Iowa
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Iowa, constituent state of the United States of America. It was admitted to the union as the 29th state on December 28, 1846. As a Midwestern state, Iowa forms a bridge between the forests of the east and the grasslands of the high prairie plains to the west. Its gently rolling landscape rises slowly as it extends westward from the Mississippi River, which forms its entire eastern border. The Missouri River and its tributary, the Big Sioux, form the western border, making Iowa the only U.S. state that has two parallel rivers defining its borders. Iowa is bounded by the states of Minnesota to the north, Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, and Nebraska and South Dakota to the west. Des Moines, in the south-central part of the state, is the capital. The state name is derived from the Iowa Native American people who once inhabited the area.
Iowa is one of the leading U.S. states in number of farms. More than nine-tenths of its land is devoted to agriculture, making it one of the top states in agricultural production. With rich soils, gently rolling hills, and ample precipitation, the state is particularly suitable for mechanized agriculture and has become a national leader in agribusiness. Traditionally most of Iowa’s industrial enterprises were tied to agricultural production; however, economic downswings and the collapse of land values in the 1980s made it essential for the state to diversify its economy as well as its workforce. By the end of the 20th century, more emphasis had been placed on banking, insurance, biotechnology, and research and development.
- Capital:
- Des Moines
- Population1:
- (2020) 3,190,369; (2024 est.) 3,241,488
- Governor:
- Kim Reynolds (Republican)
- Date Of Admission:
- Dec. 28, 1846
- U.S. Senators:
- Joni Ernst (Republican)
- Chuck Grassley (Republican)
- State Nickname:
- Hawkeye State
- Corn State
- State Motto:
- “Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain”
- State Bird:
- eastern goldfinch
- State Flower:
- wild prairie rose
- State Song:
- “The Song of Iowa”
- Seats In U.S. House Of Representatives:
- 4 (of 435)
- Time Zone:
- Central (GMT − 6 hours)
- Total Area (Sq Km):
- 145,745
Iowans are particularly proud of what their state offers: four seasons, open land, effective health care, a low crime rate, and a congenial social environment. Moreover, Iowa plays a unique role in the U.S. presidential election process, becoming the focus of national attention every four years when it kicks off the presidential primary season by holding its “first in the nation” caucuses, the statewide local political gatherings at which attendees express their preferences for presidential candidates. Iowa residents’ pride in their heartland lifestyle is given imaginative expression in the answer to the question posed in the motion picture Field of Dreams as the ghosts of baseball players past cavort on the diamond cut into a cornfield: “Is this heaven?” “No, it’s Iowa.” Area 56,273 square miles (145,745 square km). Population (2020) 3,190,369; (2024 est.) 3,241,488.
Land
Relief
Most of Iowa’s landscape is gently rolling hills or flat plains. The state’s elevation generally increases from east-southeast to west-northwest. The lowest point is within the city of Keokuk, in extreme southeastern Iowa where the Des Moines River enters the Mississippi, at just 480 feet (146 metres) above sea level. The highest spot, Hawkeye Point, is in northwest Iowa at 1,677 feet (511 metres) in elevation.
The state’s terrain and rich soils are the products of the continental ice sheets that periodically covered the state during the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). The Illinoian ice sheet covered a small area of southeastern and extreme eastern Iowa, and in so doing it diverted the Mississippi and created a valley along its western front that can still be seen. Some 20,000 to 25,000 years ago the Wisconsin ice sheet moved southward in a lobe that ended at about the site of the present city of Des Moines. The Des Moines lobe began its final retreat about 13,000 to 14,000 years ago. Accompanying the last two stages of glaciation were extensive deposits of windblown silt, or loess. Over the millennia, the prevailing west winds carried the loess from the western plains into Iowa as the glaciers retreated. In extreme western Iowa the loess deposits accumulated to form what are known today as the Loess Hills, a line of bluffs 100 to 200 feet (30 to 60 metres) above the Missouri River valley. Across much of the rest of the state, lesser amounts of loess amassed. The combination of loess and prairie grasses generated an unusually fertile soil across most of Iowa.
