Minneapolis, Minnesota
Encyclopedia
Minneapolis nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat
of Hennepin County
, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota
, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, the Dakota
word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.
Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River
, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River
, and adjoins Saint Paul
, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with approximately 3.3 million residents. The 2010 Census had the city's population at 382,578.
The city is abundantly rich in water with over twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi river, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes
and the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
. It was once the world's flour milling
capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago
and Seattle. It has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. Minneapolis' community's diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.
were the region's sole residents until French explorers
arrived around 1680. Nearby Fort Snelling
, built in 1819 by the United States Army
, spurred growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton
band of the Dakota to sell their land, allowing people arriving from the east to settle there. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present day Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank in 1856. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the east bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.
Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls
, the highest waterfall
on the Mississippi. Millers have used hydropower
elsewhere since the 1st century B.C., but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen." In early years, forest
s in northern Minnesota were the source of a lumber
industry that operated seventeen sawmill
s on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planing wood. The farmers of the Great Plains
grew grain
that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills
where Pillsbury and General Mills
became processors. By 1905, Minneapolis delivered almost 10% of the country's flour
and grist
. At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for twelve million loaves of bread each day.
Minneapolis made dramatic changes to rectify discrimination
as early as 1886 when Martha Ripley
founded Maternity Hospital
for both married and unmarried mothers. When the country's fortunes turned during the Great Depression
, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934
resulted in laws acknowledging workers' rights. A lifelong civil rights
activist and union supporter, mayor Hubert Humphrey
helped the city establish fair employment practices
and a human relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities
by 1946. Minneapolis contended with white supremacy
, participated in desegregation
and the African-American civil rights movement, and in 1968 was the birthplace of the American Indian Movement
.
During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal
, the city razed about two hundred buildings across twenty-five city blocks—roughly 40% of downtown, destroying the Gateway District
and many buildings with notable architecture including the Metropolitan Building
. Efforts to save the building failed but are credited with jumpstarting interest in historic preservation in the state.
The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are tied to water, the city's defining physical characteristic, which was sent to the region during the last ice age. Fed by receding glacier
s and Lake Agassiz
ten thousand years ago, torrents of water from a glacial river
undercut the Mississippi and Minnehaha riverbeds, creating waterfalls important to modern Minneapolis. Lying on an artesian aquifer
and otherwise flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km²) and of this 6% is water. Water is managed by watershed
districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city's three creeks
. Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.
The city center is located just south of 45° N latitude
. The city's lowest elevation of 686 feet (209.1 m) is near where Minnehaha Creek
meets the Mississippi River. The site of the Prospect Park
Water Tower is often cited as the city's highest point and a placard in Deming Heights Park denotes the highest elevation, but a spot at 974 feet (296.9 m) in or near Waite Park in Northeast Minneapolis
is corroborated by Google Earth as the highest ground.
Minneapolis has a continental climate
typical of the Upper Midwest
. Winters are cold and dry, while summer is hot and humid. On the Köppen climate classification
, Minneapolis falls in the hot summer humid continental climate
zone (Dfa) and has a USDA plant hardiness
of zone 5a/4b. The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, heatwaves, and fog. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Minneapolis was 108 °F (42.2 °C) in July 1936, and the
coldest temperature ever recorded was -41 F, in January 1888. The snowiest winter of record was 1983–84, when 98.4 inches (249.9 cm) of snow fell.
The average annual temperature in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area is 49.4 °F (9.7 °C).
As of the 2010 U.S. census
, the racial composition was as follows:
European Americans make up about two-thirds of Minneapolis's population. This community is predominantly of German
and Scandinavian descent. There are 82,870 German Americans in the city, making up over one-fifth (23.1%) of the population. The Scandinavian American population is primarily Norwegian
and Swedish
. There are 39,103 Norwegian Americans, making up 10.9% of the population; there are 30,349 Swedish Americans, making up 8.5% of the city's population. Danish Americans aren't nearly as numerous; there are 4,434 Danish Americans, making up only 1.3% of the population. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Americans together make up 20.7% of the population. This means that Germans and Scandinavians together make up 43.8% of Minneapolis's population, and make up the majority of Minneapolis's non-Hispanic white population. Other significant European groups in the city include those of Irish
(11.3%), English
(7.0%), Polish
(3.9%), French
(3.5%) and Italian
(2.3%) descent.
The American Community Survey estimated that there were 62,520 African American
s residing in Minneapolis, comprising over 17% of the city's population, compared to a statewide proportion of less than four percent.
The Hispanic and Latino
population is predominantly Mexican
. People of Mexican descent number at approximately 21,741, making up 6.1% of the city's population. There are 958 Puerto Ricans
and 467 Cubans in Minneapolis, making up 0.3% and 0.1% of the population respectively. There are 10,008 Hispanics and Latinos (other than Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans) of varying ancestries in the city; they collectively make up 2.8% of the population.
Minneapolis also has a sizable Asian
community. There are approximately 17,686 Asian Americans in Minneapolis, making up just under 5% of the city's population. The Asian population is largely composed of Hmong American
s. Approximately 2,925 Chinese American
s reside in Minneapolis, making up 0.8% of the population. There are nearly 2,000 Indian American
s in the city, making up 0.6% of the population. Vietnamese American
s and Korean American
s make up 0.4% of the population each. People of Filipino
and Japanese
descent are few in Minneapolis. There are 603 Filipino Americans and 848 Japanese Americans in Minneapolis, making up roughly 0.2% of the populace each.
Minneapolis also has a sizable Native American
community that is predominantly Chippewa. The Chippewa make up roughly 1.0% of the city's population. Of the 5,983 Native Americans, 3,709 are of the Chippewa tribe. In addition, there is a small Sioux community in Minneapolis; there are approximately 847 Sioux in the city, comprising 0.2% of the population.
There are 10,711 multiracial
individuals in Minneapolis. People of black and white ancestry number at 3,551, and make up 1.0% of the population. People of white and Native American ancestry number at 2,319, and make up 0.6% of the population. Those of white and Asian ancestry number at 1,871, and make up 0.5% of the population. Lastly, people of black and Native American ancestry number at 885, and make up 0.2% of Minneapolis's population.
Dakota
tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton
, as early as the 16th century were known as permanent settlers near their sacred site of St. Anthony Falls. New settlers arrived during the 1850s and 1860s in Minneapolis from New England
, New York
, and Canada
, and during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland
and Scandinavia
ns (from Sweden
, Norway
and Denmark
) began to call the city home. Migrant workers from Mexico
and Latin America
also interspersed. Later, immigrants came from Germany
, Italy
, Greece
, Poland
, and Southern
and Eastern Europe
. These immigrants tended to settle in the Northeast neighborhood, which still retains an ethnic flavor and is particularly known for its Polish community. Jews from Russia
and Eastern Europe settled primarily on the north side of the city before moving in large numbers to the western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. Asians came from China
, the Philippines
, Japan
, and Korea
. Two groups came for a short while during U.S. government relocations: Japanese during the 1940s, and Native Americans
during the 1950s. From 1970 onward, Asians arrived from Vietnam
, Laos
, Cambodia
, and Thailand
. Beginning in the 1990s, a large Latino population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa
, especially Somalia
. The metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway which had a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.
U.S. Census Bureau estimates in the year 2007 show the population of Minneapolis to be 377,392, a 1.4% drop since the 2000 census. The population grew until 1950 when the census peaked at 521,718, and then declined as people moved to the suburbs until about 1990.
Among U.S. cities as of 2006, Minneapolis has the fourth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian, or bisexual people in the adult population, with 12.5% (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind both Seattle and Atlanta). In 2011, The Advocate
named Minneapolis the gayest city in America.
Racial and ethnic minorities lag behind white counterparts in education, with 15.0% of blacks and 13.0% of Hispanics holding bachelor's degrees compared to 42.0% of the white population. The standard of living is on the rise, with incomes among the highest in the Midwest
, but median household income among minorities is below that of whites by over $17,000. Regionally, home ownership among minority residents is half that of whites though Asian home ownership has doubled. In 2000, the poverty rate for whites was 4.2%; for blacks it was 26.2%; for Asians, 19.1%; Native Americans, 23.2%; and Hispanics, 18.1%.
The economy of Minneapolis today is based in commerce, finance, rail and trucking services, health care, and industry. Smaller components are in publishing, milling, food processing, graphic arts, insurance, education, and high technology. Industry produces metal and automotive products, chemical and agricultural products, electronics, computers, precision medical instruments and devices, plastics, and machinery. The city at one time produced farm implements.
Six Fortune 500 corporations
make their headquarters within the city limits of Minneapolis:
Target Corporation
, U.S. Bancorp
, Xcel Energy
, Ameriprise Financial
, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
and PepsiAmericas
. As of 2009 the city's largest employers are Target, University of Minnesota
, Allina Hospitals & Clinics
, Fairview Health Services
, Wells Fargo
, Hennepin County
, Ameriprise, U.S. Bank, City of Minneapolis, Capella Education Company
, Xcel Energy, Macy's
, RBC Wealth Management
, TCF Bank
, Star Tribune
, Thrivent, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
, and ING Group
.
Foreign companies with U.S. offices in Minneapolis include Coloplast
, RBC
and ING Group
.
Availability of Wi-Fi
, transportation solutions, medical trials, university research and development expenditures, advanced degrees held by the work force, and energy conservation are so far above the national average that in 2005, Popular Science
named Minneapolis the "Top Tech City" in the U.S. The Twin Cities ranked the country's second best city in a 2006 Kiplinger's
poll of Smart Places to Live and Minneapolis was one of the Seven Cool Cities for young professionals.
The Twin Cities contribute 63.8% of the gross state product
of Minnesota. The area's $199.6 billion gross metropolitan product
and its per capita personal income rank thirteenth in the U.S. Recovering from the nation's recession in 2000, personal income
grew 3.8% in 2005, though it was behind the national average of 5%. The city returned to peak employment during the fourth quarter of that year.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
, serves Minnesota, Montana
, North
and South Dakota
, and parts of Wisconsin
and Michigan
. The smallest of the twelve regional banks in the Federal Reserve System
, it operates a nationwide payments system, oversees member banks and bank holding companies, and serves as a banker for the U.S. Treasury. The Minneapolis Grain Exchange
founded in 1881 is still located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard red spring wheat
futures
and options
.
