The Louisiana Territory, an area of 529,911,680 acres, extended from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and included areas now occupied by Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana, most of Minnesota and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. France, needing the money to fight a war with England, sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803 for $15,000,000. Interest payments increased the price to $27,267,622,which meant that the land cost 4 cents per acre.