Central Minnesota is the central part of the state of Minnesota. No definitive boundaries of the region exist, but most definitions would include the land north of Interstate 94, east of U.S. Highway 59, south of U.S. Highway 2, and west of U.S. Highway 169.
The northern part of the region contains many softwood forests, including the expansive Chippewa National Forest. The western and southern parts are dotted with rolling prairie, and have the region's largest agricultural operations. The region's eastern part has many hardwood and softwood forests, and once had rich iron ore deposits. The now depleted Cuyuna Range, which formed the southwestern border of the large Iron Range, was near Crosby and Ironton, at the region's eastern edge.
One thing all of central Minnesota has is abundant lakes. A typical image of central Minnesota includes the many large and small lakes that surround the cities of St. Cloud (by far the region's largest city), Alexandria, Brainerd, and other settlements.
Two lakes in the region, Mille Lacs Lake, with an area of 206 mi2 (534 km2), and Leech Lake, with an area of 175 mi2 (453 km2), are, respectively, the second- and third-largest lakes entirely within Minnesota. The Mississippi River winds extensively through the region from its source at Lake Itasca.
Area high school athletic conferences acknowledge the region's location and natural geography with names including Central Lakes, Granite Ridge, Great River, Heart O'Lakes, Mid-State, and Pine to Prairie.
Central Minnesota's economy, like that of the United States as a whole, has recently shifted away from agriculture and mining toward industry and service. But agriculture is still important in the region, especially the southern and western parts, where the land and soil is conducive to crops such as corn and soybeans. Dairy farms also dot the region in areas where crops cannot easily be grown, but their numbers have been drastically dwindling in recent years. Paper companies own expansive amounts of land in the region's heavily forested eastern and northern parts, but logging activity has long since peaked. Paper production mills continue to operate in Brainerd.
Tourism has become an important industry in the region in the last few decades, fueled largely by its lakes. Many of the region's cities see their populations swell in the summer, when people from the larger metropolitan areas of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Duluth, Fargo, and Grand Forks come to enjoy fishing and other outdoor activities on the region's lakes. The cluster of lakes around Brainerd known as the Brainerd Lakes Area are probably the best-known, thanks in part to the many Twin Cities residents who own cabins or land on or near the area's biggest lakes. In addition, several esteemed resorts are on Gull Lake.
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The ethnic makeup of central Minnesota is largely representative of the first settlers who came to the region. People of German and Scandinavian heritage are the majority of the region's residents, though there is also a sizable Native American population. Two of the state's largest reservations, the Leech Lake Indian Reservation and the White Earth Indian Reservation, are in central Minnesota, as is the small Mille Lacs Indian Reservation, along the southern shore of Mille Lacs Lake, from near Garrison to Isle.
The region has a prominent Catholic population, and correspondingly has many Catholic institutions such as churches, schools, and colleges. [1]
The 1996 film Fargo and its television series are largely set in the region's cities of Brainerd and Bemidji, but central Minnesotans' accents are not as pronounced as those in the franchise. The central Minnesotan dialect resembles that of the entire Upper Midwest.
Central Minnesota is home to one MSA and one μSA.
St. Cloud MSA (pop. 192,510)
Brainerd μSA (pop. 91,067)
Other Central Minnesota cities include:
Central Minnesota is home to the following colleges and universities:
Four-year colleges
Two-year colleges
Notable people who hail from central Minnesota, with the names of cities they grew up in listed in parentheses, include:
Otter Tail County is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, its population was 60,081. Its county seat is Fergus Falls. Otter Tail County comprises the Fergus Falls micropolitan statistical area. With 1,048 lakes in its borders, Otter Tail County has more lakes than any other county in the United States.
Mille Lacs County is a county in the East Central part of the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 26,459. Its county seat is Milaca. The county was founded in 1857, and its boundary was expanded in 1860.
Bemidji is a city and the county seat of Beltrami County, in northern Minnesota, United States. The population was 14,574 at the 2020 census. According to 2022 census estimates, the city is estimated to have a population of 15,946, making it the largest commercial center between Grand Forks, North Dakota and Duluth.