, Penumbra, Mu Performing Arts
, Bedlam Theatre, the Brave New Workshop
, the Minnesota Dance Theatre
, Red Eye, Skewed Visions
, Theater Latté Da, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
, Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts, and the Children's Theatre Company
. The city is home to Minnesota Fringe Festival
, the United States' largest nonjuried performing arts festival. French architect Jean Nouvel
designed a new three stage complex for the Guthrie Theater
, a prototype alternative to Broadway
founded in Minneapolis in 1963. Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres
vaudeville
and film houses on Hennepin Avenue
now used for concerts and plays. A fourth renovated theater joined the Hennepin Center for the Arts
to become the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, home to more than one dozen performing arts groups.
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
, built in 1915 in south central Minneapolis is the largest art museum in the city with 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection. A new wing designed by Michael Graves
was completed in 2006 for contemporary and modern works and more gallery space. The Walker Art Center
sits atop Lowry Hill, near downtown, and doubled its size with an addition in 2005 by Herzog & de Meuron
and is continuing its expansion to 15 acres (6.1 ha) with a park designed by Michel Desvigne across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
. The Weisman Art Museum
, designed by Frank Gehry
for the University of Minnesota
, opened in 1993. An addition, also designed by Gehry, is expected to open in 2011.
The son of a jazz musician and a singer, Prince
is Minneapolis' most famous musical progeny. With fellow local musicians, many of whom recorded at Twin/Tone Records
, he helped make First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry venues of choice for both artists and audiences. Other prominent artists from Minneapolis include Hüsker Dü
and The Replacements, whose frontman Paul Westerberg
went on to a successful solo career, who were pivotal in the alternative rock
boom of the U.S. during the 1990s.
The Minnesota Orchestra
plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall
under music director Osmo Vänskä
who has set about making it the best in the country—a critic writing for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 thought that that day they were "the greatest orchestra in the world". In 2008, the century-old MacPhail Center for Music
opened a new facility designed by James Dayton.
Tom Waits
released two songs about the city, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
(Blue Valentine 1978) and 9th & Hennepin (Rain Dogs
1985) and Lucinda Williams
recorded Minneapolis (World Without Tears
2003). Home to the MN Spoken Word Association and independent hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment
, the city has garnered notice for rap and hip hop
and its spoken word
community. The underground hip-hop group Atmosphere
(natives of Minnesota) frequently comments in song lyrics on the city and Minnesota.
Minneapolis is America's third-most literate city. A center for printing and publishing, Minneapolis was a natural place for artists to build Open Book, the largest literary and book arts center in the U.S., made up of the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts
and Milkweed Editions
, sometimes called the country's largest independent nonprofit literary publisher. The center exhibits and teaches both contemporary art and traditional crafts of writing, papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding.
baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame
. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets. During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers
basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles. The American Wrestling Association
, formerly the NWA
Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club, operated in Minneapolis from 1960 until the 1990s.
The Minnesota Vikings
and the Minnesota Twins
arrived in the state in 1961. The Vikings were an NFL
expansion team
and the Twins were formed when the Washington Senators
relocated to Minnesota. Both teams played outdoors in the open air Metropolitan Stadium
in the suburb of Bloomington
for twenty one years before moving to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
in 1982, where the Twins won the World Series
in 1987
and 1991
. The Twins moved to Target Field
in 2010. The Minnesota Timberwolves
brought NBA basketball back to Minneapolis in 1989, followed by the Minnesota Lynx
WNBA
team in 1999. The Lynx play in the Target Center
and won the WNBA Championship
in 2011.
The downtown Metrodome, opened in 1982, is the largest sports stadium in Minnesota, with one major tenant, the Vikings. The Metrodome is the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game
, the Super Bowl
, the World Series
, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four
. Runners
, walkers, inline skaters, coed volleyball
teams, and touch football teams all have access to "The Dome". Events from sports to concerts, community activities, religious activities, and trade shows are held more than three hundred days per year, making the facility one of the most versatile stadiums in the world.
The state of Minnesota authorized replacement of the Metrodome with three separate stadiums that estimates in 2007 totaled at about $1.7 billion. Six spectator sport
stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena
and Mariucci Arena
. The new Target Field
is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer. The Gopher football program's new TCF Bank Stadium
was built by the university and the state's general fund. Several plans have been advanced for a new Vikings stadium. The one that the team prefers is a suburban site in Arden Hills
in Ramsey County
. The City of Minneapolis would like to build a new stadium on the site of the Metrodome or near the Farmers Market on the westside of downtown. All three plans would cost close to $1 billion.
Major sporting events hosted by the city include Super Bowl XXVI
, the 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, the 2001 NCAA Men's Division 1 Final Four and the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships
.
Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, De La Salle
, and Marshall high schools. Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.
The Minneapolis park system has been called the best-designed, best-financed, and best-maintained in America. Foresight, donations and effort by community leaders enabled Horace Cleveland
to create his finest landscape architecture
, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevard
s and parkway
s. The city's Chain of Lakes
, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway
for cars, a bikeway
for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (83.7 km) route of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
.
Theodore Wirth
is credited with the development of the parks system. Today, 16.6% of the city is parks and there are 770 square feet (72 m²) of parkland for each resident, ranked in 2008 as the most parkland per resident within cities of similar population densities.
Parks are interlinked in many places and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area
connects regional parks and visitor centers. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary located within Theodore Wirth Park
which is shared with Golden Valley
and is about 60% the size of Central Park in New York City. Site of the 53-foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls
, Minnehaha Park is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks, receiving over 500,000 visitors each year. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall in The Song of Hiawatha
, a bestselling and often-parodied 19th century poem.
Runner's World ranks the Twin Cities as America's sixth best city for runners. Team Ortho sponsors the Minneapolis Marathon
, Half Marathon and 5K which began in 2009 with more than 1,500 starters. The Twin Cities Marathon
run in Minneapolis and Saint Paul every October draws 250,000 spectators. The 26.2 miles (42.2 km) race is a Boston
and USA Olympic
Trials qualifier. The organizers sponsor three more races: a Kids Marathon, a 1 miles (1.6 km), and a 10 miles (16.1 km).
In other sports, five golf course
s are located within the city, with nationally ranked Hazeltine National Golf Club
, and Interlachen Country Club
in nearby suburbs. Minneapolis is home to more golf
ers per capita than any other major U.S. city. The state of Minnesota has the nation's highest number of bicyclists
, sport fishermen
, and snow skiers
per capita. Hennepin County has the second-highest number of horse
s per capita in the U.S. While living in Minneapolis, Scott and Brennan Olson founded (and later sold) Rollerblade
, the company that popularized the sport of inline skating
.
(DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party
. The Minneapolis City Council
holds the most power and represents the city's thirteen districts called wards
. The council has twelve DFL members and one from the Green Party
. R. T. Rybak
also of the DFL is the current mayor of Minneapolis. The office of mayor is relatively weak but has some power to appoint individuals such as the chief of police
. Parks, taxation, and public housing are semi-independent boards and levy their own taxes and fees subject to Board of Estimate and Taxation limits.
Citizens have a unique and powerful influence in neighborhood
government. Neighborhoods coordinate activities under the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP), funded in the 1990s by the city and state who appropriated $400 million for it over twenty years. Minneapolis is divided into communities, each containing neighborhoods. In some cases two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization. Some areas are commonly known by nicknames of business associations.
The organizers of Earth Day
scored Minneapolis ninth best overall and second among mid-sized cities in their 2007 Urban Environment Report, a study based on indicators of environmental health and their effect on people.
Early Minneapolis experienced a period of corruption in local government and crime was common until an economic downturn in the mid 1900s. Since 1950 the population decreased and much of downtown was lost to urban renewal and highway construction. The result was a "moribund and peaceful" environment until the 1990s. Along with economic recovery the murder
rate climbed. The Minneapolis Police Department
imported a computer system from New York City
that sent officers to high crime areas. Despite accusations of racial profiling
; the result was a drop in major crime. Since 1999 the number of homicides increased during four years. Politicians debated the causes and solutions, including increasing the number of police officers, providing youths with alternatives to gangs and drugs, and helping families in poverty. For 2007, the city invested in public safety infrastructure and hired over forty new officers and a new police chief, Tim Dolan. Citing police use of predictive analysis
, Dolan and Rybak announced during December 2010 that violent crime in Minneapolis had dropped to 1980s rates.
enroll 36,370 students in public primary
and secondary
schools. The district administers about one hundred public schools including forty-five elementary school
s, seven middle school
s, seven high school
s, eight special education
schools, eight alternative school
s, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter school
s. With authority granted by the state legislature, the school board makes policy, selects the superintendent, and oversees the district's budget, curriculum, personnel, and facilities. Students speak ninety different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English
, Hmong
, Spanish
, and Somali
. About 44% of students in the Minneapolis Public School system graduate, which ranks the city the 6th worst out of the nation's 50 largest cities. Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute. Besides public schools, the city is home to more than twenty private schools and academies and about twenty additional charter schools.
Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota
where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes. The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management. A Big Ten
school and home of the Golden Gophers, the U of M is the sixth largest campus in the U.S. in terms of enrollment.
Minneapolis Community and Technical College
, the private Dunwoody College of Technology
, Globe University/Minnesota School of Business
, and Art Institutes International Minnesota
provide career training. Augsburg College
, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
, and North Central University
are private four-year colleges. Capella University
, Minnesota School of Professional Psychology
, and Walden University
are headquartered in Minneapolis and some others including the public four-year Metropolitan State University
and the private four-year University of St. Thomas
have campuses there.
The Hennepin County Library
system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008. The Minneapolis Public Library
, founded by T. B. Walker
in 1885, faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to close three of its neighborhood libraries. The new downtown Central Library designed by César Pelli
opened in 2006. Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection. At recent count 1,696,453 items in the system are used annually and the library answers over 500,000 research and fact-finding questions each year.
In 2007, Minneapolis was named America's most literate city. The study, conducted by Live Science, surveyed 69 U.S. cities with a population over 250,000. They focused on six key factors: Number of book stores, newspaper circulation, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources. The city was ranked in 2011 by Men's Health
as the nation's 15th most educated city.
Half of Minneapolis-Saint Paul residents work in the city where they live. Most residents drive cars
but 60% of the 160,000 people working downtown commute by means other than a single person per auto. Alternative transportation is encouraged. The Metropolitan Council
's Metro Transit
, which operates the light rail
system and most of the city's buses, provides free travel vouchers through the Guaranteed Ride Home program to allay fears that commuters might otherwise be occasionally stranded if, for example, they work late hours.
On January 1, 2011, the city's limit of 343 taxis was lifted.
