style="font-size: larger;" | West North Central Region

Regional statistics
Composition	Iowa  Kansas  Minnesota  Missouri  Nebraska  North Dakota  South Dakota
Area Area Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...  - Total	507,913 sq mi (774,847 km²)
Population Population A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals... - Total - Density Population density Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...	20,505,437 (2010 est.) 40/sq mi (15/km²)
Largest city	Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...  (pop. 459,787)
Metropolitan Areas (within top 25)	Twin Cities, MN St. Louis, MO

The West North Central States form one of the nine geographic divisions within the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 that are officially recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau

United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

.

Seven states comprise the division: Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

, North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

 and South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

, and it makes up the western half of the United States Census Bureau

United States Census Bureau

The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

's larger region

Region

Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...

 of the Midwest, the eastern half of which consists of the East North Central States

East North Central States

The East North Central States form one of the nine geographic divisions within the United States which are officially recognized by the United States Census Bureau....

 of Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 and Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

. The Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 marks the bulk of the boundary between these two divisions.

Where the East North Central States are seen as being synonymous (though not absolutely coterminous) with the Rust Belt

Rust Belt

The Rust Belt is a term that gained currency in the 1980s as the informal description of an area straddling the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, in which local economies traditionally garnered an increased manufacturing sector to add jobs and corporate profits...

 by the vast majority of Americans, the West North Central States are regarded as constituting the core of the nation's "Farm Belt." Almost all of the territory contained within the West North Central division falls into what Joel Garreau

Joel Garreau

Joel Garreau is an American journalist, scholar and author of Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – And What It Means to Be Human, Edge City: Life on the New Frontier and The Nine Nations of North America.In 2010, Garreau became the Lincoln Professor of Law,...

 called The Breadbasket in his 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America

The Nine Nations of North America

The Nine Nations of North America is a book written in 1981 by Joel Garreau. In it, Garreau suggests that North America can be divided into nine regions, or "nations", which have distinctive economic and cultural features...

, and what James Patterson

James Patterson

James B. Patterson is an American author of thriller novels, largely known for his series about American psychologist Alex Cross...

 and Peter Kim labelled the Granary in their similarly themed work The Day America Told The Truth (the only exception being southern Missouri, placed in Dixie

Dixie

Dixie is a nickname for the Southern United States.- Origin of the name :According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins of this nickname remain obscure. According to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles , by Mitford M...

 by Garreau and Old Dixie by Patterson and Kim). Another name popularly applied to the division is the "Agricultural Heartland," or simply the "Heartland."

In the early 1990s, the West North Central division has consistently had the lowest unemployment

Unemployment

Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...

 rate in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 (especially in its many college towns), and has also been noted for its plentiful supply of affordable housing.

As of 2010, the West North Central States had a combined population of 20,505,437. This number is a 6.6% increase from 19,237,739 in 2000. The West North Central region covers 507913 square miles (1,315,489 km²) of land, and has an average population density of 40.37 people per square mile.

States in the West North Central Region

State	2010 est.	Land area	Density
Iowa	3,046,355 (3rd)	56,272 (7th)	54.5 (3rd)
Kansas	2,853,118 (4th)	82,277 (2nd)	34.9 (4th)
Minnesota	5,303,925 (2nd)	87,014 (1st)	66.6 (2nd)
Missouri	5,988,927 (1st)	68,886 (6th)	87.1 (1st)
Nebraska	1,826,341 (5th)	76,872 (3rd)	23.8 (5th)
North Dakota	672,591 (7th)	68,976 (5th)	9.7 (7th)
South Dakota	814,180 (6th)	75,886 (4th)	10.7 (6th)

