True North, Mapping Minnesota’s History can be found on the History Center’s website. You can click on one or more categories (ranging from climate to land use to population) and a map of Minnesota will be filled in before your eyes.
Here, we show two population maps selected by MinnPost.com, showing the population density in 1862 and 2000. Nearly 140 years later, the population has obviously spread, but the locus is not far from where it was and there’s still plenty of the state with low population density.
