Mississippi (State)

State of Mississippi
Coordinates 33°NB, 90°WL
General
Surface 125.546 km²
(3,2% water)
Residents 2.978.512
(24,5 inhabitants/km²)
Capital city Jackson
Politics
Governor Tate Reeves (R)
Other
Time zone Central Standard Time (UTC−6)
Joined 10 december 1817
Nickname Magnolia State
Website ms.gov

Mississippi is one of the states of the United States. The standard abbreviation for the “Magnolia State,” as its nickname goes, is MS. The capital is Jackson.

Name

The name Mississippi means “great water” in either the Ojibwa language or a related Algonkian language.

History

The area that now forms the state of Mississippi was originally settled by Native American tribes. Mississippi became the 20th state of the United States on December 10, 1817.

According to JIBIN123.COM, Mississippi, which had many slaves, sided with the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

After the Civil War, Mississippi was a Democrat stronghold. A rift in that stronghold emerged in 1948, as Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina supported the candidacy of Strom Thurmond, a proponent of segregation.

The battle between the southern states and the federal capital Washington moved to Mississippi at the beginning of the 1962-63 school year, where the university refused to enroll black James Meredith. President Kennedy sent troops to force entry for Meredith. Martin Luther King referred to this in the famous speech I Have a Dream he delivered on August 28, 1963. In it he said, among other things: “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice”. (Translation: “I dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, stifled by the heat of injustice and oppression, will be an oasis of freedom and justice.”) Also featured in the movie In the Heat of the Night from 1967 Mississippi gets off to a bad start.

Geography

The state of Mississippi covers more than 125,000 km², of which 121,606 km² is land. The state belongs to the Central time zone.

Mississippi is located on the Gulf of Mexico and is bordered to the north by the state of Tennessee, to the west by Arkansas and Louisiana, to the east by Alabama.

The main river is the Mississippi, which defines the entire western border. The state is quite flat; the highest point is the summit of Woodall Mountain (246 m).

Black Creek in De Soto National Forest

Climate

Mississippi has a humid subtropical climate. Summers are long and winters short and mild. In July the temperature averages 28 °C, in January an average of 9 °C.

Demography and Economics

Stately home in Natchez

Mississippi had 2.9 million inhabitants with an average density of 23 inhabitants per km². The largest city is capital Jackson.

In 2006, the state’s gross domestic product was $84 billion. Mississippi’s per capita income is the lowest in the United States. On the other hand, the cost of living is also the lowest.

Administrative division

According to COUNTRYAAH, Mississippi is divided into 82 counties.

County Inhabitants
1 July, 2007
County Seat Inhabitants
1 July, 2007
Adams 31.710 Natchez 16.637
Alcorn 35.609 Corinth 14.288
Amite 13.345 Liberty 676
Attala 19.600 Kosciusko 7363
Benton 8037 Ashland 566
Bolivar 37.635 Cleveland
Rosedale
12.447
2355
Calhoun 14.591 Pittsboro 206
Carroll 10.304 Carrollton 394
Chickasaw 18.974 Houston
Okolona
3899
Choctaw 9052 Ackerman 1524
Claiborne 10.999 Port Gibson 1667
Clarke 17.414 Quitman 2343
Clay 20.969 West Point 11.372
Coahoma 27.543 Clarksdale 18.296
Copiah 29.317 Hazlehurst 4384
Covington 20.361 Collins 2740
DeSoto 149.393 Hernando 11.110
Forrest 78.241 Hattiesburg 50.233
Franklin 8312 Meadville 496
George 21.937 Lucedale 2990
Greene 13.137 Leakesville 1023
Grenada 23.076 Grenada 14.682
Hancock 39.687 Bay St. Louis 8202
Harrison 176.105 Gulfport
Biloxi
66.271
44.292
Hinds 249.157 Jackson 175.710
Holmes 20.461 Lexington 1873
Humphreys 9994 Belzoni 2418
Issaquena 1675 Mayersville 652
Itawamba 23.034 Fulton 4048
Jackson 130.098 Pascagoula 23.452
Jasper 18.071 Bay Springs 2182
Jefferson 8960 Fayette 1994
Jefferson Davis 12.813 Prentiss 1019
Jones 66.763 Laurel 18.405
Kemper 10.109 De Kalb 891
Lafayette 42.716 Oxford 14.911
Lamar 47.698 Purvis 2595
Lauderdale 77.100 Meridian 38.314
Lawrence 13.341 Monticello 1707
Leake 22.828 Carthage 4808
Lee 80.349 Tupelo 36.058
Leflore 35.088 Greenwood 16.151
Lincoln 34.529 Brookhaven 9979
Lowndes 59.614 Columbus 24.025
Madison 89.387 Canton 12.519
Marion 25.735 Columbia 6538
Marshall 36.695 Holly Springs 8029
Monroe 37.078 Aberdeen 6067
Montgomery 11.491 Winona 4666
Neshoba 30.236 Philadelphia 7922
Newton 22.329 Decatur 1919
Noxubee 11.874 Macon 2763
Oktibbeha 43.898 Starkville 23.856
Panola 35.408 Batesville 7776
Pearl River 57.071 Poplarville 2943
Perry 12.205 New Augusta 695
Pike 39.798 Magnolia 2091
Pontotoc 28.862 Pontotoc 5885
Prentiss 25.378 Booneville 8543
Quitman 8910 Marks 1786
Rankin 138.362 Brandon 20.584
Scott 28.895 Forest 6003
Sharkey 5571 Rolling Fork 2091
Simpson 27.824 Mendenhall 2528
Smith 16.009 Raleigh 1249
Stone 15.731 Wiggins 4747
Sunflower 30.964 Indianola 10.924
Tallahatchie 13.260 Charleston 1916
Tate 26.910 Senatobia 7176
Tippah 21.160 Ripley 5660
Tishomingo 19.053 Iuka 2946
Tunica 10.453 Tunica 1069
Union 26.907 New Albany 8059
Walthall 15.360 Tylertown 1923
Warren 48.866 Vicksburg 25.454
Washington 55.644 Greenville 36.178
Wayne 21.096 Waynesboro 5661
Webster 9789 Walthall 160
Wilkinson 10.266 Woodville 1163
Winston 19.705 Louisville 6673
Yalobusha 13.672 Water Valley 3929
Yazoo 27.187 Yazoo City 11.520

Politics

The executive branch of the state is headed by a governor, who is directly elected by the voters in the state. The 2019 governor election was won by Republican Party Tate Reeves. He took office as governor of Mississippi in January 2020. Between 2012 and 2020, Reeves served as Lieutenant Governor under his predecessor Phil Bryant.

The legislature is made up of the Mississippi House of Representatives (Mississippi House of Representatives) with 122 members and the Mississippi State Senate with 52 members.

Trivia

Flag of Mississippi, 1896-2020 (2:3 ratio).

  • Because Mississippi has a bad reputation in many areas and ranks lowest in many surveys of all states, such as education level or life expectancy, the saying ” Thank God for Mississippi ” has come into vogue. When one is confronted with a low ranking in another state, one can indicate with this sentence that it is actually not that bad because fortunately there is still one state that is in worse position.
  • In the trouser top of the old Mississippi state flag is the Confederation emblem. On June 9, 2020, the state Senate and House of Representatives decided to remove the decal. A committee was set up to come up with five proposals for a new flag by September 14, 2020. Two of these were submitted to voters in a referendum held at the same time as the November 3, 2020 presidential election. With a majority of 73% they chose the so -called New Magnolia flag as the new flag of this state.

Flag of Mississippi