Minneapolis currently has one light rail
and one commuter rail line. The Blue Line
LRT serves 34,000 riders daily and connects the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International airport
and Mall of America
in Bloomington
to downtown. Most of the line runs at surface level, although parts of the line run on elevated tracks (including the Franklin Ave. and Lake St./Midtown stations) and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of the line runs underground, including the Lindbergh terminal subway station at the airport. The 40-mile Northstar Commuter rail, which runs from Big Lake
through the northern suburbs and terminates at the multi-modal transit station at Target Field, opened on November 16, 2009. It utilizes existing railroad tracks and will serve a projected 5,000 daily commuters.
Minneapolis' second light rail line, the Green Line
, will share stations with the Blue Line in downtown Minneapolis, and then at the Downtown East/Metrodome station, travel east through the University of Minnesota
, and then along University Avenue into downtown St. Paul
. Construction began in November 2010 and expected completion is in 2014. The third line, the Southwest Line, will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburb of Eden Prairie. Completion is expected in 2017.
Minneapolis ranks second in the nation for the highest percentage of commuters by bicycle, and was named the top bicycling city in the 2010 "Bicycling's Top 50" ranking. Ten thousand cyclists use the bike lanes in the city each day, and many ride in the winter. The Public Works Department expanded the bicycle
trail system from the Grand Rounds
to 56 miles (90 km) of off-street commuter trails including the Midtown Greenway
, the Light Rail Trail, Kenilworth Trail, Cedar Lake Trail
and the West River Parkway Trail along the Mississippi. Minneapolis also has 34 miles (54 km) of dedicated bike lanes on city streets and encourages cycling by equipping transit buses with bike racks and by providing online bicycle maps. Many of these trails and bridges, such as the Stone Arch Bridge, were former railroad lines that have now been converted for bicycles and pedestrians. In 2007 citing the city's bicycle lanes, buses and LRT, Forbes
identified Minneapolis the world's fifth cleanest city. By 2010, Nice Ride Minnesota
launched with about 60 kiosks for bicycle sharing, and 19 pedicabs
were operating downtown.
A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Minneapolis the ninth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.
Seven miles (11 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyway
s, the Minneapolis Skyway System
, link eighty city blocks downtown. Second floor restaurant
s and retailers
connected to these passageways are open on weekdays.
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
(MSP) sits on 3400 acres (1,375.9 ha) on the southeast border of the city between Minnesota State Highway 5
, Interstate 494
, Minnesota State Highway 77
, and Minnesota State Highway 62
. The airport serves three international, twelve domestic, seven charter and four regional carriers and is a hub and home base for Delta Air Lines
, Mesaba Airlines
, and Sun Country Airlines
.
Five major newspapers are published in Minneapolis: Star Tribune
, Finance and Commerce
, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the university's The Minnesota Daily
and MinnPost.com
. Other publications are the City Pages
weekly, the Mpls.St.Paul and Minnesota Monthly monthlies, and Utne magazine. In 2008 readers of online news also used The UpTake
, Minnesota Independent
, Twin Cities Daily Planet
, Downtown Journal
, Cursor, MNSpeak and about fifteen other sites. The New York Times
said in 1996, "Now there are T-shirts that read, 'Murderapolis,'" a name for the city that members of the local media have mistakenly attributed to the paper.
Minneapolis has a mix of radio stations and healthy listener support for public radio but in the commercial market, a single organization Clear Channel Communications
operates seven stations. Listeners support three Minnesota Public Radio
non-profit stations, the Minneapolis Public Schools and the University of Minnesota each operate a station, the networks broadcast on affiliate stations, and religious organizations run two stations.
The city's first television was broadcast by the Saint Paul station and ABC
affiliate KSTP-TV
. The first to broadcast in color was WCCO-TV
, the CBS
affiliate which is located in downtown Minneapolis. The city and suburbs are also home to affiliates of FOX
, NBC
, PBS
, MyNetworkTV
, The CW
and one independent station. Twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh were from Minneapolis on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210
. American Idol
held auditions for its sixth season in Minneapolis in 2006 and Last Comic Standing
held auditions for its fifth season in Minneapolis in 2007.
A statue of Mary Tyler Moore
downtown on the Nicollet Mall commemorates the legendary 1970s CBS
television situation comedy fictionally based in Minneapolis, The Mary Tyler Moore Show
. It marks the site where producers filmed the series' iconic opening sequence in which character Mary Richards, played by Moore, throws her hat up in the air. The show was awarded three Golden Globes
and thirty-one Emmy Award
s.
The Dakota people, the original inhabitants of the area where Minneapolis now stands, believed in the Great Spirit
and were surprised that not all European settlers were religious. Over fifty denominations and religions and some well known churches have since been established in Minneapolis. Those who arrived from New England
were for the most part Christian Protestants, Quakers, and Universalists. The oldest continuously used church in the city, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church
in the Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood was built in 1856 by Universalists and soon afterward was acquired by a French Catholic congregation. Formed in 1878 as Shaarai Tov, in 1902 the first Jewish congregation in Minneapolis built the synagogue in East Isles known since 1920 as Temple Israel
. St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral was founded in 1887, opened a missionary school in 1897 and in 1905 created the first Russian Orthodox seminary in the U.S. The first basilica in the United States, the Roman Catholic Basilica of Saint Mary near Loring Park
was named by Pope Pius XI
in 1926. In 1972, a relief agency resettled the first Shi'a Muslim family from Uganda
. By 2004, between 20,000 and 30,000 Somali
Muslims made the city their home.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
, Decision magazine, and World Wide Pictures
film and television distribution were headquartered in Minneapolis for about forty of the years between the late 1940s into the 2000s. Minneapolis has had a chartered local body of Ordo Templi Orientis
since 1994. Jim Bakker
and Tammy Faye
met while attending the Pentecostal North Central University
and began a television ministry that by the 1980s reached 13.5 million households. Today, Mount Olivet Lutheran Church
in southwest Minneapolis has 6,000 active members and is the world's largest Lutheran congregation. Christ Church Lutheran
in the Longfellow neighborhood is among the finest work by architect Eliel Saarinen
. The congregation later added an education building designed by his son Eero Saarinen
.
Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community. More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest such percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States. Catholic Charities
is one of the largest providers of social services locally. The American Refugee Committee
helps one million refugees and displaced persons in ten countries in Africa, the Balkans
and Asia each year. In 2011, Target Corp. was #42 in a list of the best 100 corporate citizens in CR magazine for corporate responsibility officers. The oldest foundation in Minnesota, the Minneapolis Foundation invests and administers over nine hundred charitable funds and connects donors to nonprofit organizations. The metropolitan area gives 13% of its total charitable donations to the arts and culture. The majority of the estimated $1 billion recent expansion of arts facilities was contributed privately.
(part of Allina
), Children's Hospitals and Clinics
, Hennepin County Medical Center
(HCMC) and the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview
. Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Shriners Hospitals for Children
and Allina's Phillips Eye Institute
also serve the city. The Mayo Clinic
in Rochester, Minnesota
is a 75-minute drive away.
Cardiac surgery
was developed at the university's Variety Club Hospital, where by 1957, more than two hundred patients had survived open-heart operations, many of them children. Working with surgeon C. Walton Lillehei
, Medtronic
began to build portable and implantable cardiac pacemaker
s about this time.
HCMC opened in 1887 as City Hospital and was also known as General Hospital. A public teaching hospital and Level I trauma center, the HCMC safety net
sees 325,000 clinic visits and 100,000 emergency room visits each year and in 2008 provided about 18% of the uncompensated care given in Minnesota.
Funded in part by assessments on commercial properties, beginning in 2009, Ambassadors of the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (DID) work on 120 blocks of downtown to improve its cleanliness, friendliness and acceptability of behavior. They are employees of Block by Block
, a company in Nashville, Tennessee
that serves 33 U.S. cities.
Utility providers are regulated
monopolies
: Xcel Energy
supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy
supplies gas, Qwest
is the landline telephone provider, and Comcast
is the cable service. In 2007 citywide wireless internet coverage
began, provided for 10 years by US Internet of Minnetonka to residents for about $20 per month and to businesses for $30, which earns $1.2 million annual profit and as of 2010 has about 20,000 customers. The city treats and distributes water and requires payment of a monthly solid waste fee for trash removal, recycling, and drop off for large items. Residents who recycle receive a credit. Hazardous waste is handled by Hennepin County drop off sites. After each significant snowfall, called a snow emergency
, the Minneapolis Public Works Street Division plows over one thousand miles (1609 km) of streets and four hundred miles (643.7 km) of alleys—counting both sides, the distance between Minneapolis and Seattle and back. Ordinances govern parking on the plowing routes during these emergencies as well as snow shoveling throughout the city.
:
Najaf
(Iraq) since 2009 Cuernavaca
(Mexico) since 2008 Uppsala
(Sweden) since 2000 Eldoret
(Kenya) since 2000 Harbin
(PR China) since 1992 Tours
(France) since 1991 Novosibirsk
(Russia) since 1988 Ibaraki
(Japan) since 1980 Kuopio (Finland) since 1972 Santiago
(Chile) since 1961
And informal connections with
Japan Hiroshima
, Japan
Minneapolis once was sister cities with
Canada Winnipeg
, Canada.
Visitors
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
of Hennepin County
Hennepin County, Minnesota
Hennepin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota, named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. As of 2010 the population was 1,152,425. Its county seat is Minneapolis. It is by far the most populous county in Minnesota; more than one in five Minnesotans live...
, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, the Dakota
Sioux language
Sioux is a Siouan language spoken by over 33,000 Sioux in the United States and Canada, making it the fifth most spoken indigenous language in the United States or Canada, behind Navajo, Cree, Inuit and Ojibwe.-Regional variation:...
word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.
Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River
Minnesota River
The Minnesota River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 332 miles long, in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It drains a watershed of nearly , in Minnesota and about in South Dakota and Iowa....
, and adjoins Saint Paul
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with approximately 3.3 million residents. The 2010 Census had the city's population at 382,578.
The city is abundantly rich in water with over twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi river, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes
Chain of Lakes (Minneapolis)
The Chain of Lakes is a district in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is one of seven districts that make up the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, a greenspace circling through the city...
and the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
The Grand Rounds Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The corridors include roads for automobile traffic plus paths for pedestrians and bicycles, and extend slightly into neighboring cities...
. It was once the world's flour milling
Mill (grinding)
A grinding mill is a unit operation designed to break a solid material into smaller pieces. There are many different types of grinding mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically mills were powered by hand , working animal , wind or water...
capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and Seattle. It has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. Minneapolis' community's diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.