Largest Cities in the West North Central Region

	City	2010 Pop.
1	Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...	459,787
2	Omaha, Nebraska Omaha, Nebraska Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...	408,958
3	Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...	382,578
4	Wichita, Kansas Wichita, Kansas Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...	382,368
5	St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...	319,294
6	St. Paul, Minnesota	285,068
7	Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln, Nebraska The City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....	258,379
8	Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...	203,433
9	Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park, Kansas -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 149,080 people, 59,703 households, and 39,702 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,627.0 people per square mile . There were 62,586 housing units at an average density of 1,102.9 per square mile...	173,372
10	Springfield, Missouri Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. According to the 2010 census data, the population was 159,498, an increase of 5.2% since the 2000 census. The Springfield Metropolitan Area, population 436,712, includes the counties of...	159,498
11	Sioux Falls, South Dakota Sioux Falls, South Dakota Sioux Falls is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Sioux Falls is the county seat of Minnehaha County, and also extends into Lincoln County to the south...	153,888
12	Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City is the third-largest city in the state of Kansas and is the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the third largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. The city is part of a consolidated city-county government known as the "Unified...	145,786
13	Topeka, Kansas Topeka, Kansas Topeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...	127,473
14	Cedar Rapids, Iowa Cedar Rapids, Iowa Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa and is the county seat of Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, north of Iowa City and east of Des Moines, the state's capital and largest city...	126,326
15	Olathe, Kansas Olathe, Kansas Olathe is a city in and the county seat of Johnson County, Kansas, United States. Located in northeastern Kansas, it is also the fifth most populous city in the state, with a population of 125,872 at the 2010 census. As a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, Olathe is the fourth-largest city in the...	125,872
16	Independence, Missouri Independence, Missouri Independence is the fourth largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri, and is contained within the counties of Jackson and Clay. It is part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area...	116,830
17	Columbia, Missouri Columbia, Missouri Columbia is the fifth-largest city in Missouri, and the largest city in Mid-Missouri. With a population of 108,500 as of the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, a region of 164,283 residents. The city serves as the county seat of Boone County and as the...	108,500
18	Rochester, Minnesota Rochester, Minnesota Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...	106,769
19	Fargo, North Dakota Fargo, North Dakota Fargo is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County. In 2010, its population was 105,549, and it had an estimated metropolitan population of 208,777...	105,549
20	Davenport, Iowa Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city located along the Mississippi River in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Davenport is the county seat of and largest city in Scott County. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine LeClaire and was named for his friend, George Davenport, a colonel during the Black Hawk...	99,685
21	Lee's Summit, Missouri Lee's Summit, Missouri Lee's Summit is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri, and is contained within the counties of Jackson and Cass. As of the 2010 census found the population at 91,364 making it the sixth-largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and the sixth-largest city in Missouri...	91,364
22	Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...	87,643
23	Duluth, Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...	86,265
24	Bloomington, Minnesota Bloomington, Minnesota Bloomington is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota in Hennepin County. Located on the north bank of the Minnesota River above its confluence with the Mississippi River, Bloomington lies at the heart of the southern...	82,893
25	Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City is a city in Plymouth and Woodbury counties in the western part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, a decline from 85,013 in the 2000 census, which makes it currently the fourth largest city in the state....	82,684
26	O'Fallon, Missouri O'Fallon, Missouri O'Fallon is a suburban city along Interstate 70 between Lake St. Louis and St. Peters in Saint Charles County, Missouri. It is part of the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census population of 79,329, it is the seventh largest city in the state and the largest in St. Charles...	79,300
27	St. Joseph, Missouri	76,780
28	Brooklyn Park, Minnesota Brooklyn Park, Minnesota According to the 2010 census, there were 75,781 people residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 52% White, 24% African American, 1% Native American, 15% Asian, 42 residents identifying themselves as Pacific Islander, 4% from other races, and 4% from two or more races...	75,781
29	Plymouth, Minnesota Plymouth, Minnesota As of the census of 2000, there were 65,894 people, 24,820 households, and 17,647 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,002.0 persons per square mile . There were 25,258 housing units at an average density of 767.4 per square mile...	70,576
30	Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census the population decreased by 0.5% to 68,406. Waterloo is part of the Waterloo – Cedar Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is the more populous of the two...	68,406

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+Largest Metropolitan Areas   (2010)
|-
| 1
| Twin Cities, MN (Minneapolis)
| 3,279,833
|-
| 2
| St. Louis, MO-IL
| 2,812,896
|-
| 3
| Kansas City, MO

Kansas City Metropolitan Area

The Kansas City Metropolitan Area is a fifteen-county metropolitan area that is anchored by Kansas City, Missouri and is bisected by the border between the states of Missouri and Kansas. As of the 2010 Census, the metropolitan area has a population of 2,035,334. The metropolitan area is the...

-KS
| 2,035,334
|-
| 4
| Omaha, NE-IA
| 865,350
|-
| 5
| Wichita, KS

Wichita metropolitan area

The Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of four counties in south central Kansas, anchored by the city of Wichita. As of the 2010 census, the MSA had a population of 659,372...

| 623,061
|-
| 6
| Des Moines, IA

Des Moines metropolitan area

The Des Moines metropolitan area, officially known as the Des Moines-West Des Moines Metropolitan Statistical Area , consists of five counties in central Iowa, United States: Polk, Dallas, Warren, Madison, and Guthrie...

| 569,633
|-
| 7
| Springfield, MO

Springfield, Missouri Metropolitan Area

The Springfield, Missouri Metropolitan Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of five counties in southwestern Missouri, anchored by the city of Springfield - the state's third largest city. Other primary population centers in the metro area include Nixa, Ozark,...

| 436,712
|-
| 8
| Quad Cities

Quad Cities

The Quad Cities is a group of five cities straddling the Mississippi River on the Iowa–Illinois boundary. These cities, Davenport and Bettendorf and Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline , are the center of the Quad Cities Metropolitan Area, which, as of 2010, had an estimated population of...

 IA-IL (Davenport

Davenport, Iowa

Davenport is a city located along the Mississippi River in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Davenport is the county seat of and largest city in Scott County. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine LeClaire and was named for his friend, George Davenport, a colonel during the Black Hawk...

)
| 379,690
|-
| 9
| Lincoln, NE

Lincoln metropolitan area

The Lincoln Metropolitan Statistical Area, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, is an area consisting of two counties in Nebraska, anchored by the city of Lincoln...

| 302,157
|-
| 10
| Duluth, MN

Twin Ports

The Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin are located at the western part of Lake Superior and together are considered the largest freshwater port in the world. They are twin cities and seaports, connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence...

-WI
| 279,771
|}