The most varied relief anywhere in Iowa is the Driftless Area, a dry upland that was bypassed by glaciers, near the Mississippi River in northeastern Iowa. There tributaries of the Mississippi cut deeply into the underlying bedrock. The Mississippi bluffs stand 300 to 400 feet (90 to 120 metres) above the valley, and the network of tributaries creates a scenic and hilly landscape.
Drainage
Most of the state is drained by the Mississippi River; only the extreme western and south-central areas are drained by the Missouri. Both of these rivers flow quite gently, while the upper Iowa and Turkey rivers in the Driftless Area generally have more rapids. Most of the state is underlain by pre-Illinoian drift, which has been eroded for at least a few hundred thousand years by a relatively dense network of streams. The geologically brief time since the Des Moines lobe retreated was insufficient for natural drainage networks to develop before the onset of farming in Iowa in the 19th century. The northwestern part of the Des Moines lobe retains a number of lakes, used mainly for recreation. Aside from these, the lakes and swamps that were left by the glaciers have been drained by a combination of natural erosion and tile drainage.
Soils
Most of the soils of Iowa, formed under prairie vegetation, are thick, dark in colour, and rich in organic matter and minerals. Only in the Driftless Area and along the dissected river valleys of the south and southeast are there lighter-coloured and less-fertile forest soils.
Climate of Iowa
Iowa has a four-season climate, reflecting the state’s position deep in the interior of the continent. Winters are cold, with January temperatures averaging about 14 °F (−10 °C) in the northwestern section of the state and in the low 20s F (about −6 °C) in the southeast. Snowfall is light compared with the amount received in other states to the north and east. Snow cover seldom remains throughout the winter months; however, heavy snowfalls have occurred in Iowa in late autumn and early spring. Summers are warm and more humid. In July the average temperature is in the mid-80s F (about 30 °C) but rarely reaches 100 °F (38 °C).
Precipitation is seasonal, falling mostly in the summer. The annual average rainfall ranges from less than 26 inches (660 mm) in the northwest to more than 38 inches (965 mm) in the southeast. Iowa has experienced severe flooding as a result of rapid snow melt and heavy summer rainstorms. Some of the most severe flooding in Iowa occurred in 1993 when the state received twice its average annual rainfall; much of the state remained flooded for four months, with roads inaccessible, water systems inoperable, housing uninhabitable, and farmland unusable. The state was again hit with disastrous floods in 2008, and thousands of people had to be evacuated from rising waters. The risk of flooding has increased with the tilling of farm fields and the straightening of some rivers and streams. The Rathbun Dam on the Chariton River, the Red Rock and Saylorville dams on the Des Moines River, and the Coralville Dam on the Iowa River were built to protect against flooding, but they are also important for recreation, particularly boating. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls all the major dams in the state.
Plant and animal life
Almost all of Iowa’s native prairie and wetland vegetation has been obliterated by agriculture. Woodlands (ash, hickory, and elm trees) thrive along the rivers and in the hillier parts of the state. About 5 percent of Iowa is forested. Red cedar is found throughout the state.
More careful agricultural practices and animal husbandry, along with outright bans on DDT, a synthetic insecticide, has helped to rejuvenate Iowa’s wildlife. Deer, raccoons, opossum, squirrels, and chipmunks are prevalent. The river otter has been reintroduced, as has the wild turkey, after becoming virtually extinct in the 1960s. The ring-necked pheasant, imported in the early 1900s, remains an important game bird. Other bird species include the goldfinch, oriole, cardinal, bunting, bluejay, and bluebird. The most noted avian resurgence in Iowa, however, is that of the bald eagle, seen widely throughout the state in winter, especially near open water. Bass, trout, pike, and carp are found in Iowa’s rivers and streams.
