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CORNHUSKER STATE AREA: 200,350 sq km (77,355 sq mi). POPULATION: 1,623,000. CAPITAL: Lincoln, pop. 197,500. ECONOMY: Industry: food processing, machinery, electric equipment, printing and publishing. Agriculture: cattle, corn, hogs, soybeans, wheat, sorghum. PCI: $20,490. ADMISSION: 1867 as 37th state.
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During the mid-1800s one visitor called Nebraska’s prairies “fat indeed compared to your New England pine plains.” Today more than 90 percent of the land is in farms and cattle ranches. In the Sand Hills many spreads are so large that herds are tracked from the air. Corn and soybeans cover rolling eastern prairies; wheat grows on the drier central and western plains. Here the Ogallala aquifer irrigates corn, sugar beets, and alfalfa. A third of Nebraskans live in the cities of Omaha and Lincoln.
Text source: National Geographic Atlas of the World Revised Sixth Edition, 1995
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