North Dakota

..is not for sale but is the place to be with wide open spaces and friendly faces. Take a peek at the following and you will wonder why your not here!

NORTH DAKOTA PROFILE
Population: 672,591
Land Area: 44.1 million acres
Land in farms: 39.4 million acres
Number of farms: 30,100
Average farm size: 1,309 acres
Number of counties: 53

TOP COMMODITIES
Wheat
Soybeans
Corn
Sugarbeets
Sunflower
Canola
Potatoes
Dry Edible Beans
Barley
Honey
Lentils
Peas

FAMOUS NORTH DAKOTANS
Lawrence Welk Strasburg Entertainer
Roger Maris Fargo 61 homers New York Yankees
Louis L'Amour Jamestown author of short stories
Angie Dickinson Kulm Hollywood actress
Phil Jackson Williston NBA coach of Chicago Bulls & Lakers
Phil Hanson Oakes Buffalo Bills football
Travis Hafner Sykeston Cleveland Indians baseball
Jim Kleinsasser Carrington Minnesota Vikings football
Josh Duhamel Minot actor

AGRICULTURE IS OUR LEADING INDUSTRY

Production agriculture makes of 25 percent of the economic base.

Nearly 24 percent of North Dakota workers are farmers and ranchers or are employed in farm related jobs.

North Dakota crop land would cover more than 12 million city blocks.

North Dakota farms provide food and habitat for 75 percent of the states wildlife.

North Dakota is home to nearly 160 certified organic farms.

North Dakota has 30,100 farms and ranches. The average size of a North Dakota farm is 1,309 acres.

ND LEADS THE NATION IN THE PRODUCTION OF THE FOLLOWING COMMODITIES

2010 Rank in U.S. #1 Percent of the Nation's Production
Flaxseed 89%
Canola 89%
Dry Edible Peas 57%
Pinto Beans 55%
Durum Wheat 62%
Oil Sunflower 48%
All Sunflower 46%
Non-Oil Sunflower 39%
Spring Wheat 45%
Navy Beans 41%
All Dry Edible Beans 36%
Lentils 45%
Barley 24%
Honey 26%
Oats 17%
All Wheat 16%

DID YOU KNOW

It takes a combine 9 seconds to harvest enough wheat to make 70 loaves of bread.

An ear of corn contains approximately 600 kernels

North Dakota farmers and ranchers annually produce enough:

Wheat for 14.8 billion loaves of bread

Soybeans to make 219 billion crayons

Potatoes for 178 million servings of French fries

Durum for 8.7 million servings of spaghetti

Sunflowers to fill 813 million bags of sunflowers

Beef for 108 million hamburgers

Wool for 461,000 sweaters

Milk to fill 950 million glasses

Pork for 5.4 million pork chops

Corn to produce 736 million gallons of ethanol

Canola to fill the North Dakota Capitol tower more than 17 times

Sugarbeets to produce enough sugar to sweeten 31 billion gallons of Kool-Aid

Alfalfa to feed 741,000 cows for one year

NORTH DAKOTA FACTS AND TRIVIA

Bismarck is the state capitol

Milk is the official state beverage

When Dakota Territory was created in 1861 it was named for the Dakota Indian Tribe. Dakota is a Sioux word meaning friends or allies.

Dakota Gasification Company in Beulah is the nation's only synthetic natural gas producer

The Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba on the north, Minnesota on the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana as its western neighbor border North Dakota

Devils Lake is the largest natural body of water in North Dakota. Devils Lake derives its name from the Native American name Miniwaukan. Early explorers incorrectly translated the word to mean Bad Spirit. Bolstered by the many legends of drowned warriors and lake monsters the name evolved into Devils Lake. The very fertile prairie lake grows large numbers of the fish known as walleye, northern pike, and white bass. The lake has earned the reputation of being the Perch Capital of the World.

The name Roughrider State originated in a state-supported tourism promotion in the 1960s and 70s. It refers to the First US Cavalry that Theodore Roosevelt organized to fight in the Spanish American War.

The Lone Tree Wildlife Management Area located southwest of Harvey consists of 33,000 acres of gently rolling hills bordering the Sheyenne River.

North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other state.

Only one word is needed to describe Lake Sakakawea country—big. From the massive two-mile long Garrison Dam near Riverdale to the end of Lake Sakakawea near Williston, Lake Sakakawea is nearly 200 miles long with a shoreline of countless bays and inlets that cover 1600 miles.

North Dakota is 212 miles long north to south and 360 miles wide east to west.

Lawrence Welk left his home in Strasburg on his birthday in 1924 to pursue his musical career. On July 2, 1955, he made his debut on national television. The Lawrence Welk Show was produced for 26 years and today reruns of the popular program air weekly throughout the United States and foreign countries.

The official state flower is the wild prairie rose. The state rose grows along roadsides, in pastures and in native meadows.

The state bird is the Western Meadowlark.

Watch out Texas! Get back California, Louisiana and Alaska! North Dakota is on track to knock all of you off as the oil capital of the United States. A thin layer of rock known as Bakken Shale, located a couple of miles under the Badlands, holds up to billions of barrels of recoverable oil, making it the single largest oil reservoir that federal scientists have ever assessed. North Dakota has now moved into the number 4 spot as an oil producing state.

Click photos for larger view

Aerial Spraying of Crops	Beans	Bales of Hay
Buffalo	Buffalo	Combine in Action
Cattle	Corn Field	Combines Ready To Go
Devils Lake	Dam	Garrison Dam
Fall Trees	Fall Trees	Harvest Completed
Geese	Hills Along the Sheyenne	Harvesting the Crops
Hay to Haul	Hayland	Hello
Horses	Horses	North Dakota Beauty
Irrigation	Lake Sakakawea	Lunch Time
Marina	Missouri River Valley	North Dakota Sunset
North Dakota Farming Community	North Dakota Map	Open Road
Pasture Land	Plenty of Grazing	Pheasants
Pheasants	Plenty of Geese	Structures at the Garrison Dam
Pot of Gold	Ready for Harvest	Ripe and Ready
River Valley	Small Creek	Small Town
Smile Your on Camera	Sunflowers	Swath Ready for the Combine
Sunflowers Smiling Faces	Water Pond in Pasture	Vacant Rural Church
Winter Wonderland	Winter	Winter in North Dakota