Iowa in the context of Dissected Till Plains

The Mississippi River is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,340 mi (3,770 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest in North America.

Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and throughout as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny, the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest, the Ohio and Missouri, formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature, particularly in the writings of Mark Twain.

Missouri (see pronunciation) is a landlocked state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it borders Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to the south and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska to the west. In the south are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. At 1.5 billion years old, the St. Francois Mountains are among the oldest in the world. The Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center and into the Mississippi River, which forms the eastern border. With over six million residents, it is the 19th-most populous state of the country. The largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. The capital is Jefferson City.

Humans have inhabited present-day Missouri for at least 12,000 years. The Mississippian culture, which emerged in the ninth century, built cities with pyramidal and other ceremonial mounds before declining in the 14th century. The Indigenous Osage and Missouria nations inhabited the area when European people arrived in the 17th century. The French incorporated the territory into Louisiana, founding Ste. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States acquired Missouri as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Americans from the Upland South rushed into the new Missouri Territory, taking advantage of its productive agricultural plains; Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States. Missouri was admitted as a slave state as part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. As a border state, Missouri's role in the American Civil War was complex, and it was subject to rival governments, raids, and guerilla warfare. After the war, both Greater St. Louis and the Kansas City metropolitan area became large centers of industrialization and business.

Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of crops and animals and animal products like eggs or milk. The methods of industrial agriculture include innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, the application of patent protection to genetic information, and global trade. These methods are widespread in developed nations and increasingly prevalent worldwide. Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced in this way.

The Dakota (pronounced [daˈkˣota], Dakota: Dakȟóta or Dakhóta) are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota.

The four bands of Eastern Dakota are the Bdewákaŋthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ, Waȟpékhute, and Sisíthuŋwaŋ and are sometimes referred to as the Santee (Isáŋyathi or Isáŋ-athi; 'knife' + 'encampment', 'dwells at the place of knife flint'), who reside in the eastern Dakotas, central Minnesota and northern Iowa. They have federally recognized tribes established in several places.

Tornado Alley, also known as Tornado Valley, is a loosely defined location of the central United States where tornadoes are most frequent. The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Tornado climatologists distinguish peaks in activity in certain areas and storm chasers have long recognized the Great Plains tornado belt.

As a colloquial term there are no definitively set boundaries of Tornado Alley, but the area common to most definitions extends from Texas, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, North Dakota, Montana, Ohio, and eastern portions of Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Research suggests that the main alley may be shifting eastward away from the Great Plains, and that tornadoes are also becoming more frequent in the northern and eastern parts of Tornado Alley where it reaches the Canadian Prairies, Ohio, Michigan, and Southern Ontario.

Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" (a French loan word) tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the lower and mid-latitude of the area referred to as the Interior Plains of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east. From west to east, generally the drier expanse of shortgrass prairie gives way to mixed grass prairie and ultimately the richer and wetter soils of the tallgrass prairie.

In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states, from north to south, of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas in the west, and to the east, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. The Palouse of Washington and the Central Valley of California are also prairies. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Prairies may contain various lush flora and fauna, often contain rich soil maintained by biodiversity, with a temperate climate and a varied view.

Minnesota (/ˌmɪnəˈsoʊtə/ MIN-ə-SOH-tə) is a state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the south, and North Dakota and South Dakota to the west. The northeast corner has a water boundary with Michigan. It is the 12th-largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd-most populous, with about 5.8 million residents. Minnesota is known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes"; it has 14,420 bodies of fresh water covering at least ten acres each. Roughly a third of the state is forested. Much of the remainder is prairie and farmland. More than 60% of Minnesotans (about 3.71 million) live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, known as the "Twin Cities", which is Minnesota's main political, economic, and cultural hub and the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Other minor metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas include Duluth, Mankato, Moorhead, Rochester, and St. Cloud.

Minnesota, which derives its name from the Dakota language, has been inhabited by various Native Americans since the Woodland period of the 11th century BCE. Between roughly 200 and 500 CE, two areas of the indigenous Hopewell tradition emerged: the Laurel complex in the north, and Trempealeau Hopewell in the Mississippi River Valley in the south. The Upper Mississippian culture, consisting of the Oneota people and other Siouan speakers, emerged around 1000 CE and lasted through the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century. French explorers and missionaries were the earliest Europeans to enter the region, encountering the Dakota, Ojibwe, and various Anishinaabe tribes. Much of what is now Minnesota formed part of the vast French holding of Louisiana, which the United States purchased in 1803. After several territorial reorganizations, the Minnesota Territory was admitted to the Union as the 32nd state in 1858. Minnesota's official motto, L'Étoile du Nord ("The Star of the North"), is the only state motto in French. This phrase was adopted shortly after statehood and reflects both the state's early French explorers and its position as the northernmost state in the contiguous U.S.