History
Dakota SiouxSioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
were the region's sole residents until French explorers
Exploration
Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
arrived around 1680. Nearby Fort Snelling
Fort Snelling, Minnesota
Fort Snelling, originally known as Fort Saint Anthony, was a military fortification located at the confluence of the Minnesota River and Mississippi River in Hennepin County, Minnesota...
, built in 1819 by the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, spurred growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton
Mdewakanton
Mdewakantonwan are one of the sub-tribes of the Isanti Dakota . Their historic home is Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota, which in the Dakota language was called mde wakan .As part of the Santee Sioux, their ancestors had migrated from the Southeast of the present-day United States, where the...
band of the Dakota to sell their land, allowing people arriving from the east to settle there. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present day Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank in 1856. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the east bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.
Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls
Saint Anthony Falls
Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony, located northeast of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the only natural major waterfall on the Upper Mississippi River. The natural falls was replaced by a concrete overflow spillway after it partially collapsed in 1869...
, the highest waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
on the Mississippi. Millers have used hydropower
Hydropower
Hydropower, hydraulic power, hydrokinetic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as...
elsewhere since the 1st century B.C., but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen." In early years, forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
s in northern Minnesota were the source of a lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
industry that operated seventeen sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
s on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planing wood. The farmers of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
grew grain
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...
that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills
Gristmill
The terms gristmill or grist mill can refer either to a building in which grain is ground into flour, or to the grinding mechanism itself.- Early history :...
where Pillsbury and General Mills
General Mills
General Mills, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 corporation, primarily concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The company markets many well-known brands, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Pillsbury, Green...
became processors. By 1905, Minneapolis delivered almost 10% of the country's flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
and grist
Grist
Grist is grain that has been separated from its chaff in preparation for grinding. It can also mean grain that has been ground at a grist mill. Its etymology derives from the verb grind....
. At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for twelve million loaves of bread each day.
Minneapolis made dramatic changes to rectify discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
as early as 1886 when Martha Ripley
Martha Ripley
Martha George Ripley of Lowell, Vermont was an American physician and founder of the Maternity Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ripley was nominated director of public schools but not elected because she was female...
founded Maternity Hospital
Maternity Hospital
Maternity Hospital, also known as Ripley Memorial Hospital and currently known as Ripley Gardens, is a former hospital building in the Harrison neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The hospital was established by Dr. Martha Ripley in 1886 in response to the exceptionally high mortality rates...
for both married and unmarried mothers. When the country's fortunes turned during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934
Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934 in the Market District and ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout...
resulted in laws acknowledging workers' rights. A lifelong civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist and union supporter, mayor Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
helped the city establish fair employment practices
Fair Employment Practices Commission
The Fair Employment Practices Commission implemented US Executive Order 8802, requiring that companies with government contracts not to discriminate on the basis of race or religion. It was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in the homefront industry...
and a human relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
by 1946. Minneapolis contended with white supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
, participated in desegregation
Desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
and the African-American civil rights movement, and in 1968 was the birthplace of the American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
.
During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
, the city razed about two hundred buildings across twenty-five city blocks—roughly 40% of downtown, destroying the Gateway District
Gateway District (Minneapolis)
The Gateway District of Minneapolis is centered at the convergence of Hennepin Avenue, Nicollet Avenue, and Washington Avenue. Its borders are not officially designated or recognized, but are visible as the Mississippi River to the northeast, First Avenue North to the northwest, Fifth Avenue...
and many buildings with notable architecture including the Metropolitan Building
Metropolitan Building
The Metropolitan Building, originally known as the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building, is considered to be one of the most architecturally significant structures in the history of Minneapolis, Minnesota...
. Efforts to save the building failed but are credited with jumpstarting interest in historic preservation in the state.
Geography and climate
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
s and Lake Agassiz
Lake Agassiz
Lake Agassiz was an immense glacial lake located in the center of North America. Fed by glacial runoff at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined, and it held more water than contained by all lakes in the world today.-Conception:First...
ten thousand years ago, torrents of water from a glacial river
Glacial River Warren
right|thumb|210px|The course of the Minnesota River follows the valley carved by Glacial River WarrenGlacial River Warren or River Warren was a prehistoric river that drained Lake Agassiz in central North America between 11,700 and 9,400 years ago...
undercut the Mississippi and Minnehaha riverbeds, creating waterfalls important to modern Minneapolis. Lying on an artesian aquifer
Artesian aquifer
An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. This causes the water level in a well to rise to a point where hydrostatic equilibrium has been reached. This type of well is called an artesian well...
and otherwise flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km²) and of this 6% is water. Water is managed by watershed
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city's three creeks
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
. Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.
The city center is located just south of 45° N latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
. The city's lowest elevation of 686 feet (209.1 m) is near where Minnehaha Creek
Minnehaha Falls
Minnehaha Creek is a tributary of the Mississippi River located in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from Lake Minnetonka in the west and flows east for 22 miles through several suburbs west of Minneapolis and then through south Minneapolis. Including Lake Minnetonka, the watershed for the...
meets the Mississippi River. The site of the Prospect Park
Prospect Park, Minneapolis
Prospect Park is an historic neighborhood within the University community of the U.S. city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The area is bounded by the Mississippi River to the south, the City of Saint Paul, Minnesota to the east, the Burlington Northern railroad yard to the north, and the Stadium...
Water Tower is often cited as the city's highest point and a placard in Deming Heights Park denotes the highest elevation, but a spot at 974 feet (296.9 m) in or near Waite Park in Northeast Minneapolis
Northeast, Minneapolis
Northeast is a defined community in the U.S. city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, composed of 13 smaller neighborhoods whose street addresses end in "NE". Unofficially it also includes the neighborhoods of the University community which have "NE" addresses, and the entirety of the Old Saint Anthony...
is corroborated by Google Earth as the highest ground.
Continental climate
Continental climate is a climate characterized by important annual variation in temperature due to the lack of significant bodies of water nearby...
typical of the Upper Midwest
Upper Midwest
The Upper Midwest is a region in the northern portion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. It is largely a sub-region of the midwest. Although there are no uniformly agreed-upon boundaries, the region is most commonly used to refer to the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and...
. Winters are cold and dry, while summer is hot and humid. On the Köppen climate classification
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...
, Minneapolis falls in the hot summer humid continental climate
Humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot summers and cold winters....
zone (Dfa) and has a USDA plant hardiness
Hardiness zone
A hardiness zone is a geographically defined area in which a specific category of plant life is capable of growing, as defined by climatic conditions, including its ability to withstand the minimum temperatures of the zone...
of zone 5a/4b. The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, heatwaves, and fog. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Minneapolis was 108 °F (42.2 °C) in July 1936, and the
coldest temperature ever recorded was -41 F, in January 1888. The snowiest winter of record was 1983–84, when 98.4 inches (249.9 cm) of snow fell.
The average annual temperature in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area is 49.4 °F (9.7 °C).
Demographics
United States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...
, the racial composition was as follows:
- WhiteWhite AmericanWhite Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...
: 71.9% - Black or African AmericanAfrican AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
: 16.2% - American IndianNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
: 1.7% - AsianAsian AmericanAsian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
: 5.4% (1.9% Hmong, 0.9% Chinese, 0.7% Indian, 0.6% Korean, 0.4% Vietnamese, 0.3% Laotian, 0.2% Filipino, 0.1% Japanese) - Native HawaiianNative HawaiiansNative Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...
/Pacific IslanderPacific Islander AmericanPacific Islander Americans, also known as Oceanian Americans, are residents of the United States with original ancestry from Oceania. They represent the smallest racial group counted in the United States census of 2000. They numbered 874,000 people or 0.3 percent of the United States population...
: <0.1% - Some other race: 4.7%
- Two or more racesMultiracial AmericanMultiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...
: 3.0%
- Hispanic or LatinoHispanic and Latino AmericansHispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
(of any race): 10.5% (7.0% Mexican, 1.3% Ecuadorian, 0.4% Puerto Rican, 0.3% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran)
European Americans make up about two-thirds of Minneapolis's population. This community is predominantly of German
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
and Scandinavian descent. There are 82,870 German Americans in the city, making up over one-fifth (23.1%) of the population. The Scandinavian American population is primarily Norwegian
Norwegian American
Norwegian Americans are Americans of Norwegian descent. Norwegian immigrants went to the United States primarily in the later half of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century. There are more than 4.5 million Norwegian Americans according to the most recent U.S. census, and...
and Swedish
Swedish American
Swedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
. There are 39,103 Norwegian Americans, making up 10.9% of the population; there are 30,349 Swedish Americans, making up 8.5% of the city's population. Danish Americans aren't nearly as numerous; there are 4,434 Danish Americans, making up only 1.3% of the population. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Americans together make up 20.7% of the population. This means that Germans and Scandinavians together make up 43.8% of Minneapolis's population, and make up the majority of Minneapolis's non-Hispanic white population. Other significant European groups in the city include those of Irish
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
(11.3%), English
English American
English Americans are citizens or residents of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England....
(7.0%), Polish
Polish American
A Polish American , is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States...
(3.9%), French
French American
French Americans or Franco-Americans are Americans of French or French Canadian descent. About 11.8 million U.S. residents are of this descent, and about 1.6 million speak French at home.An additional 450,000 U.S...
(3.5%) and Italian
Italian American
An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...
(2.3%) descent.
The American Community Survey estimated that there were 62,520 African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s residing in Minneapolis, comprising over 17% of the city's population, compared to a statewide proportion of less than four percent.
The Hispanic and Latino
Hispanic and Latino Americans
Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
population is predominantly Mexican
Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
. People of Mexican descent number at approximately 21,741, making up 6.1% of the city's population. There are 958 Puerto Ricans
Puerto Ricans in the United States
Stateside Puerto Ricans are American citizens of Puerto Rican origin, including those who migrated from Puerto Rico to the United States and those who were born outside of Puerto Rico in the United States...
and 467 Cubans in Minneapolis, making up 0.3% and 0.1% of the population respectively. There are 10,008 Hispanics and Latinos (other than Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans) of varying ancestries in the city; they collectively make up 2.8% of the population.
Minneapolis also has a sizable Asian
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
community. There are approximately 17,686 Asian Americans in Minneapolis, making up just under 5% of the city's population. The Asian population is largely composed of Hmong American
Hmong American
A Hmong American is a resident of the United States who is of ethnic Hmong descent. Hmong Americans are one group of Asian Americans. Many Lao Hmong war refugees resettled in the U.S. following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975...
s. Approximately 2,925 Chinese American
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
s reside in Minneapolis, making up 0.8% of the population. There are nearly 2,000 Indian American
Indian American
Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestral roots lie in India. The U.S. Census Bureau popularized the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Indigenous peoples of the Americas who are commonly referred to as American Indians.-The term: Indian:...
s in the city, making up 0.6% of the population. Vietnamese American
Vietnamese American
A Vietnamese American is an American of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American group....
s and Korean American
Korean American
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea...
s make up 0.4% of the population each. People of Filipino
Filipino American
Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...
and Japanese
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...
descent are few in Minneapolis. There are 603 Filipino Americans and 848 Japanese Americans in Minneapolis, making up roughly 0.2% of the populace each.
