Mississippi

One of the 50 states of the Union located in the southeastern United States.
Postal abbreviation: MS. Official (long) name: State of Mississippi.

Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union, on 10 December 1817. It was the second state to secede from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America on 9 January 1861. During the Civil War the Confederate States of America was defeated and subsequently Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on 23 February 1870.

• capital: Jackson

Motto: "Virtute et Armis" (By Valor and Arms)
Song: "Go, Mississippi", adopted 1962
Tree: Magnolia
Bird: Mockingbird
Statehood quarter should be the last minted in 2002.

The state takes its name from the Mississippi River, which flows along the western boundary. The name itself probably comes from Native American words with various spellings that mean “large waters” or “father of the waters.” Other nicknames attached to Mississippi are the Eagle State, the Border-Eagle State, and the Bayou State. Mississippians are sometimes called Mudcats after the freshwater catfish taken from the state's streams.

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GEOGRAPHY

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Physical Geography:

Mississippi's physical geography is characterized by two distinct regions: the Mississippi [River] Floodplain and the Gulf Coastal Plain. The Mississippi Floodplain runs along the western part of the state, adjacent to the Mississippi River, and includes the Mississippi Delta region, one of the most fertile regions in the world. Between the southwest corner and Vicksburg the Floodplain extendsonly a few miles east of the river, but north of Vicksburg it extends eastward to the Yazoo River, forming a large, leaf-shaped region, the Mississippi Delta. The Gulf Coastal Plain covers all the rest of the state and can be divided into nine distinct regions. The Tennesse and Tombigbee Rivers' Hills occupy the northeastern part of the state, where Woodall Mountain, near Iuka, is the state's highest point, at 806 feet above sea level. West of the Hills is the Black Prairie, a narrow, fertile, crescent-shaped lowland with few trees. Along the western border of the Black Prairie rises the Pontotoc Ridge, from the Tennessee state line to near Ackerman. North Mississippi also includes the Flatwoods, a narrow crescent of sticky clay soil adjacent to both the Tennessee and Alabama borders.Additionally, the North Central Hills occupy all of north-central Mississippi and extend as far southeast as Clarke County. To the west, the Loess Hills (or Bluff Hills) another series of uplands run along the edge of the Floodplain. Thiese hills border the eastern edge of the Delta in the north and then curve westward following the line of the Mississippi River below Vicksburg.

South of the North Central Hills, the Jackson Prairies, a belt of fertile farmland, run northwest to southeast from Yazoo County into Wayne County. All of southern Mississippi except for a strip along the gulf, is covered with the Long Leaf Pine Hills (a.k.a. Piney Woods) south of the Jackson Prairies, and is the state's chief timber-producing area. Along the southern edge of the panhandle lie the Coastal Meadows. The lowest part of the state, along the estuary known as the Mississippi Sound, lies at sea level.

The western part of the state is drained by the Mississippi River and three of its tributaries—the Yazoo, Big Black, and Homochitto rivers. The extreme northeastern corner lies in the basin of the Tennessee River. The rest of the state drains southward into the Gulf of Mexico, mainly through the Pearl, Pascagoula, and Tombigbee rivers.

The state takes its name from the Mississippi River, which flows along the western boundary. The name itself probably comes from Native American words with various spellings that mean “large waters” or “father of the waters.” Other nicknames attached to Mississippi are the Eagle State, the Border-Eagle State, and the Bayou State. Mississippians are sometimes called Mudcats after the freshwater catfish taken from the state's streams.

National Parks:

The National Park Service administers the Natchez Trace Parkway, which runs approximately 300 miles southwest to northeast across Mississippi from Natchez in Adams County, then west and north of Jackson, then north past Kosciusko and Starkville, near Pontotoc and Tupelo, where the Parkway headquarters are located, until it enters northwest Alabama from Tishomingo County.

Additionally, Mississippi's four barrier islands, Horn Island, Cat Island, East and West Ship Islands, and Petit Bois Islands form part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico.

Adjacent U.S. States:

Mississippi is bordered to the south and west by Louisiana, from the 31st parallel to north of Vicksburg the Mississippi River forms the boundary between the two states, as it does between Mississippi and Arkansas, located north of Lousiana and bordering Mississippi to the northwest. Mississippi is bordered to the north by Tennessee and to the east by Alabama. The southern panhandle is bordered to the west by Louisiana across the Pearl River, south of the 31st parallel, and to the south by the Mississippi Sound, an estuary between the Mississippi and its barrier islands, Horn, Cat, East and West Ship, and Petit Bois. South of these islands lies the Gulf of Mexico.

Counties:

This is a long list comprising 82 items located on another page. Follow the hyperlink.

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DEMOGRAPHY

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Population:

Mississippi currently ranks 31st among U.S. States in population, with approximately 2,500,000 people.

Racial Makeup:

Until about 1940 African Americans made up a majority of Mississippians. Currently, however, blacks only consists of about 33 percent of the population. A few thousand Indians (mostly Choctaw) live in the east central section of the state. The small Chinese population found in the Delta is descended from farm labourers brought there from California in the 1870s. The Chinese did not adjust well to the Mississippi plantation system, however, and most of them became small merchants. The coastal fishing industry hasattracted Southeast Asian refugees.

The white population of Mississippi is remarkably homogeneous. More than 98 percent native-born of native stock, whites are predominantly of British, Irish, and northern European ancestry (except the author of this article, who is predominantly Italian, but also of German-Irish descent). The black, Choctaw Indian, and Chinese segments of the population are also almost entirely native-born.

Religious Makeup:

Mississippi's religious affiliations largely consist of Protestant denominations, particularly Baptists and United Methodists. The Roman Catholic population is found primarily in urban areas and on the Gulf Coast. The Jewish population is also mainly concentrated in urban areas.

See also: Mississippi River

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