them? It's Spanish moss, and it depends on trees for its water and nutrients. It doesn't kill the tree, but the moss can shade the tree's leaves and can sometimes cause branches to break off. Kudzu is another common vine, and this one is a really bad neighbor. This invasive species is sometimes called "the plant that ate the South" because of the way it grows up and over anything in its path, blocking sunlight and eventually smothering it.

NATURAL RESOURCES

With over half the state covered in pine trees and more commercial forestland than any other state, it's no wonder Georgia is known for its lumber, resins, and turpentine, which all come from trees.

Georgia grows the most peanuts in the United States, and it's also the country's largest producer of kaolin clay, which is often used in paper-making and beauty products.

-Visit Radium Springs, natural hot springs that flow from the ground at 70,000 gallons a minute.

-President Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King, Jr. lived here.

-Take a horse-drawn carriage ride in the city of Savannah to see cobbled streets, beautiful parks, and 18th-century architecture.

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The Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge is located on Delaware Bay.

At least 11,500 years ago people were living in the area now called Delaware. They're thought to have come from Asia by way of a land bridge that's now underwater. Thousands of years later Native American tribes including the Lenni Lenape and the Nanticoke lived on the land.

Historians think the first European to arrive was English explorer Henry Hudson, who reached the area's bay and river in 1609. During the 1600s, Dutch, English, and Swedish colonists settled on the land. These Europeans fought for the land, and in 1674 the English officially regained control of the territory. But in 1776 Delaware declared its independence from England, one of the actions that would result in the Revolutionary War. After the United States had won the war, Delaware became a U.S. state in 1787.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Delaware was a state where slavery was legal. But the vast majority of its troops fought for the Union, which was the group of northern states that was fighting in support of keeping the states together. (Supporters of the Union side also generally wanted to abolish slavery, while the southern states wanted to keep the practice.) In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared all slaves in the United States, including in Delaware, to be free people.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

In 1610 explorer Samuel Argall named the bay and river after Virginia 's governor, Lord De La Warr-Delaware!

Delaware was the first state to ratify, or sign, the U.S. Constitution. So its nickname is the First State.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Delaware sits on an east coast peninsula called the Delmarva. It's bordered by Pennsylvania in the north; the Delaware River, the Delaware Bay, New Jersey, and Atlantic Ocean in the east; and Maryland in the south and west.

The state generally slopes downward from the hilly Piedmont region, which covers the northern edge of the state. The rest of Delaware is covered by the low Atlantic Coastal Plain, which contains three state forests: Blackbird, Taber, and Redden. There are sandy beaches along the eastern coastline, and at the state's southern border, the plain becomes swampland.

Grey foxes, American beavers, white-tailed deer, and river otters are among Delaware's mammals. Birdwatchers could spot bald eagles, peregrine falcons, eastern bluebirds, and downy woodpeckers. The state's amphibians include barking tree frogs, chorus frogs, and tiger salamanders. Reptiles like snapping turtles and eastern hognose snakes can be found here too.

Common trees include maple, birch, oak, loblolly pine, and American holly (the state tree). Wildflowers grow throughout the state, including sweet goldenrod (the state herb), bulbous buttercup, American tiger lily, and sulphur cinquefoil (a flower with five heart-shaped petals).

NATURAL RESOURCES

One of the state's most important natural resources is its mineral-rich soil. This dirt is ideal for farming. Soybeans, corn, potatoes, and peas are some of Delaware's top crops. Delaware also mines for magnesium, sand, and gravel.

- President Joe Biden is one of Delaware's famous folks, and so is Howard Pyle, the author of the novel The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.

-The tidal salt marsh at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge hosts migrating birds including sandpipers, plovers, American black ducks, and salt marsh sparrows.

-Fans watch NASCAR races at the Dover International Speedway, nicknamed the Monster Mile. A 46-foot statue of a monster holds a full-size car in its hand in front of the track.

-The Johnson Victrola Museum displays early music-making machines such as gramophones; phonographs with flower-shaped horns; and some of the first record players, which were called Victrolas.

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Mystic Seaport is a restored 18th-century whaling village.

The first people came to the area that's now Connecticut more than 10,000 years ago. Several thousand years later, Native American tribes including the Mohegan, Pequot, and Niantic lived in this region.