Minneapolis also has a sizable Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
community that is predominantly Chippewa. The Chippewa make up roughly 1.0% of the city's population. Of the 5,983 Native Americans, 3,709 are of the Chippewa tribe. In addition, there is a small Sioux community in Minneapolis; there are approximately 847 Sioux in the city, comprising 0.2% of the population.
There are 10,711 multiracial
Multiracial American
Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...
individuals in Minneapolis. People of black and white ancestry number at 3,551, and make up 1.0% of the population. People of white and Native American ancestry number at 2,319, and make up 0.6% of the population. Those of white and Asian ancestry number at 1,871, and make up 0.5% of the population. Lastly, people of black and Native American ancestry number at 885, and make up 0.2% of Minneapolis's population.
Dakota
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton
Mdewakanton
Mdewakantonwan are one of the sub-tribes of the Isanti Dakota . Their historic home is Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota, which in the Dakota language was called mde wakan .As part of the Santee Sioux, their ancestors had migrated from the Southeast of the present-day United States, where the...
, as early as the 16th century were known as permanent settlers near their sacred site of St. Anthony Falls. New settlers arrived during the 1850s and 1860s in Minneapolis from New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
ns (from Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
and Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
) began to call the city home. Migrant workers from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
also interspersed. Later, immigrants came from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and Southern
Southern Europe
The term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
. These immigrants tended to settle in the Northeast neighborhood, which still retains an ethnic flavor and is particularly known for its Polish community. Jews from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Eastern Europe settled primarily on the north side of the city before moving in large numbers to the western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. Asians came from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
. Two groups came for a short while during U.S. government relocations: Japanese during the 1940s, and Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
during the 1950s. From 1970 onward, Asians arrived from Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. Beginning in the 1990s, a large Latino population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...
, especially Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
. The metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway which had a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.
U.S. Census Bureau estimates in the year 2007 show the population of Minneapolis to be 377,392, a 1.4% drop since the 2000 census. The population grew until 1950 when the census peaked at 521,718, and then declined as people moved to the suburbs until about 1990.
Among U.S. cities as of 2006, Minneapolis has the fourth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian, or bisexual people in the adult population, with 12.5% (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind both Seattle and Atlanta). In 2011, The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
named Minneapolis the gayest city in America.
Racial and ethnic minorities lag behind white counterparts in education, with 15.0% of blacks and 13.0% of Hispanics holding bachelor's degrees compared to 42.0% of the white population. The standard of living is on the rise, with incomes among the highest in the Midwest
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
, but median household income among minorities is below that of whites by over $17,000. Regionally, home ownership among minority residents is half that of whites though Asian home ownership has doubled. In 2000, the poverty rate for whites was 4.2%; for blacks it was 26.2%; for Asians, 19.1%; Native Americans, 23.2%; and Hispanics, 18.1%.
| U.S. Census Population Estimates | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1940 | 1950 | 1960 | 1970 | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2010 |
| Population | 5,809 | 13,800 | 46,887 | 164,738 | 202,718 | 301,408 | 380,582 | 464,356 | 492,370 | 521,718 | 482,872 | 434,400 | 370,951 | 368,383 | 382,618 | 382,578 |
| U.S. Rank | — | — | 38 | 18 | 19 | 18 | 18 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 25 | 32 | 34 | 42 | 45 | 48 |
Economy
Six Fortune 500 corporations
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
make their headquarters within the city limits of Minneapolis:
Target Corporation
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
, U.S. Bancorp
U.S. Bancorp
U.S. Bancorp is a diversified financial services holding company, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the parent company of U.S. Bank, the fifth largest commercial bank in the United States based on $330 billion in assets. U.S. Bank ranks as the sixth largest bank in the U.S. based on...
, Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy, Inc. is a public utility company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving customers in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. Primary services are electricity and natural gas...
, Ameriprise Financial
Ameriprise Financial
Ameriprise Financial, Inc. is one of the leading diversified financial services companies in the U.S. Ameriprise Financial engages in business through its...
, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is a Fortune 500 financial services organization with dual corporate headquarters based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Appleton, Wisconsin...
and PepsiAmericas
PepsiAmericas
PepsiAmericas, Inc. was the world's second-largest bottler of Pepsi-Cola products, and also contracted to produce beverages for Dr Pepper Snapple Group and smaller regional brands. PepsiAmericas had 19 bottling plants in the United States and had a presence in 11 countries in Central/Eastern...
. As of 2009 the city's largest employers are Target, University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, Allina Hospitals & Clinics
Allina Hospitals & Clinics
Allina Hospitals & Clinics is network of health care providers based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Allina owns or operates 11 hospitals and more than 85 clinics throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin...
, Fairview Health Services
Fairview Health Services
Fairview Health Services is a network hospitals and clinics throughout the state of Minnesota. Fairview currently operates ten hospitals, forty eight primary care clinics and numerous specialty clinics in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area and greater Minnesota...
, Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization. Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home...
, Hennepin County
Hennepin County, Minnesota
Hennepin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota, named in honor of the 17th-century explorer Father Louis Hennepin. As of 2010 the population was 1,152,425. Its county seat is Minneapolis. It is by far the most populous county in Minnesota; more than one in five Minnesotans live...
, Ameriprise, U.S. Bank, City of Minneapolis, Capella Education Company
Capella Education Company
Capella Education Company is an education services holding company which owns for-profit, online Capella University and other assets.What is now the Capella Education Company was founded in 1991 by Stephen Shank, former CEO of Tonka Corporation. In 1993, it opened The Graduate School of America...
, Xcel Energy, Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
, RBC Wealth Management
Royal Bank of Canada
The Royal Bank of Canada or RBC Financial Group is the largest financial institution in Canada, as measured by deposits, revenues, and market capitalization. The bank serves seventeen million clients and has 80,100 employees worldwide. The company corporate headquarters are located in Toronto,...
, TCF Bank
TCF Bank
TCF Bank is the wholly owned banking subsidiary of TCF Financial Corporation, a bank holding company headquartered in Wayzata, Minnesota. TCF Bank is nationally chartered and operates 440 bank branches....
, Star Tribune
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...
, Thrivent, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States, covers the 9th District of the Federal Reserve, including Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, northwestern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...
, and ING Group
ING Group
The ING Group is a global financial institution offering retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, and insurance services. ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 prominent European banks...
.
Foreign companies with U.S. offices in Minneapolis include Coloplast
Coloplast
Coloplast is an international company that develops, manufactures and markets medical devices and services related to ostomy, urology and continence, and wound treatment....
, RBC
Royal Bank of Canada
The Royal Bank of Canada or RBC Financial Group is the largest financial institution in Canada, as measured by deposits, revenues, and market capitalization. The bank serves seventeen million clients and has 80,100 employees worldwide. The company corporate headquarters are located in Toronto,...
and ING Group
ING Group
The ING Group is a global financial institution offering retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, and insurance services. ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 prominent European banks...
.
Availability of Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
, transportation solutions, medical trials, university research and development expenditures, advanced degrees held by the work force, and energy conservation are so far above the national average that in 2005, Popular Science
Popular Science
Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...
named Minneapolis the "Top Tech City" in the U.S. The Twin Cities ranked the country's second best city in a 2006 Kiplinger's
Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance is a magazine that has been continuously published, on a monthly basis, from 1947 to the present day. It was the nation's first personal finance magazine, and claims to deliver "sound, unbiased advice in clear, concise language"...
poll of Smart Places to Live and Minneapolis was one of the Seven Cool Cities for young professionals.
The Twin Cities contribute 63.8% of the gross state product
Gross state product
Gross state product is a measurement of the economic output of a state or province...
of Minnesota. The area's $199.6 billion gross metropolitan product
Gross metropolitan product
Gross Metropolitan Product or Gross Regional Product is one of several measures of the size of the economy of a metropolitan area...
and its per capita personal income rank thirteenth in the U.S. Recovering from the nation's recession in 2000, personal income
Personal income in the United States
Personal income is an individual’s total earnings from wages, investment interest, and other sources. In the United States the most widely cited personal income statistics are the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s personal income and the Census Bureau’s per capita money income...
grew 3.8% in 2005, though it was behind the national average of 5%. The city returned to peak employment during the fourth quarter of that year.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States, covers the 9th District of the Federal Reserve, including Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, northwestern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...
, serves Minnesota, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, North
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
and South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
, and parts of Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. The smallest of the twelve regional banks in the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve System
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907...
, it operates a nationwide payments system, oversees member banks and bank holding companies, and serves as a banker for the U.S. Treasury. The Minneapolis Grain Exchange
Minneapolis Grain Exchange
The Minneapolis Grain Exchange was formed in 1881 as a regional cash marketplace to promote fair trade and to prevent trade abuses in wheat, oats and corn....
founded in 1881 is still located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard red spring wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
futures
Futures exchange
A futures exchange or futures market is a central financial exchange where people can trade standardized futures contracts; that is, a contract to buy specific quantities of a commodity or financial instrument at a specified price with delivery set at a specified time in the future. These types of...
and options
Option (finance)
In finance, an option is a derivative financial instrument that specifies a contract between two parties for a future transaction on an asset at a reference price. The buyer of the option gains the right, but not the obligation, to engage in that transaction, while the seller incurs the...
.
Arts
The region is second only to New York City in live theater per capita and is the third-largest theater market in the U.S. after New York and Chicago, supporting the Illusion, Jungle, Mixed BloodMixed Blood Theatre Company
The Mixed Blood Theatre Company is a professional multiracial theatre company in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1976 by artistic director Jack Reuler. Its core stated values are promoting cultural pluralism, individual equality, and artistic excellence.Its plays range from intimate...
, Penumbra, Mu Performing Arts
Mu Performing Arts
Mu Performing Arts is a Minneapolis based theater group formed in 1992 by Rick Shiomi, Dong-il Lee, Diane Espaldon, and Martha Johnson. It is composed of Theater Mu, which features stage performances and Mu Daiko, a taiko drumming ensemble...
, Bedlam Theatre, the Brave New Workshop
Brave New Workshop
The Brave New Workshop Comedy Theatre , located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been writing, performing and producing live sketch comedy and improvisation performances for 50 years – longer than any other theatre in the nation...
