Wisconsin, USA
State or territory
Location overview
Wisconsin is a state in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions of the United States, bordered by Minnesota and Iowa to the west, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast and Lake Superior to the north. Madison is the capital, while Milwaukee is the largest city and principal metropolitan center; other major cities include Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine, Appleton and Eau Claire. The state’s landscape was heavily shaped by glaciation and includes rolling agricultural plains, forested uplands, thousands of lakes, wetlands and prominent shorelines along two Great Lakes. Northern Wisconsin is dominated by forests and lake country, central Wisconsin contains sandy plains and wooded hills, and the south and east contain the state’s most productive farmland and largest urban areas. The Mississippi, Wisconsin, Fox, St. Croix and Chippewa rivers are among its principal waterways. Wisconsin has 72 counties, covers about 54,167 square miles of land and recorded 5,893,718 residents in the 2020 census.