Minnesota Or Wisconsin: Who Has The Tallest, Most, And Best Waterfalls?

The rivalry between Minnesota and Wisconsin has a lot of fronts.

Vikings vs. Packers is an obvious one, but Minnesotans and Wisconsinites will also debate a lot of other things beyond sports. One example I've seen many times online is which state actually has more lakes

This got me wondering, which state can claim dominance in another wet natural wonder, waterfalls?

Minnesota's North Shore is a very popular tourist destination with waterfalls like Gooseberry Falls north of Two Harbors, Beaver River Falls near Beaver Bay, and High Falls in Grand Portage being just a few of the many to see.

Is that portion of Minnesota and its concentration of waterfalls representative of Minnesota waterfall supremacy, or does Wisconsin secretly have a better overall waterfall offering?

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Let's take a look to see which state has the best waterfall offering between the two, Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Who has the tallest waterfall: Minnesota or Wisconsin?

Minnesota's tallest waterfall, aptly named High Falls, is located along the Pigeon River in Grand Portage State Park. High Falls plunges 120 feet into a rocky gorge.

Visiting the waterfall is possible from a few different viewing decks that are wheelchair accessible at the end of a trail from the parking area, which is one mile round-trip.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's tallest waterfall is Big Manitou Falls just south of Superior in Pattison State Park. Big Manitou Falls is a whole 45 feet taller than Minnesota's tallest waterfall. Nearby parking makes it a short walk to enjoy the view.

Paved trails to some of the viewpoints make them easy to access. There are a few other viewpoints, however, that do have a couple of stairs or slightly rougher terrain.

Not only is it significantly taller than Minnesota's tallest waterfall, but it is also among the tallest waterfalls east of the Rocky Mountains.

Winner: Wisconsin

Note: I discovered that different resources measure the height of a waterfall using different criteria. For the sake of this piece, I used data from the Minnesota and Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources for the height of the tallest waterfalls.

Who has the most waterfalls: Wisconsin or Minnesota?

How you define a waterfall is also different, depending on who you talk to. For the sake of this piece, I only counted natural waterfalls that meet the definition of a waterfall (and not rapids, cascades, or former natural waterfalls that are now manmade/modified) according to the World Waterfall Database.

Wisconsin's total waterfall count based on this definition is 83 waterfalls. The state has waterfalls scattered around the state, though the majority are located in the northern half of Wisconsin.

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Minnesota's total waterfall count is just barely larger, with a total of 90 waterfalls. Minnesota's greatest concentration of waterfalls is along the North Shore and other portions of Northern Minnesota, with most of the state's other waterfalls located near or along the eastern border.

Winner: Minnesota

Tiebreaker: Who has the most "tall" waterfalls?

We can't end this in a tie! To break the tie, let's look at which state has the most "tall" waterfalls, which we'll define as taller than 30 feet in height, according to data from the World Waterfall Database.

Minnesota has a total of 43 waterfalls that are at least 30 feet tall, which is 47% of the waterfalls in the state.

Wisconsin, on the other hand, has only 15 waterfalls that are at least 30 feet tall, which is only 18% of the state's waterfalls.

Winner: Minnesota

So, there you have it. If you're looking for the tallest waterfall, Wisconsin takes the cake. Minnesota, on the other hand, has a larger number of waterfalls overall as well as a larger number of "quality" waterfalls more likely to dazzle with a greater or more dramatic drop height.