, the Minnesota Dance Theatre
Minnesota Dance Theatre
The Minnesota Dance Theatre dance company and school in Minneapolis, Minnesota was founded by Loyce Houlton in 1962 as the Contemporary Dance Playhouse. Lise Houlton succeeded her mother as artistic director in 1995. Each holiday season MDT presents the ballet Loyce Houlton's Nutcracker Fantasy...
, Red Eye, Skewed Visions
Skewed Visions
Skewed Visions is an arts company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota which produces site-specific performances and other multimedia works. Formed in 1996 by the artists Charles Campbell, Gülgün Kayim and Sean Kelley-Pegg, the group produces site-specific works that have sometimes been seen as...
, Theater Latté Da, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre is a puppet company from Minneapolis, Minnesota. HOBT began in 1973 as Powderhorn Puppet Theatre, named for a neighborhood park and lake in Minneapolis, and changed their name in 1979...
, Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts, and the Children's Theatre Company
Children's Theatre Company
The Children's Theatre Company is a regional theatre established in 1961 in Minneapolis, Minnesota specializing in plays for families and young audiences and the recipient of a 2003 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre...
. The city is home to Minnesota Fringe Festival
Minnesota Fringe Festival
The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a performing arts festival held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, every summer, usually during the first two weeks in August. The eleven-day event, which features performing artists of many genres and disciplines, is one of many Fringe Festivals in North...
, the United States' largest nonjuried performing arts festival. French architect Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture...
designed a new three stage complex for the Guthrie Theater
Guthrie Theater
The Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...
, a prototype alternative to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
founded in Minneapolis in 1963. Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres
Pantages Theatre (Minneapolis)
The Pantages Theatre is a historic theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The original building was a Beaux-Arts style twelve-story complex on Hennepin Avenue, designed by Kees & Colburn and operated by Alexander Pantages, a Greek immigrant who opened 500 theatres.The building was reduced...
vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
and film houses on Hennepin Avenue
Hennepin Avenue
Hennepin Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs from Lakewood Cemetery , north through the Uptown District of Southwest Minneapolis, through the former "Bottleneck" area west of Loring Park, through the North Loop in the city center, to Northeast Minneapolis and...
now used for concerts and plays. A fourth renovated theater joined the Hennepin Center for the Arts
Hennepin Center for the Arts
The Hennepin Center for the Arts was built in 1888 as a Masonic Temple. The structure was built by Long and Kees in the Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style. In 1978, it was purchased and underwent a renovation to become the HCA. It is located at 528 Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis,...
to become the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, home to more than one dozen performing arts groups.
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a fine art museum located in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a campus that covers nearly 8 acres , formerly Morrison Park...
, built in 1915 in south central Minneapolis is the largest art museum in the city with 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection. A new wing designed by Michael Graves
Michael Graves
Michael Graves is an American architect. Identified as one of The New York Five, Graves has become a household name with his designs for domestic products sold at Target stores in the United States....
was completed in 2006 for contemporary and modern works and more gallery space. The Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
sits atop Lowry Hill, near downtown, and doubled its size with an addition in 2005 by Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, BSA/SIA/ETH is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog , and Pierre de Meuron , closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of...
and is continuing its expansion to 15 acres (6.1 ha) with a park designed by Michel Desvigne across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is an 11 acre park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States.It is located near the Walker Art Center, which operates it in coordination with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board...
. The Weisman Art Museum
Weisman Art Museum
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum located on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. A teaching museum for the university since 1934, the museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, and was designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry...
, designed by Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
for the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, opened in 1993. An addition, also designed by Gehry, is expected to open in 2011.
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
is Minneapolis' most famous musical progeny. With fellow local musicians, many of whom recorded at Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records was a record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1977 until 1994 and helped several local groups receive national attention. The label was born from the Minneapolis punk rock music scene, which included venues like Jay's Longhorn Bar. The label was begun by...
, he helped make First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry venues of choice for both artists and audiences. Other prominent artists from Minneapolis include Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....
and The Replacements, whose frontman Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg is an American musician, best known as the former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter of The Replacements, one of the seminal alternative rock bands of the 1980s. He launched a solo career after the dissolution of that band...
went on to a successful solo career, who were pivotal in the alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
boom of the U.S. during the 1990s.
The Minnesota Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra
The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Emil Oberhoffer founded the orchestra as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, and it gave its first performance on November 5 of that year. In 1968 the orchestra changed to its name to the Minnesota Orchestra...
plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall
Orchestra Hall (Minneapolis)
Orchestra Hall, located at Nicollet Mall and 12th Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is home to the Minnesota Orchestra. The Hall was built in 1974 and opened for the 1974 concert season...
under music director Osmo Vänskä
Osmo Vänskä
Osmo Antero Vänskä is a Finnish conductor, clarinetist and composer.He started his musical career as an orchestral clarinetist with the Turku Philharmonic . He then became the principal clarinet of the Helsinki Philharmonic from 1977 to 1982...
who has set about making it the best in the country—a critic writing for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 thought that that day they were "the greatest orchestra in the world". In 2008, the century-old MacPhail Center for Music
MacPhail Center for Music
The MacPhail Center for Music is a nonprofit music school in a recently opened building in the Mills District of Downtown East, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school has over 7,750 students, providing instruction at 48 locations outside of its downtown Minneapolis facility on more than 35 instruments...
opened a new facility designed by James Dayton.
Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
released two songs about the city, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
"Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" is a song written and performed by Tom Waits, and released on his 1978 album, Blue Valentine. The song also appeared on Waits' compilation album, Used Songs 1973–1980 .-Lyrics:...
(Blue Valentine 1978) and 9th & Hennepin (Rain Dogs
Rain Dogs
Rain Dogs is the 9th album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in August 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild...
1985) and Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams is an American rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter. She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album,...
recorded Minneapolis (World Without Tears
World Without Tears
World Without Tears is Lucinda Williams' seventh album. It was released in 2003. It debuted at number 18 on the Billboard 200, selling about 54,000 copies in its first week...
2003). Home to the MN Spoken Word Association and independent hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment is an independent hip hop record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-founded in 1995 by Sean Daley, Anthony Davis, Brent Sayers and Musab Saad....
, the city has garnered notice for rap and hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
and its spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
community. The underground hip-hop group Atmosphere
Atmosphere (music group)
Atmosphere is an American hip hop group from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group is composed of rapper Slug and DJ/Producer Ant...
(natives of Minnesota) frequently comments in song lyrics on the city and Minnesota.
Minneapolis is America's third-most literate city. A center for printing and publishing, Minneapolis was a natural place for artists to build Open Book, the largest literary and book arts center in the U.S., made up of the Loft Literary Center, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Minnesota Center for Book Arts is the largest and most comprehensive independent non-profit book arts center in the United States. Located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, MCBA is a nationally recognized leader in the celebration and preservation of traditional crafts including hand papermaking,...
and Milkweed Editions
Milkweed Editions
Milkweed Editions is an independent, non-profit publishing company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Milkweed's goal is to make a positive impact on society through the transformative art of literature. Milkweed is sometimes called the largest independent, non-profit literary publisher in the United...
, sometimes called the country's largest independent nonprofit literary publisher. The center exhibits and teaches both contemporary art and traditional crafts of writing, papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding.
Sports
Professional sports are well-established in Minneapolis. First playing in 1884, the Minneapolis MillersMinneapolis Millers
The Minneapolis Millers were an American professional minor league baseball team that played in Minneapolis, Minnesota, until 1960. In the 19th century a different Minneapolis Millers were part of the Western League.The team played first in Athletic Park and later Nicollet Park.The name Minneapolis...
baseball team produced the best won-lost record in their league at the time and contributed fifteen players to the Baseball Hall of Fame
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests serving as the central point for the study of the history of baseball in the United States and beyond, the display of...
. During the 1920s, Minneapolis was home to the NFL team the Minneapolis Marines, later known as the Minneapolis Red Jackets. During the 1940s and 1950s the Minneapolis Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California. They play in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
basketball team, the city's first in the major leagues in any sport, won six basketball championships in three leagues to become the NBA's first dynasty before moving to Los Angeles. The American Wrestling Association
American Wrestling Association
The American Wrestling Association was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that ran from 1960 to 1991. It was owned and founded by Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo...
, formerly the NWA
National Wrestling Alliance
The National Wrestling Alliance is a wrestling promotion company and sanctions various NWA championships in the United States. The NWA has been in operation since 1948...
Minneapolis Boxing & Wrestling Club, operated in Minneapolis from 1960 until the 1990s.
The Minnesota Vikings
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Vikings joined the National Football League as an expansion team in 1960...
and the Minnesota Twins
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
arrived in the state in 1961. The Vikings were an NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
expansion team
Expansion team
An expansion team is a brand new team in a sports league. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues, but is applied to sports leagues worldwide that use a closed franchise system of league membership. The term comes from the expansion of the...
and the Twins were formed when the Washington Senators
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
relocated to Minnesota. Both teams played outdoors in the open air Metropolitan Stadium
Metropolitan Stadium
Metropolitan Stadium was a sports stadium that once stood in Bloomington, Minnesota, just outside Minneapolis. The area where the stadium once stood is now the site of the Mall of America...
in the suburb of Bloomington
Bloomington, Minnesota
Bloomington is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota in Hennepin County. Located on the north bank of the Minnesota River above its confluence with the Mississippi River, Bloomington lies at the heart of the southern...
for twenty one years before moving to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, commonly called the Metrodome, is a domed sports stadium in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in 1982, it replaced Metropolitan Stadium, which was on the current site of the Mall of America in Bloomington and Memorial Stadium on the University...
in 1982, where the Twins won the World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
in 1987
1987 World Series
The 1987 World Series pitted the Minnesota Twins versus the St. Louis Cardinals.Minnesota was victorious in a World Series that was the first in which the home team won every game...
and 1991
1991 World Series
The 1991 World Series pitted the Minnesota Twins of the American League against the Atlanta Braves of the National League. The series was played from Saturday, October 19 to Sunday, October 27....
. The Twins moved to Target Field
Target Field
Target Field is a baseball park located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the home ballpark of the Minnesota Twins, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. It is the franchise's sixth ballpark and third in Minnesota. The Twins moved to Target Field for the 2010 Major League Baseball...
in 2010. The Minnesota Timberwolves
Minnesota Timberwolves
The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . Founded in 1989, the team is currently owned by Glen Taylor...
brought NBA basketball back to Minneapolis in 1989, followed by the Minnesota Lynx
Minnesota Lynx
The Minnesota Lynx are a professional basketball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, playing in the Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association . The team was founded prior to the 1999 season...
