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 Forklift Attachments Minnesota - Minnesota is a U.S. state situated in the Midwestern United States. The 12th biggest state of the U.S., it is the 21st most crowded, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota State was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the 32nd state on the 11th of May, 1858. Known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the state's name was derived from a Dakota word meaning "sky-tinted water." Those waters, along with wilderness areas, forests and parks, provide residents and tourists different outdoor recreational opportunities.
Nearly 60% of Minnesota's residents reside within the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area called the "Twin Cities", the center of business, education and industry, and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of Minnesota State consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and North Woods, which is less populated and, used for forestry, recreation and mining.
Once primarily a producer of raw materials, the economy of Minnesota has transformed in the past 200 years to emphasize services and finished products. Perhaps the most important characteristic of the economy is its diversity; the relative outputs of its business sectors closely match the United States as a whole. The economy of the state of Minnesota had a gross domestic product of $262 billion in the year 2008. 33 of the United States' top 1,000 publicly traded companies, according to 2008 revenues, are headquartered in the state of Minnesota, comprising Target, United Health Group, 3M, Medtronic, General Mills, U.S. Bancorp, Ameriprise, Land O' Lakes, Hormel, SuperValu, Best Buy and Valspar. Private businesses based in Minnesota State include Carlson Companies, the parent company of Radisson Hotels and Cargill, the largest privately owned company based in the US.
The earliest industries within the state of Minnesota were agriculture and fur trading. St. Anthony Falls helped to power the flour mills around Minneapolis City during its formative years. In the agricultural sector, less than 1 percent of the people is employed, as it still remains vital to the state's economy. This sector ranks 6th within the nation in the value of agricultural products sold. Minnesota State is the U.S.'s biggest producer of sweet corn, sugar beats, and farm-raised turkeys and green peas for processing. Forestry remains strong, including pulpwood processing, logging and forest products manufacturing and paper production. The state of Minnesota was well-known for its soft-ore mines, which produced a significant part of the globe's iron ore for over a century. Even though the high-grade ore is currently depleted, taconite mining continues, making use of methods developed locally to save the industry. In 2004, the state produced 75 percent of the nation's usable iron ore. The mining boom created the port of Duluth which continues to be essential for shipping agricultural products, ore and coal. The manufacturing sector presently consists of technology and biomedical firms along with the older food processors and heavy industry. Edina's Southdale Center is the country's very first indoor shopping mall and its Bloomington's Mall of America is its largest.
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