Dutch traders arrived in 1614 and created Connecticut's first European settlement in 1633. Both the Dutch and English settlers founded settlements in Connecticut in the early 1630s, and the land soon became a British colony. Over time the colonists grew unhappy with British rule. In 1776 Connecticut's representatives signed the Declaration of Independence along with representatives from the other American colonies. This led to the American Revolution, which lasted until 1783 when the colonies formally won freedom from British rule. Five years later Connecticut ratified, or signed, the U.S. Constitution, becoming the fifth U.S. state.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

The name "Connecticut" comes from a Native American word, quinatucquet, roughly meaning "beside the long tidal river." It refers to the Connecticut River, which cuts through the middle of the state.

Connecticut earned its nickname "the Constitution State" because it's home to what some consider the United States ' first written constitution: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, adopted in 1639.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

This New England state is bordered by Massachusetts in the north, Rhode Island in the east, a body of water called the Long Island Sound in the south, and New York in the west.

Connecticut can be divided into three geographic regions. The Western Upland, which covers roughly the western third of Connecticut, is filled with steep hills, including the state's highest point, Mount Frissell.

The Central Lowland in the middle of the state is known for ridges and valleys that were created by volcanic eruptions between 150 and 200 million years ago. Because of this volcanic activity, the area contains lots of igneous, or lava-based, rocks such as basalt. It's also where the state's longest river, the Connecticut, flows.

The Eastern Upland in the east is filled with hills, rivers, and dense forests.

Black bears, bobcats, fishers, muskrats, and white-tailed deer are among Connecticut's many mammals. Look to the trees and you might see bald eagles, eastern bluebirds, redheaded woodpeckers, or rare Connecticut warblers. Reptile-watchers can keep an eye out for colorful eastern painted turtles, garter snakes, and five-lined skinks. Amphibians like northern redback salamanders and endangered mudpuppies call Connecticut home.

The most common tree in Connecticut is the red maple, but black birch, eastern hemlock, and sugar maple are also widespread. Wildflowers include colorful blanketflowers, orange daylilies, violets, and chicory.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Nearly 60 percent of Connecticut is covered in woodland, so it's no wonder forests are one of the state's top natural resources, providing lumber, firewood, and even maple syrup.

-Famous residents of Connecticut include Nathan Hale, a spy during the American Revolution; Revolutionary War general and "turncoat" Benedict Arnold; actress Katharine Hepburn; and authors Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mark Twain.

-More than 500 historic ships, a re-creation of a 19th-century coastal village, and a working shipyard are on display at Mystic Seaport maritime museum. Visitors can even board and sail on some of the historic boats.

-Step into a famous author's home at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, where writer Samuel Clemens, who used the pen name Mark Twain, lived with his wife and children.

-Check out the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, where you can tour the author's house and learn how her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, helped change views on slavery in the United States.

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-Colorado has the highest average elevation of any U.S. state. Its capital, Denver, is nicknamed the "Mile-High City" because it sits at 5,280 feet above sea level-exactly one mile.

-During World War II, a special unit of the army trained in Colorado to prepare for combat in high, snowy altitudes. Many of these soldiers later returned and founded famous ski resorts like Aspen and Vail.

-The Continental Divide, a natural boundary that separates North America's river systems, is in Colorado. Water that falls west of the divide flows to the Pacific Ocean; water that falls to the east heads to the Atlantic Ocean.

-William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who starred in cowboy-themed shows around the world, was buried on Colorado's Lookout Mountain in 1917.

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The first people to live on the land now called Arkansas arrived around 11,650 B.C. Thousands of years later, around A.D. 650, a group of Native Americans called the Plum Bayou built mysterious mounds of dirt that can still be seen today at Toltec Mounds Archaeological State Park. Other Native American tribes who lived on the land included the Caddo, Chickasaw, Osage, Quapaw, and Tunica.

The first European to reach the area was Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1541. In 1682 the land was claimed for France as a part of the Louisiana Territory, a huge mass of land including most of the central United States. That territory was purchased by the United States in 1803. Almost thirty years later Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which forced Native Americans leave the area, moving to land west of the Mississippi River. Thousands of Native Americans died on this journey, known the Trail of Tears. A few years later Arkansas became the 25th U.S. state.

In 1861 at the start of the Civil War, Arkansas was a Confederate state. That meant it wanted to break away from the United States and form another country with other nearby states. But the loyalties of Arkansas' residents were divided: Many fought in favor of the Union. (The Confederacy would lose the war, keeping the Union intact.)