WNBA
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. It currently is composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association...
team in 1999. The Lynx play in the Target Center
Target Center
The Target Center is an arena in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is sponsored by Target Corporation. The arena has a capacity of 20,500 people. It contains 702 club seats and 68 suites....
and won the WNBA Championship
2011 WNBA Finals
The 2011 WNBA Finals was the championship series of the 2011 season of the Women's National Basketball Association , and the conclusion of the season's playoffs. The Minnesota Lynx, champions of the Western Conference, swept the champions of the Eastern Conference, the Atlanta Dream in three...
in 2011.
The downtown Metrodome, opened in 1982, is the largest sports stadium in Minnesota, with one major tenant, the Vikings. The Metrodome is the only stadium in the country to have hosted a Major League Baseball All-Star Game
Major League Baseball All-Star Game
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual baseball game between players from the National League and the American League, currently selected by a combination of fans, players, coaches, and managers...
, the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
, the World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
, and the NCAA Basketball Men's Final Four
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single-elimination tournament held each spring in the United States, featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship in the top tier of college basketball...
. Runners
Running
Running is a means of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. It is simply defined in athletics terms as a gait in which at regular points during the running cycle both feet are off the ground...
, walkers, inline skaters, coed volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
teams, and touch football teams all have access to "The Dome". Events from sports to concerts, community activities, religious activities, and trade shows are held more than three hundred days per year, making the facility one of the most versatile stadiums in the world.
The state of Minnesota authorized replacement of the Metrodome with three separate stadiums that estimates in 2007 totaled at about $1.7 billion. Six spectator sport
Spectator sport
A spectator sport is a sport that is characterized by the presence of spectators, or watchers, at its matches. For instance, Tennis, Rugby, F-1, baseball, basketball, cricket, football , and ice hockey are spectator sports, while hunting or underwater hockey typically are not...
stadiums will be in a 1.2-mile (2 km) radius centered downtown, counting the existing facilities at Target Center and the university's Williams Arena
Williams Arena
Williams Arena, located on the Twin Cities main campus of the University of Minnesota is the home of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's and women's basketball teams, and the men's and women's hockey teams until 1992, when the hockey teams received their own buildings...
and Mariucci Arena
Mariucci Arena
Mariucci Arena is the home arena for the Minnesota Golden Gophers men's ice hockey team of the University of Minnesota. The arena is located on the Minneapolis campus and seats approximately 10,000 fans...
. The new Target Field
Target Field
Target Field is a baseball park located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the home ballpark of the Minnesota Twins, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. It is the franchise's sixth ballpark and third in Minnesota. The Twins moved to Target Field for the 2010 Major League Baseball...
is funded by the Twins and 75% by Hennepin County sales tax, about $25 per year by each taxpayer. The Gopher football program's new TCF Bank Stadium
TCF Bank Stadium
TCF Bank Stadium, sometimes referred to as either "The Bank" or "The Gopher Hole," is the football stadium for the Minnesota Golden Gophers college football team at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota...
was built by the university and the state's general fund. Several plans have been advanced for a new Vikings stadium. The one that the team prefers is a suburban site in Arden Hills
Arden Hills, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 9,652 people, 2,959 households, and 2,228 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,087.3 people per square mile . There were 3,017 housing units at an average density of 339.9 per square mile...
in Ramsey County
Ramsey County
There are two places in the United States named Ramsey County:*Ramsey County, Minnesota, the seat of the state capital, Saint Paul*Ramsey County, North Dakota...
. The City of Minneapolis would like to build a new stadium on the site of the Metrodome or near the Farmers Market on the westside of downtown. All three plans would cost close to $1 billion.
Major sporting events hosted by the city include Super Bowl XXVI
Super Bowl XXVI
Super Bowl XXVI was an American football game played on January 26, 1992 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota to decide the National Football League champion following the 1991 regular season...
, the 1992 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four, the 2001 NCAA Men's Division 1 Final Four and the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships
World Figure Skating Championships
The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion...
.
Gifted amateur athletes have played in Minneapolis schools, notably starting in the 1920s and 1930s at Central, De La Salle
DeLaSalle High School (Minneapolis)
DeLaSalle High School is a Catholic, college preparatory high school located for its entire 111-year history on Nicollet Island, adjacent to downtown Minneapolis, USA. Then-Archbishop John Ireland helped raise money to build the new Catholic secondary school in Minneapolis. Only a few months...
, and Marshall high schools. Since the 1930s, the Golden Gophers have won national championships in baseball, boxing, football, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, and wrestling.
| Professional Sports in Minneapolis | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Club | Sport | League | Venue | Championships |
| Minnesota Lynx Minnesota Lynx The Minnesota Lynx are a professional basketball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, playing in the Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association . The team was founded prior to the 1999 season... |
Basketball Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules... |
Women's National Basketball Association Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. It currently is composed of twelve teams. The league was founded on April 24, 1996 as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association... , Western Conference Western Conference (WNBA) The Western Conference of the Women's National Basketball Association is made up of six teams.The Western Conference playoffs is divided into two playoff rounds, The Conference Semi-Finals and The Conference Finals with the winner of the Conference Championship facing the Eastern Conference... |
Target Center Target Center The Target Center is an arena in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is sponsored by Target Corporation. The arena has a capacity of 20,500 people. It contains 702 club seats and 68 suites.... |
WNBA Finals WNBA Finals The WNBA Finals is the championship series of the Women's National Basketball Association and the conclusion of the sport's postseason each fall. The series was named the WNBA Championship until 2002.... 2011 2011 WNBA Finals The 2011 WNBA Finals was the championship series of the 2011 season of the Women's National Basketball Association , and the conclusion of the season's playoffs. The Minnesota Lynx, champions of the Western Conference, swept the champions of the Eastern Conference, the Atlanta Dream in three... |
| Minnesota Timberwolves Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Northwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . Founded in 1989, the team is currently owned by Glen Taylor... |
Basketball Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules... |
National Basketball Association National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada... , Western Conference Western Conference (NBA) Below is a list of current Western Conference NBA team rosters.-Western Conference:There are a total of 15 teams in the Western Conference. The current leading team of the Western conference are the Dallas Mavericks.... , Northwest Division Northwest Division (NBA) The Northwest Division is one of the three divisions in the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association . The division consists of five teams, the Denver Nuggets, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Utah JazzThe division was... |
Target Center Target Center The Target Center is an arena in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is sponsored by Target Corporation. The arena has a capacity of 20,500 people. It contains 702 club seats and 68 suites.... |
|
| Minnesota Twins Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the... |
Baseball Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond... |
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League... , American League American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major... , Central Division American League Central The American League Central Division is one of six divisions in Major League Baseball. This division was formed in the realignment in 1994, and its teams are all located in the Midwestern United States... |
Target Field Target Field Target Field is a baseball park located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the home ballpark of the Minnesota Twins, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. It is the franchise's sixth ballpark and third in Minnesota. The Twins moved to Target Field for the 2010 Major League Baseball... |
World Series World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy... 1987 1987 World Series The 1987 World Series pitted the Minnesota Twins versus the St. Louis Cardinals.Minnesota was victorious in a World Series that was the first in which the home team won every game... and 1991 1991 World Series The 1991 World Series pitted the Minnesota Twins of the American League against the Atlanta Braves of the National League. The series was played from Saturday, October 19 to Sunday, October 27.... |
| Minnesota Vikings Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Vikings joined the National Football League as an expansion team in 1960... |
American Football American football American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by... |
National Football League National Football League The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing... , National Football Conference National Football Conference The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL.-Current teams:Since 2002, the NFC has comprised 16 teams,... , North Division |
Metrodome Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, commonly called the Metrodome, is a domed sports stadium in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in 1982, it replaced Metropolitan Stadium, which was on the current site of the Mall of America in Bloomington and Memorial Stadium on the University... |
1969 NFL Championship |
Cityscape
Parks and recreation
Horace Cleveland
Horace William Shaler Cleveland was a noted American landscape architect, sometimes considered second only to Frederick Law Olmsted...
to create his finest landscape architecture
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevard
Boulevard
A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...
s and parkway
Parkway
The term parkway has several distinct principal meanings and numerous synonyms around the world, for either a type of landscaped area or a type of road.Type of landscaped area:...
s. The city's Chain of Lakes
Chain of Lakes (Minneapolis)
The Chain of Lakes is a district in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is one of seven districts that make up the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, a greenspace circling through the city...
, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway
Parkway
The term parkway has several distinct principal meanings and numerous synonyms around the world, for either a type of landscaped area or a type of road.Type of landscaped area:...
for cars, a bikeway
Segregated cycle facilities
Segregated cycle facilities are marked lanes, tracks, shoulders and paths designated for use by cyclists from which motorised traffic is generally excluded...
for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (83.7 km) route of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
The Grand Rounds Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The corridors include roads for automobile traffic plus paths for pedestrians and bicycles, and extend slightly into neighboring cities...
.
Theodore Wirth
Theodore Wirth
Theodore Wirth was instrumental in designing the Minneapolis system of parks. Swiss-born, he was widely regarded as the dean of the local parks movement in America. The various titles he was given included administrator of parks, horticulturalist, and park planner. Before emigrating to America...
is credited with the development of the parks system. Today, 16.6% of the city is parks and there are 770 square feet (72 m²) of parkland for each resident, ranked in 2008 as the most parkland per resident within cities of similar population densities.
Mississippi National River and Recreation Area
The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area protects a and corridor along the Mississippi River from the cities of Dayton and Ramsey, Minnesota to just downstream of Hastings, Minnesota. This includes the stretch of Mississippi River which flows through Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota...
connects regional parks and visitor centers. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary located within Theodore Wirth Park
Theodore Wirth Park
Theodore Wirth Park is the largest park managed by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The park land is shared by Minneapolis and the neighboring suburb of Golden Valley. The park includes two golf courses , Wirth Lake, Birch Pond, and other amenities...
which is shared with Golden Valley
Golden Valley, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 20,281 people, 8,449 households, and 5,508 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,982.3 people per square mile . There were 8,589 housing units at an average density of 839.5 per square mile...
and is about 60% the size of Central Park in New York City. Site of the 53-foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls
Minnehaha Falls
Minnehaha Creek is a tributary of the Mississippi River located in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from Lake Minnetonka in the west and flows east for 22 miles through several suburbs west of Minneapolis and then through south Minneapolis. Including Lake Minnetonka, the watershed for the...
