North Dakota

North Dakota is rich with Native American history. The state is home to many of the tribes known as the Plains Indians, the indigenous people who roamed the grassy plains of North America. Most of the Plains Indians were hunters and warriors, whose lives revolved around the buffalo hunt. The state is named after one of the largest local tribes, the Dakotas, who are also called the Lakota, and more famously, the Sioux.

One of the most famous native Americans in history came from the area we now call North Dakota. Sacajawea, a Shoshone Indian girl, gained fame as the Native American guide who helped the explorers Lewis and Clark cross the North American continent at the beginning of the 19th century. She is now considered a great hero and has recently been honored as the figure on a new American coin.

North Dakota is also home to many parks and nature preserves. Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the western part of the state is filled with fascinating and highly unusual rock formations. The state is also home to three National Grasslands, where visitors can see what the Plains looked like hundreds of years ago and get a glimpse of an unusual local critter, the prairie dog. The state is also a great place to see the American bison, or buffalo, in its native habitat.

The eastern part of the state features rich soil and massive agricultural production. North Dakota produce vast amounts of sugar every year, yet no cane sugar is grown in the state. The source of all this sweetness is the humble sugarbeet. As a whole, North Dakota is the most rural state in the country, with over 90 percent of the state covered with farms.