Nebraska Facts -- National Geographic

Fast Facts

Population:: 1,739,291
Capital:: Lincoln; 232,362
Area:: 77,354 square miles (200,345 square kilometers)
Per Capita Income:: U.S. $29,544
Date Statehood Achieved:: March 1, 1867

During the mid-1800s one visitor called Nebraska's prairies "fat indeed compared to your New England pine plains." Today nearly 95 percent of the land is in farms and ranches. In the Sand Hills many spreads are so large that herds are tracked from the air. Corn and soybeans cover rolling eastern prairies; wheat grows on the drier central and western plains. The Ogallala aquifer irrigates corn, sugar beets, and alfalfa. More than a third of Nebraskans live in Omaha and Lincoln.

ECONOMY

Industry: Food processing, machinery, electrical equipment, printing and publishing
Agriculture: Cattle, corn, hogs, soybeans, wheat, sorghum

—Text From National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition

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