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Home > Mississippi
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Mississippi
The state of Mississippi is found in the Deep South of the US. Jackson is the largest city and state capital. The state's name takes its name from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River") and originate from the Mississippi River which flows down its western boundary. The state is deeply forested in the outskirts of the Mississippi Delta area. Its catfish aquaculture farms make most of farm-raised catfish used in the United States. The magnolia is the state symbol.
Mississippi is surrounded on the south by Louisiana, a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico, on the north by Tennessee and on the east by Alabama, and on the west, across the Mississippi River, by Arkansas and Louisiana.
The state of Mississippi is totally made up of lowlands, the highest peak being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, only 246 m (806 feet) above sea level. The lowest peak is sea level at the Gulf coast. The maximum height in the state is 91 m (300 feet) above sea level.
Most of Mississippi is a portion of the East Gulf Coastal Plain. The Coastal Plain is usually made up of low hills, such as the North Central Hills and the Pine Hills in the south. The Fall Line Hills and the Pontotoc Ridge in the northeast have to some extent higher elevations. Yellow-brown loess soil can be found in the western most part of the state. The northeast is an area of fertile black earth that reaches out into the Alabama Black Belt.
The coastline comprise large bays at Pascagoula, Biloxi and Bay St. Louis. It is divided from the Gulf of Mexico proper via the shallow Mississippi Sound, which is to some extent protected by East and West Ship Islands, Horn Island, Petit Bois Island, Cat Island, Round Island and Deer Island.
The northwest part of the state is composed of a part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, also recognized as the Mississippi Delta. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain is widens in the north and narrow south of Vicksburg. The section has rich soil, partially composed of silt which had been commonly deposited via the floodwaters of the Mississippi River.
Mississippi has a moist subtropical climate with extensive summers and mild, short winters. Temperatures ranges from about 9 °C (about 48 °F) in January and about 28 °C (about 82 °F) in July. The temperature differs slight statewide in the summer, but in winter the section near Mississippi Sound is considerably warmer than the inland part of the state. The documented temperature in Mississippi has varies from -28.3 °C (-19 °F) at Corinth in the northeast in 1966, to 46.1 °C (115 °F) at Holly Springs in the north in 1930.Aannually precipitation commonly increases from south to north, with the regions near to the Gulf being the most humid. Thus, Biloxi in the south about 1,550 mm (about 61 inches) and Clarksdale in the northwest catches about 1,270 mm (about 50 inches) of precipitation yearly. Small amounts of snow fall in central and northern Mississippi, even though snow is not unprecedented in the region of the southern part of the state.
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