History was made in 1957 when nine African-American students were escorted by Army troops into Little Rock Central High School, which previously only allowed white students to attend. This was an important milestone in the nation's civil rights movement.

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Talladega National Forest includes Cheaha Mountain, the highest peak in Alabama.

More than 10,000 years ago people came to the area that is now Alabama, some living in Russell Cave. Thousands of years later Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek resided in the area. Although many Native Americans were forced to leave Alabama in the 1800s, today some descendants of those tribes still live in the state.

Spanish explorers first arrived in the 1500s. The area was controlled at different times by England, France, then Spain again. It was finally was signed over to the United States-along with what's now Mississippi -in the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo. In 1819 Alabama became a U.S. state. It would leave the Union in 1861, and rejoin after the Civil War.

In the 1950s and 60s, Alabama was at the center of the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery. Many protests against segregation followed, often led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

The state's name comes from the Alabama tribe, one of the Native American groups from that area.

"Dixie" is a nickname for the southern states, especially the Confederate states, which left the Union during the Civil War. Alabama is called the Heart of Dixie because Montgomery, Alabama, was the first Confederate capital.

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

This southern state is bordered by Tennessee in the north, Georgia in the east, Florida and Mobile Bay in the south, and Mississippi in the west.

The Highland Rim in the northwest is where you'll find the Tennessee River valley, while the Cumberland Plateau in the northeast is named for its flat-topped plateaus. Just southeast is the Appalachian Ridge and Valley, which includes the Coosa River and iron-rich Red Mountain. The Piedmont Upland, in the central eastern part of the state, is a hilly area with Alabama's highest peak, the 2,407-foot Cheaha Mountain. The rest of the state is called the East Gulf Coastal Plain, which contains both flatlands and hills plus the Alabama, the state's largest river at 314 miles long.

Two of North America's rarest species-the Perdido Key beach mouse and the Alabama beach mouse-hide out in Alabama. Coyotes, armadillos, deer, feral pigs, and American alligators also roam the land. Birds such as kites, bald eagles, and hawks dot the skies, and the Gulf Coast waterdog and the 20-inch eastern hellbender-the biggest salamander species by weight in North America-are underfoot.

Bamboo and mistletoe grow in the state as well as other parts of the country, but the carnivorous Alabama canebrake pitcher plant, the Alabama gladecress, and the Cahaba prairie-clover can only be found here. The state's hundred-plus types of trees include pines, red cedars, magnolias, and live oaks, which are often draped with long, gray Spanish moss.

NATURAL RESOURCES

About 70 percent of Alabama is covered in forests, so it's no wonder the state is known for its timber. Alabama's vast forests would cover Rhode Island, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut!

Alabama is also rich in limestone, coal, and iron ore, which are the three raw materials needed to make steel. In fact Alabama is home to three of the nation's top pipe-making companies.

-Famous Alabamans include country singer Hank Williams, educator Booker T. Washington, inventor George Washington Carver, jazz singer Nat "King" Cole, and author Harper Lee.

-Visit Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller, and touch the pump where the activist, who was born deaf and blind, first learned the word "water."

-Tour the White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, where the Confederate president Jefferson Davis lived for a period of time during the Civil War.

-NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center is in Huntsville. Tour the nearby U.S. Space and Rocket Center, the world's largest spaceflight museum-and home to Space Camp.

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Nearly five million people see the Grand Canyon each year.

People lived in the area that's now Arizona at least 20,000 years ago, before written history. But in the 1200s, this civilization disappeared, probably due to a drought. Much later, Native American tribes such as the Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, and Apache lived on the land, and today 22 tribes still reside on reservations in the state.

Spanish explorers first arrived in the 1530s, but through the 1840s, Arizona-as well as present-day California, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico-was a part of Mexico. The United States gained control of the land after winning the Mexican-American War in 1848. In 1863, Arizona became a U.S. territory, then joined the Union in 1912 as the 48th state.

Why's it called that?

Arizona's name may have come from an early Arizona explorer of Spanish descent, Juan Bautista de Anza, who may have called it "place of oaks," or from Papago Native American words that translate to "place of the young spring."

About five million people visit the state's nickname each year: the 277-mile-long Grand Canyon.

Geography and Landforms

Arizona is bordered by Nevada in the northwest, Utah in the north, New Mexico in the east, Mexico in the south, and California in the west.

