Author Iowa

and the Big Sioux River on the west; the northern boundary is a line along 43 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude.[9][note 1] The southern border is the Des Moines River and a line along approximately 40 degrees 35 minutes north, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Iowa[10] after a standoff between Missouri and Iowa known as the Honey War.[11] Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two. The state capital, Des Moines, is located in Polk County. Iowa's bedrock geology generally increases in age from west to east. In northwest Iowa Cretaceous bedrock is ca. 74 million years old, in eastern Iowa Cambrian bedrock dates to ca. 500 million years ago.[12] Despite popular perception, Iowa is generally not flat; most of the state consists of rolling hills. Prior[13] divides Iowa into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, and river drainage. Loess hills lie along the western border of the state, some of which are several hundred feet thick.[14] In the northeast, along the Mississippi River, is a section of the Driftless Zone, which in Iowa consists of steep hills and valleys which appear almost mountainous. There are several natural lakes in the state, most notably Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, and East Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa (see Iowa Great Lakes). To the east lies Clear Lake. Man-made lakes include Lake Odessa,[15] Saylorville Lake, Lake Red Rock, Coralville Lake, Lake MacBride, and Rathbun Lake. The northwest part of the state also contains a considerable number of remnants of the once common wetland areas such as Barringer Slough. Iowa's natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in upland areas, with dense forest and wetlands in floodplains and protected river valleys, and pothole wetlands in northern prairie areas.[16] Most of Iowa is used for agriculture, crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands (mostly pasture and hay with some prairie and wetland) cover 30%, and forests cover 7%; urban areas and water cover another 1% each.[17] Less than 1% of the tallgrass prairie that once covered most of Iowa remain intact, only about 5% of the state's prairie pothole wetlands remain, and most of the original forest has been lost.[18] Iowa ranks 49th of U.S. states in public land holdings.[19] Threatened or endangered animals include the Bald Eagle, Interior Least Tern, Piping Plover, Indiana Bat, Pallid Sturgeon, the Iowa Pleistocene Land Snail, Higgins' Eye Pearly Mussel, and the Topeka Shiner.[20] Endangered or threatened plants include Western Prairie Fringed Orchid, Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid, Mead's Milkweed, Prairie Bush Clover, and Northern Wild Monkshood.[21] Iowa, like most of the Midwest, has a humid continental climate throughout the state (Koppen climate classification Dfa) with extremes of both heat and cold. The average annual temperature at Des Moines is 50 °F (10 °C); for some locations in the north the figure is under 45 °F (7 °C), while Keokuk, on the Mississippi River, averages 52 °F (11 °C). Winters are brisk and snowfall is common. Spring ushers in the beginning of the severe weather season. Iowa averages about 50 days of thunderstorm activity per year.[22] Tornadoes are common during the spring and summer months, with an average of 37 tornadoes in a single year.[23] In 2008, twelve people were killed by tornadoes in Iowa, making it the deadliest year since 1968 and also the second most tornadoes in a year with 105, which matched the total from 2001.[24] Iowa summers are known for heat and humidity, with daytime temperatures often near 90 °F (32 °C) and sometimes exceeding 100 °F (38 °C). Average winters in the state have been known to drop well below freezing, even dropping below 0 °F (?18 °C). When American Indians first arrived in what is now Iowa more than 13,000 years ago, they were hunters and gatherers living in a Pleistocene glacial landscape. By the time European explorers visited Iowa, American Indians were largely settled farmers with complex economic, social, and political systems. This transformation happened gradually. During the Archaic period (10,500-2,800 years ago), American Indians adapted to local environments and ecosystems, slowly becoming more sedentary as populations increased. More than 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic period, American Indians in Iowa began utilizing domesticated plants. The subsequent Woodland period saw an increase reliance on agriculture and social complexity, with increased use of mounds, ceramics, and specialized subsistence. During the Late Prehistoric period (beginning about A.D. 900) increased use of maize and social changes led to social flourishing and nucleated settlements. The arrival of European trade goods and diseases in the Protohistoric period led to dramatic population shifts and economic and social upheaval, with the arrival of new tribes and early European explorers and traders. There were numerous Indian tribes living in Iowa at the time of early European exploration. Tribes which were probably descendants of the prehistoric Oneota include the Dakota, Ho-Chunk, Ioway, and Otoe. Tribes which arrived in Iowa in the late prehistoric or protohistoric periods include the Illiniwek, Meskwaki, Omaha, and Sauk.[26] The first known European explorers to document Iowa were Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet who traveled the Mississippi River in 1673 documenting several Indian villages on the Iowa side.[27][28] The area of Iowa was claimed for France and remained a French territory until 1763. When the French, realizing defeat in the French and Indian War, they transferred ownership to its ally, Spain. Spain practiced very loose control over the Iowa region, granting trading licenses to French and British traders, who established trading posts along the Mississippi and Des Moines Rivers.[27] Iowa was part of a territory known as La Louisiane or Louisiana, and European traders were interested in lead and furs obtained by Indians. The Sauk and Meskwaki effectively controlled trade on the Mississippi in the late 18th and early 19th century. Among the early traders on the Mississippi were Julien Dubuque, Robert La Salle, and Paul Marin.[27] Along the Missouri River at least five French and English trading houses were built prior to 1808.[29] In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte took control of Louisiana from Spain in a treaty. After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Iowa was placed under United States control. Much of Iowa was mapped by Zebulon Pike in 1805,[30] but it was not until the construction of Fort Madison in 1808 that the U.S. established tenuous military control over the region.[31] Fort Madison was built to control trade and establish U.S. dominance over the Upper Mississippi, but it was poorly designed and disliked by the Sauk and Ho-Chunk, many of whom allied with the British, who had not abandoned claims to the territory.[31][32] Fort Madison was defeated by British-supported Indians in 1813 during the War of 1812, and Fort Shelby in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, also fell to the British. Black Hawk took part in the siege of Fort Madison.[33][34] After the war, the U.S. reestablished control of the region through the construction of Fort Armstrong, Fort Snelling in Minnesota, and Fort Atkinson in Nebraska.[35] The U.S. encouraged settlement of the east side of the Mississippi and removal of Indians to the west. Trade continued in furs and lead, but disease and forced population movement decimated Indian cultures and economies. A disputed 1804 treaty between Quashquame and William Henry Harrison that surrendered much of Illinois to the U.S. enraged many Sauk and led to the 1832 Black Hawk War. As punishment for the uprising, and as part of a larger settlement strategy, treaties were subsequently designed to remove all Indians from Iowa. The Sauk and Meskwaki were pushed out of the Mississippi valley in 1832, out of the Iowa River valley in 1843, and out of Iowa altogether in 1846, although many Meskwaki clandestinely returned, founding the Meskwaki Settlement that remains to this day. The Ho-Chunk were removed in 1850, and the Dakota were removed by the late 1850s. Western Iowa around modern Council Bluffs was used as a way station for other tribes being moved west, including the Potawatomi. The first American settlers officially moved to Iowa in June 1833.[36] Primarily, they were families from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia.[36] On July 4, 1838, the U.S. Congress established the Territory of Iowa. President Martin Van Buren appointed Robert Lucas governor of the territory, which at the time had 22 counties and a population of 23,242.[37] Almost immediately after achieving territorial status, a clamor arose for statehood. On December 28, 1846, Iowa became the 29th state in the Union when President James K. Polk signed Iowa's admission bill into law. Once admitted to the Union, the state's boundary issues resolved, and most of its land purchased from the Indians. Iowa set its direction to development and organized campaigns for settlers and investors, boasting the young frontier state's rich farmlands, fine citizens, free and open society, and good government.[38]