Iowa is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the east and southeast, Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, South Dakota to the northwest, and Minnesota to the north. It is the 26th most extensive in total area and the 30th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two.
About Iowa in brief
Iowa derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many Native American nations whose territory comprised the future state at the time of European colonization. In colonial times, Iowa was a part of French Louisiana and Spanish Louisiana; its state flag is patterned after the flag of France. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the east and southeast, Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, South Dakota to the northwest, and Minnesota to the north. Iowa is the 26th most extensive in total area and the 30th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. The state’s capital, most populous city, and largest metropolitan area fully located within the state is Des Moines. Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture; crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands cover 30%, and forests cover 7%. urban areas and water cover another 1% each. Threatened animals in Iowa include the interior tern, piping plover, Indiana bat, pallid sturgeon, pearly eye mussel, and the Endeka shiner. Other factors affecting Iowa’s environment include the extensive use of coal-fired power plants, fertilizer runoff from crop production, and pesticide use from older crop plants. The explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased rural water contamination and a decline in air quality in rural areas. The Iowa Pesticide Initiative is a program that aims to protect the environment by reducing the amount of pesticides used in agriculture.
It aims to reduce the use of older pesticide plants, such as Roundup, by 50% by the end of the year. The program is funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NS&T) and the National Center for Environmental Protection (NCEP). Iowa is home to the National Museum of Nature and Science, which has a collection of more than 1,000 endangered species of plants and animals, including the endangered Iowa prairie milkweed, prairie bush clover, eastern prairie fringed orchid, and northern prairie orchid clover. It also has a National Park Service office in Iowa City, Iowa, which protects the state’s endangered species. Iowa’s natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in upland areas, with dense forest and wetlands in flood plains and protected river valleys. There is a dearth of natural areas in Iowa; less than 1% of. the tallgrass Prairie that once covered most of Iowa remains intact. Only about 5% of Iowa’s prairie pothole wetlands remain, and most of original forest has been drained. Iowa can be divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, and river drainage. The northern boundary is a line along 43 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude. The southern border is the Des Moines River and a not-quite-straight line along approximately 40 degrees 35 minutes north, as decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Iowa after a standoff between Missouri and Iowa known as the Honey War.
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This page is based on the article Iowa published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 11, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