The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system or Minnesota State, previously branded as MnSCU, comprises 26 state colleges and 7 state universities with 54 campuses throughout Minnesota. The system is the largest higher education system in Minnesota and the third largest in the United States, educating more than 300,000 students annually. It is governed by a 15-member board of trustees appointed by the governor, which has broad authority to run the system. The Minnesota State system office is located in the Wells Fargo Place building in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Forum Communications Company is an American multimedia and technology company headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota. With multiple online and print news brands throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, Forum Communications offers local news in a variety of digital and broadcast mediums in addition to various niche media brands covering specialty interests.
Area code 218 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the northern part of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is assigned to the largest of Minnesota's original two numbering plan areas (NPAs), although its geographical boundaries have been modified since inception. It comprises roughly the northern half of the state, and includes the cities of Duluth, Hibbing, Brainerd, Bemidji, Fergus Falls, and Moorhead.
Sandy Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa are a historical Ojibwa tribe located in the upper Mississippi River basin, on and around Big Sandy Lake in what today is in Aitkin County, Minnesota. Though politically folded into the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, thus no longer independently federally recognized, for decades, Sandy Lake Band members have been leading efforts to restore their independent Federal recognition.
Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is the popular name for the land-base for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Central Minnesota, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The contemporary Mille Lacs Band reservation has significant land holdings in Mille Lacs, Pine, Aitkin and Crow Wing counties, as well as other land holdings in Kanabec, Morrison, and Otter Tail Counties. Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is also the name of a formal Indian reservation established in 1855. It is one of the two formal reservations on which the contemporary Mille Lacs Band retains land holdings. The contemporary Mille Lacs band includes several aboriginal Ojibwe bands and villages, whose members reside in communities throughout central Minnesota.
The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, also known as the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, is a federally recognized American Indian tribe in east-central Minnesota. The Band has 4,302 members as of 2012. Its homeland is the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation, consisting of District I, District II, District IIa, and District III.
In the U.S. state of Minnesota, a legislative route is a highway number defined by the Minnesota State Legislature. The routes from 1 to 70 are constitutional routes, defined as part of the Babcock Amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution, passed November 2, 1920. All of them were listed in the constitution until a 1974 rewrite. Though they are now listed separately in §161.114 of the Minnesota Statutes, the definitions are legally considered to be part of the constitution, and cannot be altered or removed without an amendment. Legislative routes with numbers greater than 70 can be added or deleted by the legislature.
The Mille Lacs Indians, also known as the Mille Lacs and Snake River Band of Chippewa, are a Band of Indians formed from the unification of the Mille Lacs Band of Mississippi Chippewa (Ojibwe) with the Mille Lacs Band of Mdewakanton Sioux (Dakota). Today, their successor apparent Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe consider themselves as being Ojibwe, but many on their main reservation have the ma'iingan (wolf) as their chief doodem (clan), which is an indicator of Dakota origins.
Mississippi River Band of Chippewa Indians or simply the Mississippi Chippewa, are a historical Ojibwa Band inhabiting the headwaters of the Mississippi River and its tributaries in present-day Minnesota.
The Northern League was a name used by several minor league baseball organizations that operated off and on between 1902 and 1971 in the upper midwestern United States and Manitoba, Canada. The name was later used by the independent Northern League from 1993 to 2010.
Lake Lena is an unincorporated community and Native American village in Ogema Township, Pine County, Minnesota, United States, located along the Lower Tamarack River. It currently is the administrative center for the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation, District III.
Minnesota Hockey is the statewide governing body of amateur hockey in Minnesota and an affiliate of USA Hockey. Since 1947, Minnesota Hockey has been providing volunteer services for the development and promotion of all youth hockey in Minnesota. Robert Ridder was the founding president of the MAHA, and affiliated the state group with the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States.
The 2000 United States presidential election in Minnesota took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the 2000 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states and D.C. Voters chose ten representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Mille Lacs Lake is a large, shallow lake in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is located in the counties of Mille Lacs, Aitkin, and Crow Wing, roughly 75 miles north of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.
The Red River Valley Conference was formed from a portion of the Lutheran Minnesota Conference of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1912. In 1941, the Red River Valley Conference absorbed the Bismarck and Sheyenne districts of North Dakota, previously of the Minnesota Conference. Initially, the conference included the Red River Valley and North Dakota to the west and extended to the St. Paul District to the east, covering about 300 miles west to east and 50 miles north to south.
