Minnesota  is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the 32nd state on May 11, 1858. Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "clear water".

Minnesota is the 12th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the U.S. States. Nearly 60% of its residents live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paulmetropolitan area (known as the "Twin Cities"), the center of transportation, business, industry, education, and government and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.

Minnesota is known for its relatively mixed social and political orientations and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout. It ranks among the healthiest states, and has a highly literate population. The large majority of residents are of Scandinavian and German descent. The state is known as a center of Scandinavian American culture. In recent decades, substantial influxes of Asian, African, and Latin American immigrants have joined the descendants of European settlers and the original Ojibwe and Dakota inhabitants.

Minnesota contains some of the oldest rocks found on earth, gneisses some 3.6 billion years old, or 80% as old as the planet. About 2.7 billion years ago, basalticlava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean; the remains of this volcanic rock formed the Canadian Shield in northeast Minnesota. The roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1.1 billion years ago, Minnesota's geological activity has been more subdued, with no volcanism or mountain formation, but with repeated incursions of the sea, which left behind multiple strata of sedimentary rock.

The "Land of 10,000 Lakes," Minnesota got its nickname because there are more than 12,000 lakes throughout the state. Its name comes from the Dakota (Sioux) word for the Minnesota River's "sky-tinted waters." The Minnesota Territory was formed in 1849 from what had been part of the Northwest Territory, and Minnesota joined the Union in 1858. The state flower is the pink and white lady's slipper, and the capital is St. Paul.