Wisconsin is a state in the north-central United States, in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions.
It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north.
As of February 2019, the population of Wisconsin was estimated to be about 5.8 million people. It is the 20th most populous state in the United States.
It is the 23rd largest state in the United States in terms of total area with 169,640 square kilometers (65,498 square miles).
Madison is the capital of Wisconsin. It is the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee. The city is known for its political protests and demonstrations, lakes, restaurants, and extensive network of parks and bike trails.
Thousands of years ago, most of Wisconsin was visited by glaciers, scraping the tops off hills, leaving rich earth deposits and leaving a land of beautiful lakes (15,000 of them) resting in fertile plains and valleys arranged between rolling hills and ridges.
This state can be divided into five geographical land areas: the Lake Superior Lowland, the Eastern Ridges and Lowlands (Great Lakes Plains), the Northern Highland, or Superior Upland, the Central Plain and the Western Upland.
Timms Hill is the highest natural point of Wisconsin at 595 meters (1,951.5 feet) above sea level.
Overall, 46% of Wisconsin’s land area is covered by forest.
Wisconsin visitors and residents enjoy the state’s 7,446 streams and rivers. End-to-end they’d stretch 43,000 kilometers (about 26,750 miles). That is more than enough to circle the globe at the equator.
The state has 2 national parks and 42 state parks.
Devil’s Lake State Park is a state park located in the Baraboo Range in eastern Sauk County, just south of Baraboo, Wisconsin. Devil’s Lake State Park is the biggest state park in Wisconsin. It is around 55 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of Madison, and is on the western edge of the last ice-sheet deposited during the Wisconsin drift.
Taliesin, the home, studio and country estate of Frank Lloyd Wright, is located in the hilly Driftless Region of southwestern Wisconsin near Spring Green. It is the name of Wright’s house as well as the 325-hectare (800-acre) estate that includes buildings from all decades of Wright’s career. Taliesin has a commanding presence in Jones Valley, the watershed where Wright’s Lloyd Jones ancestors settled after immigrating from Wales in the 1860s.
The House on the Rock is a tourist attraction located between the cities of Dodgeville and Spring Green. Opened in 1959, it is a complex of architecturally distinct rooms, streets, gardens, and shops designed by Alex Jordan Jr. The “house” itself is atop Deer Shelter Rock, a column of rock approximately 18 meters (60 feet), 21 meters (70 feet) by 61 meters (200 feet) on the top, which stands in a forest nearby.
The small town of Oshkosh on Lake Winnebago, northwest of Milwaukee, is famous for two things: the popular line of kids’ clothing and its place on the world’s airshow circuit. The world’s largest meeting of aviators, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh has been held here every summer since 1970. During the weeklong event, the Oshkosh control tower becomes the busiest on the planet as up to 15,000 aircraft of all shapes and sizes descend upon the airport, along with an estimated half a million visitors, all here to catch thrilling aerobatic displays, as well as flybys from vintage and contemporary military aircraft.
The Harley-Davidson Museum is a North American museum near downtown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin celebrating the more than 100-year history of Harley-Davidson motorcycles The 12,000-square-meter (130,000-square-foot) three building complex on 8 hectare (20 acres) along the Menomonee River bank contains more than 450 Harley-Davidson motorcycles and hundreds of thousands of artifacts from the Harley-Davidson Motor Company’s 110-year history. The museum attracts an estimated 300,000 visitors annually.
The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. It is one of the largest museums in the United States. It was partially housed in a building designed in 1957 by Eero Saarinen as a war memorial. From the outset, two lower floors were allocated for use as an art gallery. Further exhibition space was created in 1975 by David Kahler’s 160,000 square meter (1,722,225 square feet) addition — a structure that extends to the water’s edge and effectively creates a plinth on the axis of the Saarinen building.
The history of Wisconsin encompasses the story not only of the people who have lived in Wisconsin since it became a state of the U.S., but also that of the Native American tribes who made their homeland in Wisconsin, the French and British colonists who were the first Europeans to live there, and the American settlers who lived in Wisconsin when it was a territory.
Wisconsin was admitted to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state.
In the years leading up to the Civil War, Wisconsin was an important stop on the Underground Railroad, with manyslaves passing through the state on their way to freedom in Canada.
Today, Wisconsin leads the nation in dairy production and is known for the quality of its cheddar cheese–residents even sometimesrefer to themselves as “cheeseheads.”
Wisconsin earned the nickname “Badger State,” not because of its proliferation of badgers, but because its earliest white inhabitants were itinerant lead miners who burrowed into the hills for shelter rather than waste time and resources on a more permanent structure.
The American Birkebeiner, a 52K cross-country ski race between Cable and Hayward, is the largest on the North American continent.
Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin Dells is the nation’s largest water-themed park.
Wisconsin is the dairy capital of the United States.