The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland, the American Midwest, or, datedly, the Middle West) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the U.S. Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south.

The United States Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River, and the Missouri River. The 2020 United States census put the population of the Midwest at 68,995,685. The Midwest is divided by the U.S. Census Bureau into two divisions. The East North Central Division includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, all of which are also part of the Great Lakes region. The West North Central Division includes Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, and South Dakota, several of which are located, at least partly, within the Great Plains region.

Pocahontas County is a county located in Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 7,078, making it the state's ninth-least populous county. The county seat is Pocahontas. The county was formed in 1851. The county is named in honor of Pocahontas, the famous Native American woman from Jamestown, Virginia. A colossal statue of her stands in the city of Pocahontas.

Johnson County is located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the population was 152,854, making it the fourth-most populous county in Iowa. The county seat is Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa. Johnson County is included in the Iowa City metropolitan area, which is also included in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Corridor Combined Statistical Area.

South Dakota (/dəˈkoʊtə/ ; Siouan languages: Dakȟóta itókaga, pronounced [daˈkˣota iˈtokaga]) is a landlocked state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota Sioux tribe, which comprises a large portion of the population—with nine reservations in the state—and has historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the 17th-largest by area, the fifth-least populous, and the fifth-least densely populated of the 50 United States. Pierre is the state capital, and Sioux Falls, with a population of about 213,900, is South Dakota's most populous city. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing it into two geographically and socially distinct halves known as "East River" and "West River". South Dakota is bordered by North Dakota to the north, Minnesota to the east, Iowa to the southeast, Nebraska to the south, Wyoming to the west, and Montana to the northwest.

Humans have inhabited the area for several millennia, with the Sioux becoming dominant by the early 19th century. In the late 19th century, European-American settlement intensified after a gold rush in the Black Hills and the construction of railroads from the east. Encroaching miners and settlers triggered a number of Indian wars, ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. They are the 39th and 40th states admitted to the union; President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first.

Wisconsin is a state in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. With a population of about 6 million and an area of about 65,500 square miles, Wisconsin is the 20th-largest state by population and the 23rd-largest by area. It has 72 counties. The state's most populous city is Milwaukee. Its capital and second-most populous city is Madison; other urban areas include Green Bay and the Fox Cities.

Wisconsin's geography is diverse, with dense forests in the north (including Chequamegon–Nicolet National Forest), rugged unglaciated hills in the western Driftless Area, and wooded plains, lowlands, and farms stretching from the interior east to Lake Michigan. Wisconsin has the third-longest Great Lakes coastline, after Ontario and Michigan. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited by Algonquian and Siouan nations, and today it is home to eleven federally recognized tribes. Originally part of the Northwest Territory, it was admitted as a state in 1848. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many European settlers entered the state, mostly from Germany and Scandinavia. Wisconsin remains a center of German American and Scandinavian American culture, particularly in its cuisine, with foods such as bratwurst and kringle.

The Upper Midwest is a northern subregion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon, the region is usually defined to include the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin; some definitions include North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of Nebraska and Illinois.

Nature-based solutions (or nature-based systems, and abbreviated as NBS or NbS) describe the development and use of nature (biodiversity) and natural processes to address diverse socio-environmental issues. These issues include climate change mitigation and adaptation, human security issues such as water security and food security, and disaster risk reduction. The aim is that resilient ecosystems (whether natural, managed, or newly created) provide solutions for the benefit of both societies and biodiversity. The 2019 UN Climate Action Summit highlighted nature-based solutions as an effective method to combat climate change. For example, nature-based systems for climate change adaptation can include natural flood management, restoring natural coastal defences, and providing local cooling.

The concept of NBS is related to the concept of ecological engineering and ecosystem-based adaptation. NBS are also related, conceptually to the practice of ecological restoration. The sustainable management approach is a key aspect of NBS development and implementation.

