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South Dakota
The Mount Rushmore State, plains, badlands, and Black Hills
South Dakota is split in two by its great river. The Missouri runs north to south through the middle, dividing the state into the wetter, farmed "East River" plains and the drier, ranch-and-range "West River" country. The east is rolling glaciated prairie and cropland — the west is open grassland that breaks into the eerie, eroded spires of the Badlands and rises, at its far edge, into the dark forested dome of the Black Hills, an island of mountains on the plains.
The Black Hills are the scenic and spiritual core of the state — sacred to the Lakota, sculpted into the presidential faces of Mount Rushmore, and topped by Black Elk Peak at 7,242 feet (2,207 m), the highest point in the United States east of the Rockies. The Badlands nearby are a moonscape of banded buttes and fossil beds carved from the soft plains. Sioux Falls in the east is the largest city. Thinly settled, South Dakota balances grain and cattle with a tourism economy drawn to its singular western landscapes.
Economy
South Dakota's economy rests on agriculture - cattle, corn, and soybeans - and on tourism drawn to Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the Badlands. Permissive financial laws made Sioux Falls a hub for credit-card and trust operations, and the state levies no personal or corporate income tax.
Politics
South Dakota carries 3 electoral votes and votes reliably Republican in presidential elections. Its small, rural, and agricultural population gives it a consistently conservative political character.