Mississippi is a southern state of the United States. The state takes its name from the Mississippi River, which flows along the western boundary. The name itself comes from either the Ojibwe, a Native American language spoken around the river's headwaters, or some other closely related Algonquian language, meaning "great river." Other nicknames attached to Mississippi are the Magnolia State and the Hospitality State.
Aberdeen Amory Batesville Bay St Louis Belden Biloxi Booneville Brandon Brookhaven Byram Canton Clarksdale Cleveland Clinton Collins Columbia Columbus Corinth D Iberville Diamondhead Durant Ellisville Flowood Forest Fulton Gautier Greenville Greenwood Grenada Gulfport Hattiesburg Hernando Holly Springs Horn Lake Indianola Jackson Kosciusko Laurel Louisville Macon Madison Magee Meridian Moss Point Natchez New Albany Ocean Springs Olive Branch Oxford Pascagoula Pearl Philadelphia Picayune Pontotoc Richland Ridgeland Ripley Robinsonville Sardis Senatobia Southaven Starkville Tunica Tupelo Vicksburg Waveland West Point Wiggins Yazoo City
Mississippi is bordered on the north by the state of Tennessee; on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico; and on the west by Louisiana and Arkansas (across the Mississippi River).
Major rivers include Mississippi River, Big Black River, Pearl River, and Yazoo River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake, and Grenada Lake.
The highest point in Mississippi, part of the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains is Woodall Mountain. Hardly a mountain, Woodall Mountain is only 806 feet (246 m) above sea level. The lowest point is along the shore at the Gulf of Mexico; sea level. The Mean Elevation is 300 feet (91 m) above sea level.
Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain, and the rest of the state is made up of a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The East Gulf Coastal Plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills. Somewhat higher elevations are in the Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast. Yellow-brown loess soil is in the west, and a region of fertile black earth, part of the Black Belt, is in the northeast. The coastline, which includes large bays at Bay Saint Louis, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, is separated from the Gulf of Mexico proper by the shallow Mississippi Sound, which is partially enclosed by Petit Bois, Horn, Ship, and Cat islands. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain, known also as the Delta, is narrow in the south and widens north of Vicksburg. The region has rich soil, partly made up of silt deposited by floodwaters of the Mississippi River.
Areas under the management of the National Park Service include:
* Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site near Baldwin * Gulf Islands National Seashore * Natchez National Historical Park in Natchez * Natchez Trace Parkway * Tupelo National Battlefield in Tupelo * Vicksburg National Cemetery in Vicksburg * Vicksburg National Military Park also in Vicksburg
Mississippi was part of the Mississippian culture in the early part of the second millennium AD; descendant Native American tribes include the Chickasaw and Choctaw. Other tribes who inhabited the territory of Mississippi (and whose names became those of local towns) include the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi.
The first expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of Hernando de Soto, who passed through in 1540. The first settlement was that of Ocean Springs (or Old Biloxi), settled by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699. In 1716, Natchez was founded on the Mississippi River (as Fort Rosalie); it became the dominant town and trading post of the area. After spending some time under Spanish, British, and French nominal jurisdiction, the Mississippi area was deeded to the British after the French and Indian War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.
The Mississippi Territory was organized on April 7, 1798, from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina; it was later twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain. Land was purchased (generally through unequal treaties) from Native American tribes from 1800 to about 1830.
Mississippi was the 20th state admitted to the Union, on December 10, 1817.
When cotton was king during the 1850s, Mississippi plantation owners—especially those of the Delta and Black Belt regions—became increasingly wealthy due to the high fertility of the soil and the high price of cotton on the international market. The severe wealth imbalances and the necessity of large-scale slave populations to sustain such income played a heavy role in both state politics and in the support for secession.
Mississippi was the second state to secede from the Union as one of the Confederate States of America on January 9, 1861. During the Civil War the Confederate States were defeated. Under the terms of Reconstruction, Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February 23, 1870.
Mississippi was considered to typify the Deep South during the era of Jim Crow. A series of increasingly restrictive racial segregation laws enacted during the first part of the 20th century resulted in the emigration of almost half a million people, three-quarters of them black, in the 1940s. However, at the same time, Mississippi became a center of rich, quintessentially American music traditions: gospel music, jazz music, blues, and rock and roll all were invented, promulgated, or heavily developed by Mississippi musicians. Mississippi was also noted for its authors in the early twentieth century, especially William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams.
Mississippi was a center of the American Civil Rights Movement. While many in the state supported the effort to secure voting and other rights for African-Americans, the vocal opposition of many politicians and officials and the violent tactics of Ku Klux Klan members and sympathizers gave Mississippi a reputation as a reactionary state during the 1960s.
The state was the last to repeal prohibition and to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, in 1966 and 1995 respectively.
On August 17, 1969, Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars). On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused even greater destruction across the entire 90 miles of Mississippi Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama.
Mississippi has a warm, humid climate, with long summers and short, mild winters. Temperatures average about 82°F (about 28°C) in July and about 48 °F (about 9 °C) in January. The temperature varies little across the state in summer, but in winter the region near Mississippi Sound is significantly warmer than most of the rest of the state. The recorded temperature in Mississippi has ranged from -19 °F (-28.3 °C), in 1966, at Corinth in the northeast, to 115 °F (46.1 °C), in 1930, at Holly Springs in the north.
Yearly precipitation generally increases from north to south. Thus, Clarksdale, in the northwest, gets about 50 inches (about 1,270 mm) of moisture annually and Biloxi, in the south, about 61 inches (about 1,550 mm). Small amounts of snow fall in northern and central Mississippi. In the late summer and the fall, the state (especially the southern part) is frequently affected by hurricanes moving north from the Gulf of Mexico, and occasionally impacted by major hurricanes, which can be quite devastating in coastal communities. Inland Mississippi is also struck by tornadoes, especially from February to May.
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