This started as a humorous conversation with coworkers; I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but one coworker talked about a family trip to visit all the states but somehow missed North Dakota. This of course prompted doubts as to its actual existence.

The rest of us confirmed that we, also, have never been to North Dakota, and to further cast doubts, nobody knows anyone from there either.

But then I googled “does North Dakota exist” and it got, well, weird.

Who, what, why: Is North Dakota really a US state? (From 2011):

North Dakota is amending its constitution because of a long-standing technical omission that some claim makes its statehood invalid. So does that mean it’s really just a US territory and not a state at all?

Every American child is taught there are 50 states in the US.

But an 82-year-old care home resident in Grand Forks, North Dakota, is throwing the truth of that universally held statement into some doubt.

While reading the state constitution, which is 40 years older than he is, John Rolczynski noticed it omitted to mention the executive branch when explaining which new officers need to take the oath supporting the US Constitution.

This, he says, makes the state constitution invalid because it is in conflict with the federal constitution, which requires all officers of the three branches of state government – executive, judicial and legislative – be bound by the oath.

Mr Rolczynski’s detective work began in 1995. Sixteen years later, state senator Tim Mathern of Fargo has successfully introduced a bill to amend section 4 of article XI of the state constitution.

The amendment has been passed by the state legislature and must now be approved by the people of North Dakota at the general election in 2012.

So North Dakota was arguably not legally a state until ten years ago. Who knew?