Are you considering a move to Minnesota and wondering what it is like to live here? Lee Lynch was motivated to write the book AMAZING MINNESOTA to answer that question. It was published in 2017 so some of the data is already out of date, but the spirit of people who live here has not changed. Here are a few of the points he made.
- The Twin Cities is the 17th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the nation
- Minneapolis – center of finance, theater, entertainment, and restaurants
- St. Paul – city of government, education, and neighborhoods
- Minnesotans don’t talk much, but when they do they talk fast
- The state’s ancestry is mostly German, Swedish, Norwegian and Irish… with more recent immigrants including the nation’s largest Somali, Tibetan and Karen populations and second-largest Hmong community
- “As temperatures rise around the world, water and its heightened scarcity will become increasingly more sensitive politically and economically. Minnesota’s abundance of water is likely to become an even more treasure resource.”
- Minnesota is 8% water, and is #1 in the nation in surface water acreage
- Lake Superior holds 10% of the world’s fresh water… so much that it it was spread across both North and South America it would cover the land in a foot of water
- Minnesota has more miles of shoreline than Hawaii, California, and Florida combined
- The air in the #1 US Wilderness Area, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, is so pure planes are not allowed to fly below 4,000 feet over it
- Minnesota is #1 in overall environmental quality
- Minneapolis and St. Paul have been named as having the best park systems in the country for multiple years
- Theodore Wirth Park, a mile from downtown Minneapolis, is just a bit smaller than New York City’s Central Park
- 95% of Minneapolis residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park
- Minneapolis has been named the friendliest bike city in the US numerous times, and is the only US city on international lists of bike friendly cities
- Minnesota wins best trails state award
- The Twin Cities Marathon is commonly called the most beautiful urban marathon in America
- Minnesota has teams in all five major professional sports leagues – baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer
- Minnesota is #1 in sports fans, based on number of sports teams, sports bars, sporting goods stores and sports facilities
- Itasca State Park, at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, has more than 100 lakes and is the second oldest park in the US
- Minnesotans love leaving town for a weekend at a cabin “up north” – 5.1% of Minnesota homes are cabins
- Minnesota has the largest area preserved for wilderness and recreation in the world
- Minnesota may have the highest per-capita number of golfers in the nation
- Minnesota is #1 in the nation for male life expectancy and #2 for women
- 80% of the state’s population gets at least 30 minutes of exercise daily
- The Mayo Clinic in Rochester is the dominant health center in the world
- Minnesota ranks #1 per capita and fourth overall in hospital excellence
- Minnesota is the safest driver state in the nation
- Central Minnesota is the safest place from earthquakes in the world
- The largest number of library transactions in the US, and maybe in the world, takes place at the University of Minnesota
- Minnesota ranks #1 in the nation in voter turnout
- Minnesota ranks #1 in the nation for job creation
- The nation’s largest Buddhist temple and largest Hindu Temple are both in Minnesota
- On a per capita basis, the Twin Cities are second only to New York City in number of theater tickets sold
- With more than 600 museums, Minnesota has twice as many per capita as any other state
- Minneapolis has been called the most literate city in the nation, with a high ratio of academics to the general population
- Minnesota’s tradition of choral singing is so strong that it has more choirs per capita than any other state
- Minnesota State Fair is consistently voted the best
- The Twin Cities have been named the best places to live, and the least least stressful cities to live
- The Mall of America is one of the largest tourist destinations in the world