The Grand Canyon snakes through the northwest corner of the state in an area called the Colorado Plateau. Carved by the Colorado River, the canyon plunges 6,000 feet down at its deepest point and stretches 18 miles wide. In the northeast the Painted Desert shows off over 160 miles of colorful, horizontally striped stone, as well as 200-million-year-old fossilized plants and animals in Petrified Forest National Park. The Basin and Range Province covers the rest of the state and includes the Sonoran Desert, and it extends over several other states.

Black bears, desert bighorn sheep, and mountain lions roam in Arizona. Stranger animals such as the coatimundi (a raccoon relative with a tail striped like a lemur's), the pig-like javelina, and a small wild cat called a jaguarundi are also on the prowl. Birds such as raptors, California condors, and falcons fly overhead, while reptiles like Gila monsters, ornate box turtles, desert tortoises, and rattlesnakes creep through deserts. Amphibians like the endangered Sonoran tiger salamander live near lakes and ponds.

Evergreens such as piñon pines and junipers grow in mountains, and deserts are dotted with mesquite trees, flowering cacti, and shrubs such as sagebrush and creosote bushes.

Natural Resources

Arizona produces silver and gold, but its top metal is copper-the state produces the most in the United States. In the early 1900s, the state's copper helped build the Arizona's railroads. Part of the largest stand of ponderosas lies in Arizona and extends into New Mexico, which yield lumber and paper.

-Arizona was home to Apache warrior Geronimo, who fought Mexican and then U.S. troops in the 1800s; civil rights activist and farm rights worker Cesar Chavez; and jazz performer Charles Mingus.

-Stop by the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday survived a shootout so famous that 10 movies have been made about it.

-Stargazers won't want to miss Kitt Peak National Observatory, which houses the world's largest collection of optical and radio telescopes. They recently helped discover galaxies 12 billion light-years away!

-The Hoover Dam, completed in 1935 and named after President Herbert Hoover, is considered an engineering marvel-the water collected at the dam can supply two million acres with water! Tour passageways and tunnels inside the giant dam, walk on top of it, and even take an elevator 530 feet down to the bottom.

-Check out the sandstone cliffs in Red Rock State Park, which opened in 1991.

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Denali (Mount McKinley) in Denali National Park is the tallest peak in North America.

The first people probably came to what is now Alaska about 13,000 years ago. They either walked from what is now Russia, which was connected to Alaska by a patch of land up to 600 miles wide called the Bering Land Bridge, or they sailed.

Russians settled here in 1784, and in 1867 the United States purchased the land for two cents an acre. Many thought the harsh habitat was a bad buy until gold was struck in 1872. Alaska became the 49th U.S. state in 1959.

Indigenous people including the Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Aleuts, Athabascans, and Yup'ik still live here.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Alaska's name comes from the native Aleut word Alyeska, or Aláxsxaq, which roughly means "great land."

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Head north through the contiguous (that means connected) United States, cross into Canada, then go all the way west to get to Alaska, the largest state (in area) in the Union. The state is bordered by Canada on the east, the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean in the north, the Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea in the west, and the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Alaska in the south.

Alaska deserves its reputation for being cold. Much of the state is covered in a layer of permafrost-permanently frozen soil-and it's home to the largest glacier in North America. Called the Bering Glacier, it's 2,250 square miles, about the size of the state of Delaware. The northern and western coasts are tundra landscapes: flat and treeless with whipping winds. Brr!

Visit Denali National Park to see its snow-capped celebrity, Denali-the tallest mountain in North America.

The taiga forest in the center of the state is filled with evergreen trees, lakes, and meadows. Along the southeast coast, you'll even find rain forests. But watch out! Alaska has over 40 active volcanoes.

Off the north and west coasts of Alaska you might spot polar bears, beluga whales, and walruses. More big mammals include black bears, moose, Dall sheep, musk oxen, caribou, and the world's largest brown bear, the Kodiak. Alaska is also home to birds such as albatross, eagles, and loons.

You can see trees including hemlock, pine, cedar, and Sitka spruce, Alaska's state tree. The state flower is the forget-me-not, which gives off its scent only at night.

Natural Resources

Alaska's biggest export is the mineral zinc, but gold is its most famous export. Alaska is also known for lumber, fish-especially salmon-coal, and jade, the state gem.

-The temperature in northern Alaska dropped to -80ºF in 1971, marking the coldest temperature ever recorded in the United States.

