Thousands Leave Montana & Minnesota For North Dakota

North Dakota is often overlooked by much of the rest of the country.

To make national news, it has to be pretty extraordinary for North Dakota to get a mention. I think back to this fall when several wildfires were raging across the state, and two souls were lost, not even a sniff on the national news.

Meanwhile, East Coast fires dominated the news during that timeframe. Yep, oftentimes we are the redheaded stepchild in this country. Despite the fact that we grow the majority of the food in the USA, we have much of the coal and oil, and a huge military presence.

It's been told to me by several military members before that North Dakota is about the only state that could secede from the Union and do just fine on its own.

North Dakota has so many things going for it when you think about it.

Besides what I just mentioned above, we have some of the friendliest people in the nation, who would give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it.

Plenty of wide open spaces and room to build the life of your choosing. Amazing outdoor recreation opportunities for people who like to fish, hunt, hike, camp, or explore.

The cost of living is reasonable, to very good in most of our communities, and our economy is very strong.

I wrote an article a couple of years ago about the rash of California plates I had noticed in the Bismarck-Mandan area. As it turned out, I was right, as data shows nearly 2,000 Californians had moved to North Dakota, according to the latest census data.

Let's take a look back again at why Californians moving to North Dakota are in for a rude awakening.

Our Friends at Stacker, along with info from the latest census data, have ranked the states that our sending people to North Dakota, the most.

The Top 5 states moving to North Dakota the most are as follows:

#5 Texas

#4 California

#3 Wisconsin

#2 Montana - 2,496 individuals from Montana moved to North Dakota, according to the latest census data. That made up 7.23% of new residents moving from another state.

#1 Minnesota - #1 with a bullet. 13,047 moved to North Dakota from the land of 10,000 lakes. An astonishing number, making up 37.78% of new residents moving from another state.

I find this kind of ironic, since many of my relatives live in the Minneapolis area, and to be honest, most of them think of North Dakota as an afterthought at best.

There you have it, Montanans and Minnesotans moving to North Dakota in droves, according to the latest census data. Welcome to the Peace Garden State.