Mississippi - The Magnolia State 2

Mississippi – The Magnolia State

Introduction:

Mississippi is a state in the Southern United States, with part of its southern border formed by the Gulf of Mexico.  Its western border is formed by the Mississippi River.

Mississippi - The Magnolia State 3
Mississippi in the United States

The state has a population of approximately 3 million.  It is the 32nd most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States.  Located in the center of the state, Jackson is the state capital and largest city, with a population of approximately 175,000 people.

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Jackson

The state’s name is derived from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary. Settlers named it after the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi (“Great River”).

Geography:

Mississippi is bordered to the north by Tennessee, to the east by Alabama, to the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico; and to the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas.

Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, 807 feet above sea level.  The lowest point is sea level at the Gulf coast. The state’s mean elevation is 300 feet above sea level.

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Woodall Mountain

Most of Mississippi is part of the East Gulf Coastal Plain.  The coastal plain is generally composed of low hills, such as the Pine Hills in the south and the North Central Hills.  The Pontotoc Ridge and the Fall Line Hills in the northeast have somewhat higher elevations.  Yellow-brown loess soil is found in the western parts of the state. The northeast is a region of fertile black earth that extends into the Alabama Black Belt.

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North Mississippi Swamp

The coastline includes large bays at Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, and Pascagoula.  It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico proper by the shallow Mississippi Sound.

The northwest remainder of the state consists of the Mississippi Delta, a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The plain is narrow in the south and widens north of Vicksburg. he region has rich soil, partly made up of silt which had been regularly deposited by the flood waters of the Mississippi River.

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Clark Creek Natural Area

History:

Pre-History:

Near 10,000 BC Native Americans or Paleo-Indians arrived in what today is referred to as the American South.

Native Americans:

After thousands of years, succeeding cultures of the Woodland and Mississippian culture eras developed rich and complex agricultural societies, in which surplus supported the development of specialized trades.  Both were mound builder cultures.  The peoples had a trading network spanning the continent from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast.  Their large earthworks, which expressed their cosmology of political and religious concepts, still stand throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys.

Descendant Native American tribes of the Mississippian culture in the Southeast include the Chickasaw and Choctaw.  Other tribes who inhabited the territory of Mississippi include the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Biloxi.

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