-Alaska is called the Land of the Midnight Sun because for over two months in the summer, in the northernmost part of the state, the sun doesn't set at all!

-The aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, are bands of brightly colored light that dance across the night sky. They're caused by electrically charged particles from the sun that collide with gases in our atmosphere.

-Try a bite of aqutak, or Eskimo ice cream-a mix of seal oil, animal fat, snow, and wild Alaskan berries.

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More than 10,000 years ago, the first people arrived in what is now California. They walked from Asia, crossing on a strip of land that’s now submerged under a body of water between Russia and the United States called the Bering Strait.

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The Florida Keys are a destination for fishing, boating, and scuba diving.

The first people to live in what is now Florida arrived more than 12,000 years ago. They hunted small animals and gathered wild plants for food. Over the centuries, Native American tribes including the Timucua, Apalachee, Calusa, and Creek lived in the area.

Spanish conquistador (that's Spanish for "conqueror") Ponce de León sailed to Florida in 1513 searching for gold and silver. He didn't find it, but he did discover fertile farmland and lots of coastline-excellent for shipping. No wonder Great Britain, France, and Spain all tried to establish settlements in Florida. In 1763, the British took control of Florida from Spain in exchange for the land that is now Havana, Cuba. But just two decades later, as part of the peace treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, Spain took charge again. That didn't last long-new U.S. settlers began flooding in, and in 1821, Spain gave up Florida to the United States in exchange for Spanish rule over Texas. Florida officially became the 27th state in 1845.

Today Native Americans called Seminoles still live in Florida. The people come from a combination of tribes who migrated to the area in the 1700s to avoid conflict with the Europeans and with other tribes.

WHY'S IT CALLED THAT?

Florida's original Spanish name is La Florida, which means "place of flowers." Some historians think Ponce de León chose the name to honor the blooming flowers he saw there, or in tribute to Spain's Easter celebration called Pascua Florida, or "Feast of Flowers."

GEOGRAPHY AND LANDFORMS

Florida is a peninsula-that means it's almost completely surrounded by water. Its northernmost edge is connected to Alabama in the northwest and Georgia in the northeast. Take a swim off Florida's west coast, and you'll be in the Gulf of Mexico. Dive in off the east coast, and you'll be splashing in the Atlantic Ocean. Off the south coast, you'll be swimming in the Straits of Florida.

The northern "upland" part of the state is hilly, but you'll find caves and sinkholes in the northwestern Marianna lowlands. The coastal plains contain sandy beaches, islands, and coral reefs. In the south, you can canoe through the famous Everglades National Park -swampy, wildlife-filled marshland that covers 1.5 million acres. Off the southernmost tip of the state are the Florida Keys, a group of about 1,700 tiny islands called an archipelago. Want to island-hop? No problem. A causeway and 42 bridges connect the various keys.

Florida's wildlife includes mammals like armadillos, black bears, and the Florida panther; reptiles such as alligators, crocodiles, and snakes; sea life like manatees, sea turtles, dolphins, and whales; and birds such as raptors, owls, cranes, and Florida's state bird, the mockingbird. More than 300 types of native trees grow in the state, from apple and cherry trees in the north to mangrove forests in the swamps. Tall sawgrass is a common sight in marshes, though Florida's most famous plant may be the orange tree-the orange blossom is the state flower.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Many believe that Ponce de León was the first to plant orange seeds in Florida. Three centuries later, newly-built railroads allowed growers to ship oranges across the United States. Today the state provides oranges for most of the orange juice sold in the country.

Sugarcane, fish, petroleum, and phosphate (used for fertilizer) are also top natural resources from Florida.

-Florida can make an excellent vacation spot, thanks to its 663 miles of beaches and-of course!-Disney World. The 40-square-mile park in the city of Orlando has more than 60,000 employees and welcomes more than 62,000 visitors every day.

-The state can even take you out of this world ... literally! You can see an actual rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, where rockets have been taking off since 1950.

-Florida isn't just a great place to visit. Many have called the state home. Author Ernest Hemingway chose to live in Key West. Zora Neale Hurston, a member of the Harlem Renaissance, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and a collector and publisher of African-American and Afro-Caribbean folklore, also lived here. Singer Ariana Grande and former Attorney General of the United States Janet Reno were also born in Florida.

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Get facts and photos about the 27th state.