1) They support one of the lowest population densities in the United States
2) Occupy around 500,000 miles of west-central North America
3) Millions of American bison roamed the Great Plains before their near-extermination by market hunters in the late 1800s
4) Through dedicated conservation efforts, bison have made an impressive comeback both on public and private lands.
5) Along wildlife other than bison were pronghorn, elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, etc.
6) Cast in the rainshadow of the Rockies, the Great Plains harbor the greatest remaining expanses of prairie, a highly-endangered habitat, in the country.
7) While many presume the Great Plains to be relentlessly level, the province actually contains much topographic variety.
8) There are island mountain ranges, especially on the Missouri Plateau---the Bears Paw Mountains, the Sweetgrass Hills, the Black Hills, for example.
9) The Great Plains of interior North America constitute one of the largest grassland expanses in the world
10) For thousands of years, human cultures as varied as the Kiowa, the Blackfeet, the Spanish and the Americans have explored, hunted, settled and fought over these vast spaces.
The Tropic of Capricorn (or the Southern Tropic) is the circle of latitude that contains the subsolar point on the December (or southern) solstice. It is thus the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be directly overhead. Its northern equivalent is the Tropic of Cancer.
Local Sustainability means that an area is designed, built and operates in a way that uses energy and natural resources efficiently and equitably, for both present and future generations of humans and other species.
