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| City of Des Moines --- The origin of the name of the City of Des Moines dates back to 1843, when a fort was established at the juncture of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. According to the old legend of local natives, the concerned place was called Moingona. Later, French explorers began to call it Moin in an abbreviated form and rivers in that area was called "la rivere des moines (river of moines)." This is believed to be the root of the name of Des Moines. Further, Iowa is said to mean, "beautiful land" in the language of Sioux Tribe. |
| State flower |
Wild
Prairie Rose - rosa pratincola |
| State bird |
Eastern
Goldfinch - carduelis tristis |
| State tree |
Oak |
| Nickname |
The
Hawkeye State |
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| 2,988,046 people (US Census Bureau
2007 estimate) |
| Major industrial cities |
Ambient population
|
| Des
Moines |
532,425 |
| Cedar
Rapids |
249,320 |
| Davenport |
379,853 |
| Sioux
City |
144,654 |
| Waterloo |
162,348 |
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| 144,718 square kilometers (55,875 square miles) |
| Iowa is a part of what is called "the Corn Belt" in the Midwest, surrounded by Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, South Dakota and Nebraska. Iowa also has the forest covering an area of 8,094 square kilometers (1.5 million acres). It is almost as big as the total area of six prefectures in Japan's Tohoku region (150,334 square kilometers) |
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Place with the highest altitude |
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Near Sibley, about 501 meters above sea level |
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Place with the lowest altitude |
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Near Keokuk, about 140 meters above sea level |
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| The state has a continental climate and the four seasons are clearly defined. There is a big difference in temperature between day and night in summer and winter-the temperature drops past 10℃ below zero in winter, while it sometimes surpasses 30℃ in summer. |
| Climate in Des Moines Temperature: ℃, Amount of precipitation: mm |
| Month |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
|
Year |
Average
temperature |
-7.4 |
-4.2 |
1.7 |
10.3 |
16.7 |
22.0 |
24.6 |
23.3 |
18.4 |
12.3 |
3.7 |
-3.5 |
|
9.8 |
| Precipitation |
25.7 |
28.4 |
55.9 |
81.5 |
100.6 |
106.2 |
81.8 |
104.4 |
78.5 |
54.9 |
38.6 |
26.7 |
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783.1 |
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| Until 1673 |
There lived about seventeen tribes of Native Americans in the present Iowa (Ioway, Sauk, Mesquaki, Sioux, Potawatomi, Oto, Missouri and other tribes).
Then, all the lands owned by the Native Americans were purchased by the government over a period of about 180 years until the Santee Sioux Tribe concluded a treaty with the federal government. Later, the Mesquaki Tribe bought back part of the land, which is the present Native American reservation in Tama County.
[cf. Black Hawk Purchase]
[cf. Black Hawk Purchase] |
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| Summer 1673 |
Louis Joliet, a French explorer, and Pastor Jacques Marquette came to the junction of the Iowa River and the Mississippi River with five crews, becoming the first visitors other than the Native Americans. The logbook on this occasion says that the land in surrounding area was fertile and green. |
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| 1833 |
Europeans began to settle in Iowa in numbers, and settlement activities continued over a period of 300 years. The principal settlers were German and North European coming to Iowa via Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Illinoi, Virginia, etc. By 1853, as five hundred residents had settled there, Des Moines was established as a city. |
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| 1846 |
The Iowa Constitution was enacted and Iowa became the 29th state in the U.S. |
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| 1854 |
The first state fair of Iowa (animal/dairy husbandry fair) was held in Fairfield. To this day, the Iowa State Fair, one of the largest fairs in the U.S, is held in the fourth week of August every year. |
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| 1861-1865 |
75,000 Iowans joined the Union troops in the civil war and 13,000 were killed fighting or died of disease. |
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| January 17, 1872 |
About fifty members of the Japanese delegation to North America led by Tomomi Iwakura, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, passed through Iowa between Omaha and Chicago on their way from San Francisco to Washington D.C., the capital, by transcontinental railroad. "The Journey of Observation through the United States of America and Europe" , the travel account of this journey, includes descriptions of the State of Iowa. |
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| 1892 |
Froelich's invention of the gasoline-powered tractor revolutionized the farm machinery industry. |
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1926
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Pioneer Hi-Bred International was the first major company to commercially market hybrid seed corn. This revolutionized the corn yields per acre in Iowa, and led to Iowa's position as provider of food to the world. |
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| 1937 |
While a professor at Iowa State College, Atanasoff and a graduate student did the experimental work that laid the foundational for the modern computer industry. |
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| 1970 |
Borlaug won the Nobel Prize for this work in promoting the “Green Revolution”. He developed strains of disease-resistant wheat. |
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