MONTANA

formerly Mikhaylovgrad, also spelled Mihailovgrad, Mihajlovgrad, or Mikhailovgrad, town, northwestern Bulgaria. It lies along the Ogosta River in a fertile agricultural region noted for its grains, fruits, vines, market-garden produce, and livestock breeding. Relatively new housing estates as well as industry are evident in the town. In the region are forests and game reserves in which deer, pheasant, and rabbit are hunted. There was a Roman settlement called Montanensia on the site; later the town was called Golyama Kutlovitsa and Ferdinand (18911945). After World War II the town was named after Khristo Mikhaylov, local leader of an unsuccessful communist uprising in 1923. The town was renamed Montana in 1993, after communist rule had ended in Bulgaria. Pop. (1992 est.) 57,142. The northern Mountain region. constituent state of the United States of America, situated in the northern mountain region of the western United States. It is bounded on the north by the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, on the east by North and South Dakota, on the south by Wyoming, and on the southwest and west by Idaho. The state capital is Helena. Montana was originally peopled by Cheyenne, Nez Perc, Blackfoot, Crow, Assiniboin, Flathead, Kutenai, Pend d'Oreille, Kalispel, and Atsina (Gros Ventre) Indians, who lived largely by hunting and gathering. Most of Montana became part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The western part, lying in the Rocky Mountains in Oregon Country, was disputed until 1846, when Britain relinquished its claim to the area. The Lewis and Clark Expedition explored Montana in 180406, and fur trappers and traders soon followed. Saint Mary's Mission, established in 1841 by Roman Catholic missionaries, was the first settlement to become a permanent town (Stevensville). Gold was discovered in the early 1860s, and cattle and sheep grazing were introduced later in that decade, leading to protracted and bitter battles with the Indians, who opposed incursion on their hunting grounds and decimation of the buffalo. Though George Armstrong Custer and his men were defeated and slain at the Little Bighorn in 1876 and the Nez Perc under Chief Joseph won a battle in the Big Hole Basin in 1877, the Indians ceased fighting in 1877 and were placed on reservations. In 1889 Montana became the 41st state. Montana straddles two physiographic regions: the Great Plains to the east, characterized by a generally treeless, rolling terrain broken by buttes, tree-bordered streams, and small, isolated mountain ranges; and the northern Rocky Mountains to the west, characterized by heavily forested ranges and the Continental Divide. Montana's drainage is unique among the states because its rivers flow into three of the continent's primary watersheds: the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay. The climate of Montana is dry continental, with January average temperatures of only 18 F (-8 C) and July averages of 65 F (18 C). Humidity is generally low, as is average precipitationabout 18 inches (460 mm) in the west and 13 inches (330 mm) in the east. Destructive hailstorms sometimes occur in July and August. Indians constitute the state's only large racial minority group, and nearly two-thirds of them live on reservations. In the early years of the 20th century, families from northern Europe settled on homesteads and immigrants from across Europe came to work in the mines. Their descendants have been well assimilated. Roman Catholics predominate, but the number of Mormons has been growing. The main urban centres developed from mining camps, trading centres, and railroad division points, but the state still has only a few large cities. Moreover, since 1970 the state's rural population has grown at a faster rate than its urban population. Overall Montana experienced rapid growth in the 1970s, but its growth declined to less than half the national average in the 1980s. The largest single source of income is agriculture. Livestock accounts for about half of cash income, and crops, especially barley, wheat, sugar beets, and oats, for the remainder. Coal, petroleum, and natural gas are the most valuable natural resources, followed by copper, phosphates, vermiculite, bentonite, sand and gravel, and gypsum. There are more than 14,000,000 acres (5,600,000 hectares) of commercial forest, and a significant portion of the work force is employed in the lumbering industry. Manufacturing activities are related to the processing of natural resources. Montana is heavily dependent on automobile transportation, and the state has a well-developed network of highways. Only a few cities have urban bus lines. Cultural life centres on the numerous colleges and universities and two state agencies, the Montana Institute of the Arts and the Montana Arts Council. Local Indian celebrations are open to all, and rodeos are popular. The C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls specializes in the works of the cowboy artist Charles Marion Russell. The Museum of the Plains Indians is in Browning. Area 147,046 square miles (380,847 square km). Pop. (1990) 799,065. constituent state of the United States of America. Only three statesAlaska, Texas, and Californiahave an area larger than Montana's 147,046 square miles (380,848 square kilometres), and only two statesAlaska and Wyominghave a lower population density. Although its name is derived from the Spanish montaa (mountain, or mountainous region), Montana has an average elevation of only 3,400 feet (1,040 metres), the lowest among the Mountain states. The mountains sweep down from the Canadian province of British Columbia, trending northwestsoutheast into western Montana, into Idaho on Montana's western and southwestern border, and southward into Wyoming. The eastern portion of the state, however, is a gently rolling landscape, with millions of grazing cattle and sheep, and with only scattered evidence of human habitation. It forms a part of the northern Great Plains, shared with the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan to the north, with the U.S. states of North and South Dakota to the east, and with northeastern Wyoming to the south. Helena is the capital. The residents of Montana are relatively far from markets for their products, as well as from the nation's manufacturing and supply centres. The state is strongly oriented toward the outdoors, toward summer and winter sports, toward hunting and fishing, and toward the long-distance trip for socializing and entertainment or as a cure for prairie- or mountain-born restlessness. In spite of its northern location, Montana is very much a Western state. The main street of Helena is Last Chance Gulch, the city's original name and a reminder of the prospectors who invaded the hills in the 1860s to pan for gold. By 1889, when Montana became the 41st state of the Union, the cattle drive was an institution, and the state had begun to emerge as one of the leading copper-mining centres of the nation. Additional reading A useful introduction to the people and features of the state is Federal Writers' Project, Montana: A State Guide Book (1939, reissued as The WPA Guide to 1930s Montana, 1994), still worth consulting. Two popular geographies cover the state: John A. Alwin, Western Montana (1983), and Eastern Montana (1982). Reference atlases include Robert L. Taylor, Milton J. Edie, and Charles F. Gritzner, Montana in Maps, 1974 (1974), although the demographic and economic maps are out of date; and DeLorme Mapping Company, Montana Atlas & Gazetteer, 3rd ed. (1999), which focuses on topography. Roberta Carkeek Cheney, Names on the Face of Montana: The Story of Montana's Place Names, 2nd ed., rev. (1984), combines geography and local history. Montana Magazine (bimonthly) includes illustrated articles on the state's history, parks, cities, people, and the outdoors.Clark C. Spence, Montana: A Bicentennial History (1978); and Harry W. Fritz, Montana: Land of Contrast (1984), are popular histories. Among the several scholarly histories of Montana are Merrill G. Burlingame and K. Ross Toole, A History of Montana, 3 vol. (1957); and the comprehensive Michael P. Malone and Richard B. Roeder, Montana: A History of Two Centuries (1976). A highly insightful and interpretive history is K. Ross Toole, Montana: An Uncommon Land (1959), with a companion volume, Twentieth-century Montana: A State of Extremes (1972). Montana: The Magazine of Western History (quarterly) reports current research. John M. Crowley