The US state of Mississippi is named after the river that runs through it and is nicknamed the “Magnolia State”. Its capital, Jackson City, is also the largest city in Mississippi.
The state of Mississippi in the southern United States
Typical southern home in Columbus, Mississippi
Neighbors are Tennessee to the north, Arkansas and Louisiana to the west, and the US state of Alabama to the east. About three million people live on the slightly more than 125,000 km² that make up Mississippi’s area. This state of the USA alone is almost as big as Greece, which has an area of more than 130,000 km².
About 60% white and 38% black live in this area, which is assigned to the southern states. More than 20% of Mississippi residents live below the poverty line, which in the US is $22,000 a year.
In the areas of poverty, access to good health care, good educational standards and life expectancy, the state recently took last place within the USA. Nevertheless, the people like to live there, few think of relocating. Even after catastrophes such as devastating hurricanes, tornadoes or hurricanes, the residents are drawn back to “their” state.
The biggest cities
The population figures are from the 2010 census and are rounded.
- Jackson
- Gulfport
- Southaven
- Hattiesburg
- Biloxi
Climate and weather in Mississippi
The weather in Mississippi is mostly divided, so to speak, in the north it is more continental and moderate, with temperatures in summer up to about 35 degrees. The south, on the other hand, already has a subtropical climate, with high humidity in midsummer and temperatures sometimes exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. Otherwise, the weather in Mississippi is quite pleasant and sunny, even in winter the temperatures rarely drop below freezing.
Danger lurks from the well-known hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico region. A tropical cyclone that develops in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico is called a hurricane. The term hurricane comes from the language of the Mayan culture and translated means something like “god of the wind”. Most of the area’s hurricanes occur between June and November, so the best time to travel to Mississippi is the rest of the year.
The Mississippi River
The Mississippi steamer Natchez at the dock
is a 3778 km long stream and rises from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. It empties into the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans.
The longest tributary is the Missouri River, which together with the lower reaches of the Mississippi forms the fourth longest river system on earth with a length of 6051 kilometers. On its way, the river crosses almost the entire national territory of the USA from north to south.