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State bird, Western meadowlark. State flower, goldenrod. State tree, cottonwood

Its most appealing cities, The business city of Omaha and the livelier state capital Lincoln , are separated by a good three hundred miles of  livestock and flatlands from the western Panhandle, where the landscape finally breaks into giant  hills and valleys, broken by towering rocky columns and hemmed in by sheer-faced buttes.

The Missouri River separates Nebraska from Iowa and Missouri to the east. There are few natural ports.

Omaha, now serves as an oasis of culture for a large chunk of the plains. At night, when the students emerge, its compact downtown comes into its own.

After the unerringly flat journey across eastern Nebraska, the far west comes as a refreshing change. In the Panhandle , as it's often called, wave upon wave of rumpled sandy hills, thinly coated with prairie grass, back off toward the horizon like a sea in constant turmoil. Early pioneers wrote the area off as unproductive, and it remained barren until massive irrigation work at the start of the twentieth century enabled agricultural settlement. In the northwest the sand hills yield to classic John Ford-style Western scenery: pancake-flat valleys, crisscrossed by dry meandering riverbeds and corraled by crusty, contorted bluffs under the constant shadow of fast-moving clouds. Emigrants on the Oregon Trail used the bizarre outcrops which sprout along the way as "road signs" as a way of knowing that their trek across the plains was coming to an end.

Tiny Rochester was selected to be state capital in 1867 - on the condition that it change its name to LINCOLN in honor of the recently assassinated president. Such was the disappointment in the territorial seat of government, Omaha, that state officials had to smuggle documents, books and office furniture out of the city in the middle of the night to avoid armed gangs.

Lincoln, 58 miles southwest of Omaha, now serves as an oasis of culture for a large chunk of the plains. At night, when the students emerge, its compact downtown comes into its own. Of its alphabetical array of broad boulevards, O Street (the subject of Allen Ginsberg's poem Zero Street ) is the main drag; 13th and 14th streets are packed with bars and places to eat.

Dwarfing the rest of downtown , the central tower of the 1932 Nebraska state capitol , 1445 K St (Mon-Fri 9am-4pm, Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1-4pm; tours every half-hour; free), protrudes 400ft into the sky. Topped by a 20ft statue of a sower on a pedestal of wheat and corn, its remarkably phallic appearance - an adventurous departure from the usual architecture of state capitols - has prompted the nickname "penis of the prairies." For once there's no golden dome, and the superb iridescent murals in the foyer are a welcome alternative to old portraits, flags and emblems. From the fourteenth-floor observation deck you can survey the flatness of the surrounding farmland.

Twelve thousand years of life on the plains are covered at the Museum of Nebraska History , 15th and P streets (Mon-Fri 9am-4.30pm, Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1.30-5pm; free), where displays focus on anthropology rather than history. The Elephant Hall, a gallery of towering mammoth, mastodon and four-tusker skeletons, is the highlight of the University of Nebraska State Museum at 14th and U streets (Mon-Sat 9.30am-4.30pm, Sun & holidays 1.30-4.30pm; $2). A few blocks away, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery , 12th and R streets (Tues, Wed & Fri 10am-5pm, Thurs & Sat 10am-5pm & 7-9pm, Sun 2-9pm; free), traces the development of American art, and has a twenty-piece sculpture garden. The 76,000-seater Memorial Stadium (tickets tel 402/472-3111 or 1-800/8BIGRED), at the northern end of campus on Vine Street, is where the brutal "Big Red" Cornhuskers invariably thrash the footballing opposition.

Although OMAHA , Nebraska's largest and most easterly city, is visibly a prosperous place, with a great zoo, several museums and a lively entertainment district, the atmosphere remains sedate and predominantly suburban. As a major terminus on the first transcontinental railroad, Omaha made a logical alternative to distant Chicago as a marketplace for Wyoming and Nebraska ranchers to sell their herds of cattle. By 1900 massive stockyards had spread along the southern edge of town, and the city still handles well over one million head of livestock per year.

In downtown Omaha you'll find good bars and cafés along the cobbled streets of the Old Market district, plus interesting specialist shops such as the Antiquarian Bookstore, 1215 Harney St (tel 402/341-8077), packed with dusty volumes (and local bohemians). The nearby Heartland Park of America , at Eighth and Douglas streets - ideal for a picnic - holds a huge, water-blasting fountain. Train buffs will be impressed with the Durham Western Heritage Museum , converted from the Union Pacific Railroad station, at 801 S 10th St. (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm; $5). Old train cars and huge model train sets are featured alongside a gallery of Omaha history. Behind its pink-marble Art Deco exterior, the Joslyn Art Museum , 2200 Dodge St (Tues-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun noon-4pm; $6, free Sat before noon), contains an eclectic selection of Indian art and twentieth-century American paintings.

The Great Plains Black Museum , in the city's predominantly black north side at 2213 Lake St (Tues-Sat 10am-2pm; free), presents the history of African American people on the prairies. One stimulating section focuses on blacks in the frontier army: where recently freed slaves, who could find no work in the Deep South after the Civil War, were often sent as advance parties into the most hostile and dangerous regions. It was Native American warriors who first called them " buffalo soldiers ," because of their tightly curled hair and the color of their skin.

Malcolm X was born in Omaha in May 1925, though his family moved to Michigan immediately thereafter, in the face of Ku Klux Klan death threats to his father, a preacher who followed the back-to-Africa teachings of Marcus Garvey. Omaha tourist authorities don't promote his birthsite, at 34th and Evans streets (formerly 3448 Pinkney St), perhaps because the residents of the surrounding neighborhood use it as a dumping ground for old TVs, bent car parts, shredded furniture and other debris. Years of debate over how to develop the site have yielded a solitary placard, hidden behind some trees, offering a brief biography. By way of contrast, the lavish birthplace of President Gerald R. Ford , at 32nd St and Woolworth Avenue, is also open to the public; he too moved to Michigan as an infant, after his parents separated (Tues-Fri 1pm-4pm; $2).

The Henry Doorly Zoo , 3701 S 10th St (daily 9.30am-5pm; $8), rightfully considers itself one of the best zoos in America. It started off with two buffalo borrowed from Buffalo Bill; now there's a gigantic free-flying aviary, some rare white Siberian tigers, a magnificent bear canyon, and the large Kingdoms of the Seas aquarium.

Twenty-nine miles southwest of Omaha at exit 426 on I-80 is a welcome diversion for those seeking relief from pioneer museums. The Strategic Air and Space Museum (daily 9am-5pm; $7) is inside two huge hangers containing giant 1950s- and 1960s-era war planes designed and built by the Martin Bomber Company of Omaha. Films, photos and exhibits concentrate on WWII and the Cold War, the latter highlighted by various weapons including an Atlas-D Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, located outside the museum entrance.