Idaho

Idaho's mountains and river valleys have long been home to the Nez Perce, Shoshone-Bannock, and Coeur d'Alene peoples, whose knowledge of the land shaped the routes later used by Lewis and Clark in 1805 as they crossed the rugged Bitterroots on their way to the Pacific. Fur trappers and missionaries followed, but the region remained sparsely settled well into the 19th century.

Gold discoveries in the 1860s brought a rush of miners and boomtowns, and Idaho Territory was organized in 1863 before achieving statehood in 1890 as the 43rd state. Its economy grew around silver mining in the north, and irrigated agriculture, especially the potato, across the Snake River Plain in the south, a crop still closely identified with the state today.

Modern Idaho blends that agricultural and mining heritage with a growing tech and outdoor-recreation economy centred on Boise, alongside globally renowned whitewater rivers and the historic ski resort of Sun Valley, one of America's first destination ski towns, established in 1936.