Nickname: Magnolia state

Area: 125,546 km2 - ranked 32th

Population: 2,697,243 - ranked 31st

Capital: Jackson

Main cities: Jackson, Gulfport, Biloxi, Hattiesburg, Meridian

Economy: The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Mississippi's total state of product in 2003 was $72 billion. Per capita personal income in 2003 was $23,466, 51st in the nation (ranking includes the District of Columbia).

Mississippi is traditionnally one of the more rural states in the Union; not until 1965 did manufacturing take over as the leading revenue-producing sector of its economy. In 2000, Mississippi ranked third in the nation in the production of cotton, but soil erosion resulting from overcultivation and the destruction caused by the boll weevil have led to the increased soybeans. Today broiler chicken production, aquaculture (chiefly catfish raising), dairying are increasingly important. The state's most valuable mineral resources, petroleum and natural gas, have been developped only since the 1930s.

Industry has grown rapidily with the development of oil resources and has been helped bu the Tennessee Valley Authority and by a state program to balance agriculture with industry, under which many communities have subsidized and attracted new industries. Revenue from industrial products, including chemical, plastics, foods, and wood products, have exceeded those from agriculture in recent years. On the Gulf coast there is a profitable fishing and seafood processing industry, and gambling is now booming in Biloxi, and Meridian, as well as the Stennis Space Flight Center at Bay St. Louis. The state's per capital income, remains the lowest in nation.

Useful links:

www.mississippi.gov

www.visitmississippi.org

www.mississippi.org