North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border, about halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Lakes. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the U.S. It is also the third least populous, with only about 646,850 residents as of 2009. North Dakota was carved out of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with South Dakota.