Nebraska (/nəˈbræskə/ nə-BRASS-kə) is a landlocked state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwest; and Wyoming to the west. Nebraska is the 16th-largest state by land area, with just over 77,220 square miles (200,000 km). With a population of over 2 million as of 2024, it is the 38th-most populous state and the eighth-least densely populated. Nebraska's capital is Lincoln, and its most populous city is Omaha, which is on the Missouri River. Nebraska was admitted into the United States in 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War. The Nebraska Legislature is unlike any other American legislature in that it is unicameral, and its members are elected without any official reference to political party affiliation. Nebraska is one of only two states (Maine being the other) that divide electoral college votes by district, and is not winner-take-all.

Nebraska is composed of two major land regions: the Dissected Till Plains and the Great Plains. The Dissected Till Plains region consists of gently rolling hills and contains the state's largest cities, Omaha and Lincoln. The Great Plains region, occupying most of western Nebraska, is characterized by treeless prairie. Eastern Nebraska has a humid continental climate while western Nebraska is primarily semi-arid. The state has wide variations between winter and summer temperatures; the variations decrease in southern Nebraska. Violent thunderstorms and tornadoes occur primarily during spring and summer, and sometimes in autumn. The Chinook wind tends to warm the state significantly in the winter and early spring.

40°N 98°W / 40°N 98°W / 40; -98

The Central United States is sometimes conceived as between the Eastern and Western as part of a three-region model, roughly coincident with the U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the Midwestern United States plus the western and central portions of the U.S. Census's definition of the Southern United States. The Central States are typically considered to consist of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama.

The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of a loosely organized group of 12 or 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually, member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michigan to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The five main tribes were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. Other related tribes are described as the Maroa (which may have been the same as Tamaroa), Tapourao, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, and Chepoussa. By 1700, only the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa remained. Over time, these tribes continued to merge, with the Tamaroa joining the Kaskaskia, the Cahokia joining the Peoria, and with a portion of the Michigamea merging with the Kaskaskia and the remainder merging with the Quapaw.

The spelling "Illinois" was derived from the transliteration by French explorers of iliniwe to the orthography of their own language. The tribes are estimated to have had tens of thousands of members, before the advancement of European contact in the 17th century that inhibited their growth and resulted in a marked decline in population.

The 1900 Galveston hurricane, also known as the Great Galveston hurricane and the Galveston Flood, and known regionally as the Great Storm of 1900 or the 1900 Storm, was a catastrophic tropical cyclone that became the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. The strongest storm of the 1900 Atlantic hurricane season, it left between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities in the United States; the number most cited in official reports is 8,000. Most of these deaths occurred in and near Galveston, Texas, after the storm surge inundated the coastline and the island city with 8 to 12 ft (2.4 to 3.7 m) of water. As of 2025, it remains the fourth deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, behind Hurricane Fifi of 1974. In addition to the number killed, the storm destroyed about 7,000 buildings of all uses in Galveston, which included 3,636 demolished homes; every dwelling in the city suffered some degree of damage. The hurricane left approximately 10,000 people in the city homeless, out of a total population of fewer than 38,000. The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston. The hurricane alarmed potential investors, who turned to Houston instead. In response to the storm, three engineers designed and oversaw plans to raise the Gulf of Mexico shoreline of Galveston Island by 17 ft (5.2 m) and erect a 10 mi (16 km) seawall.

On August 27, 1900, a ship east of the Windward Islands detected a tropical cyclone, the first observed that year. The system proceeded to move steadily west-northwestward and entered the northeastern Caribbean on August 30. It made landfall in the Dominican Republic as a weak tropical storm on September 2. It weakened slightly while crossing Hispaniola, before re-emerging into the Caribbean Sea later that day. On September 3, the cyclone struck modern-day Santiago de Cuba Province and then slowly drifted along the southern coast of Cuba. Upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico on September 6, the storm strengthened into a hurricane. Significant intensification followed and the system peaked as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (235 km/h) on September 8. Early on the next day, it made landfall to the south of Houston. The cyclone weakened quickly after moving inland and fell to tropical storm intensity late on September 9. The storm turned east-northeastward and became extratropical over Iowa on September 11. The extratropical system strengthened while accelerating across the Midwestern United States, New England, and Eastern Canada before reaching the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on September 13. After striking Newfoundland later that day, the extratropical storm entered the far North Atlantic Ocean and weakened, with the remnants last observed near Iceland on September 15.