Portal:Wyoming
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Nature · Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology
 Wyoming is a state in the western region of the United States of America. The easternmost section of the state is a region known as the High Plains due to its altitude above sea level, while the majority of the state is dominated by the mountain ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountain West. Wyoming is the least populous U.S. state. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the state population was 515,004 in 2006, a 4.3% increase since 2000. The capital and the most populous city of Wyoming is Cheyenne.  The region known today as the state of Wyoming was originally inhabited by several Native American groups. The name Wyoming is derived from the Delaware (Munsee) name xwé:wamənk, meaning "at the big river flat", originally applied to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Although French trappers may have ventured into the northern sections of the state in the late 1700s, John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was probably the first white American to enter the region in 1807. His reports of the Yellowstone area were considered at the time to be fictional. Robert Stuart and a party of five men returning from Astoria discovered South Pass in 1812. The route was later followed by the Oregon Trail. In 1850, Jim Bridger located what is now known as Bridger Pass, which was later used by both the Union Pacific Railroad in 1868, and in the 20th century by Interstate 80. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area and is made up of 23 counties. From the north border to the south border it is 276 miles (444 km); and from the east to the west border is 375 miles (603 km). The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. The state is a great plateau broken by a number of mountain ranges. In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River and the Teton ranges. In the north central are the Big Horn Mountains; in the northeast, the Black Hills; and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy and Sierra Madre ranges. The climate in Wyoming is generally a semi-arid continental climate (Koppen climate classification BSk) which is drier and windier in comparison to most of the United States with temperature extremes.  Shoshone National Forest is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly 2.5 million acres (10,000 km²) in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest was created by an act of Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. There are four wilderness areas within the forest, protecting more than half of the managed land area from development. From sagebrush plains through dense spruce and fir forest to craggy mountain peaks, Shoshone National Forest has a rich biodiversity rarely matched in any protected area. Three major mountain ranges are partially in the forest: the Absaroka, the Beartooth and the Wind River Range. Yellowstone National Park forms part of the boundary to the west; south of Yellowstone, the Continental Divide separates the forest from its neighbor, the Bridger-Teton National Forest, to the west. The eastern boundary includes privately owned property, lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Wind River Indian Reservation, which belongs to the Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians. Custer National Forest along the Montana border is the boundary to the north. The Oregon Trail, the 19th-century covered wagon route, passes just south of the forest, where broad and gentle South Pass allowed the migrants to bypass the rugged mountains of the forest. All of the forest is a part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an unbroken expanse of federally protected lands encompassing an estimated 20 million acres (81,000 km²). Barbara Lynn Cubin (born November 30, 1946) is a departing Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, having served since January since 1995 as the sole member of that body from Wyoming. In the 109th Congress, she was a member of the House Resources Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the wake of the Democratic takeover of Congress in the 2006 elections, Cubin was relegated to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as a Member of both the Health and Telecommunications Subcommittees. She is the first woman elected to Congress from Wyoming. Portal:Wyoming/DYK/1 Portal:Wyoming/Selected anniversaries/June [+] Wyoming law
 The Tetons and the Snake River (1942) Photo credit: Ansel Adams Articles:
|