, Minnehaha Park is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks, receiving over 500,000 visitors each year. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall in The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem, in trochaic tetrameter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, featuring an Indian hero and loosely based on legends and ethnography of the Ojibwe and other Native American peoples contained in Algic Researches and additional writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft...
, a bestselling and often-parodied 19th century poem.
Runner's World ranks the Twin Cities as America's sixth best city for runners. Team Ortho sponsors the Minneapolis Marathon
Minneapolis Marathon
Minneapolis Marathon is a marathon that is held in late May or early June in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The first race was held in 2009. In addition to the marathon, there is also half-marathon and 5K run. The race is a fast course with flats and hills. Most of the course follows the Mississippi...
, Half Marathon and 5K which began in 2009 with more than 1,500 starters. The Twin Cities Marathon
Twin Cities Marathon
The Twin Cities Marathon is an annual marathon in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. The race is often dubbed "The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America." The TCM was first run in 1982, and typically takes place during the first weekend in October. In 2006 the Marathon agreed to its first...
run in Minneapolis and Saint Paul every October draws 250,000 spectators. The 26.2 miles (42.2 km) race is a Boston
Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts, on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897 and inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics, the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest...
and USA Olympic
United States at the Olympics
The United States of America has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games, except the 1980 Summer Olympics, which it boycotted.The United States Olympic Committee is the National Olympic Committee for the United States....
Trials qualifier. The organizers sponsor three more races: a Kids Marathon, a 1 miles (1.6 km), and a 10 miles (16.1 km).
In other sports, five golf course
Golf course
A golf course comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, fairway, rough and other hazards, and a green with a flagstick and cup, all designed for the game of golf. A standard round of golf consists of playing 18 holes, thus most golf courses have this number of holes...
s are located within the city, with nationally ranked Hazeltine National Golf Club
Hazeltine National Golf Club
Hazeltine National Golf Club is a golf club located in Chaska, Minnesota. It is a private club and therefore closed to guests not accompanied by a member. The golf course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and opened in 1962....
, and Interlachen Country Club
Interlachen Country Club
The Interlachen Country Club is a private country club in Edina, Minnesota which has hosted several national golf tournaments, including the 1930 U.S. Open , the 2002 Solheim Cup, and the 2008 U.S...
in nearby suburbs. Minneapolis is home to more golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
ers per capita than any other major U.S. city. The state of Minnesota has the nation's highest number of bicyclists
Cycling
Cycling, also called bicycling or biking, is the use of bicycles for transport, recreation, or for sport. Persons engaged in cycling are cyclists or bicyclists...
, sport fishermen
Recreational fishing
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing, is fishing for pleasure or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is fishing for profit, or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival....
, and snow skiers
Skiing
Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
per capita. Hennepin County has the second-highest number of horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s per capita in the U.S. While living in Minneapolis, Scott and Brennan Olson founded (and later sold) Rollerblade
Rollerblade
Rollerblade is a brand of inline skates owned by Nordica, part of the Tecnica Group of Trevignano, Treviso, Italy.The company was started by Scott Olsen and Brennan Olson in Minneapolis as Ole's Innovative Sports; when they sold the company, it became Rollerblade, Inc...
, the company that popularized the sport of inline skating
Inline skates
In-line skates are a type of roller skate used for inline skating. Unlike quad skates, which have two front and two rear wheels, inline skates have two, three, four, or five wheels arranged in a single line...
.
Government
Minneapolis is a stronghold for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor PartyMinnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is a major political party in the state of Minnesota and the state affiliate of the Democratic Party. It was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party...
(DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. The Minneapolis City Council
Minneapolis City Council
The Minneapolis City Council is the governing body of the City of Minneapolis. The City Council is composed of 13 single member districts, called wards. Barbara Johnson is president of the council. The council is dominated by members of the DFL Party with 12 members. The Green Party has one member...
holds the most power and represents the city's thirteen districts called wards
Wards of the United States
In the United States, a ward is an optional division of a city or town, especially an electoral district, for administrative and representative purposes...
. The council has twelve DFL members and one from the Green Party
Green Party of Minnesota
The Green Party of Minnesota is the fourth largest political party in Minnesota and was founded in 1994 on the Four Pillars of the Green Party: Ecological Wisdom, Social and Economic Justice, Grassroots Democracy, and Nonviolence and Peace...
. R. T. Rybak
R. T. Rybak
Raymond Thomas Rybak, Jr. , known as R. T. Rybak, is the 46th and current mayor of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the 2001 election Rybak defeated incumbent Sharon Sayles Belton by a margin of 65% to 35%; the widest margin in city history for a challenge to an incumbent...
also of the DFL is the current mayor of Minneapolis. The office of mayor is relatively weak but has some power to appoint individuals such as the chief of police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
. Parks, taxation, and public housing are semi-independent boards and levy their own taxes and fees subject to Board of Estimate and Taxation limits.
Citizens have a unique and powerful influence in neighborhood
Neighbourhood
A neighbourhood or neighborhood is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town or suburb. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. "Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition...
government. Neighborhoods coordinate activities under the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP), funded in the 1990s by the city and state who appropriated $400 million for it over twenty years. Minneapolis is divided into communities, each containing neighborhoods. In some cases two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization. Some areas are commonly known by nicknames of business associations.
Earth Day
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. The first Proclamation of Earth Day was by San Francisco, the...
scored Minneapolis ninth best overall and second among mid-sized cities in their 2007 Urban Environment Report, a study based on indicators of environmental health and their effect on people.
Early Minneapolis experienced a period of corruption in local government and crime was common until an economic downturn in the mid 1900s. Since 1950 the population decreased and much of downtown was lost to urban renewal and highway construction. The result was a "moribund and peaceful" environment until the 1990s. Along with economic recovery the murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
rate climbed. The Minneapolis Police Department
Minneapolis Police Department
The Minneapolis Police Department is the police department for the city of Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota. Formed in 1867, it is the second oldest police department in the state of Minnesota, after the Saint Paul Police Department . A short-lived Board of Police Commissioners existed...
imported a computer system from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that sent officers to high crime areas. Despite accusations of racial profiling
Racial profiling
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
; the result was a drop in major crime. Since 1999 the number of homicides increased during four years. Politicians debated the causes and solutions, including increasing the number of police officers, providing youths with alternatives to gangs and drugs, and helping families in poverty. For 2007, the city invested in public safety infrastructure and hired over forty new officers and a new police chief, Tim Dolan. Citing police use of predictive analysis
Crime analysis
Crime analysis is a law enforcement function that involves systematic analysis for identifying and analyzing patterns and trends in [crime] and disorder. Information on patterns can help law enforcement agencies deploy resources in a more effective manner, and assist detectives in identifying and...
, Dolan and Rybak announced during December 2010 that violent crime in Minneapolis had dropped to 1980s rates.
Education
Minneapolis Public SchoolsMinneapolis Public Schools
Minneapolis Public Schools or Special School District Number 1 is a school district that covers all of the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools...
enroll 36,370 students in public primary
Primary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...
and secondary
Secondary education
Secondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
schools. The district administers about one hundred public schools including forty-five elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
s, seven middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
s, seven high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
s, eight special education
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
schools, eight alternative school
Alternative school
Alternative school is the name used in some parts of the world to describe an institution which provides part of alternative education. It is an educational establishment with a curriculum and methods that are nontraditional...
s, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter school
Charter school
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...
s. With authority granted by the state legislature, the school board makes policy, selects the superintendent, and oversees the district's budget, curriculum, personnel, and facilities. Students speak ninety different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Hmong
Hmong language
Hmong or Mong is the common name for a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmong–Mien/Miao–Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and Somali
Somali language
The Somali language is a member of the East Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Its nearest relatives are Afar and Oromo. Somali is the best documented of the Cushitic languages, with academic studies beginning before 1900....
. About 44% of students in the Minneapolis Public School system graduate, which ranks the city the 6th worst out of the nation's 50 largest cities. Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute. Besides public schools, the city is home to more than twenty private schools and academies and about twenty additional charter schools.
Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes. The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management. A Big Ten
Big Ten Conference
The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...
school and home of the Golden Gophers, the U of M is the sixth largest campus in the U.S. in terms of enrollment.
Minneapolis Community and Technical College
Minneapolis Community and Technical College is a community and technical college located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The college is located near Loring Park and serves over 14,000 students annually...
, the private Dunwoody College of Technology
Dunwoody College of Technology
Dunwoody College of Technology is a private, non-profit vocational college in Minneapolis, Minnesota.In addition to associate 2-year college programs Associate of Applied Science , Dunwoody also offers a Bachelor of Science in Applied Management for students with an associate degree.Dunwoody offers...
, Globe University/Minnesota School of Business
Globe University/Minnesota School of Business
Globe University and Minnesota School of Business are private, for-profit schools providing specialized career training programs in business, medical, legal, information technology and creative media fields. They are located on campuses in Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota, USA...
, and Art Institutes International Minnesota
Art Institutes International Minnesota
-About the College:The Art Institutes International Minnesota is part of The Art Institutes, a system of proprietary colleges focusing on creative industries. The Art Institutes International Minnesota offers certificate, associates, and bachelor’s degrees with an enrollment of over 2,000 students...
provide career training. Augsburg College
Augsburg College
Augsburg College is a selective liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Augsburg was named for the Augsburg Confession, the document of Lutheran belief. The school was founded in 1869 in Marshall, Wisconsin as Augsburg Seminary and moved...
, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Minneapolis College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit four-year and postgraduate college specializing in the visual arts. Located in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, MCAD currently enrolls approximately 1,000 students offering curriculum that includes...
, and North Central University
North Central University
North Central University is a coeducational, undergraduate, primarily residential college owned and operated by 11 Assemblies of God districts of the upper Midwest. It is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA...
are private four-year colleges. Capella University
Capella University
Capella University is a for-profit co-educational university with partial residency requirements during the course of study, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.The school is owned by the publicly traded Capella Education Company...
, Minnesota School of Professional Psychology
Argosy University
Argosy University is a for-profit university owned by Education Management Corporation, with 19 locations in 13 U.S. states and online. The university offers numerous programs at various levels, including certification; associates, bachelors, masters, specialist, and doctoral degrees, postdoctoral...
, and Walden University
Walden University (Minnesota)
Walden University is a private, for-profit, specialized distance learning institution of higher education. Headquartered in the Mills District in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Walden University offers Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, Master of Business Administration, Master of Public...
are headquartered in Minneapolis and some others including the public four-year Metropolitan State University
Metropolitan State University
Metropolitan State University is a four-year public university located in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, United States. It is a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.-History:...
and the private four-year University of St. Thomas
University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
The University of St. Thomas is a private, Catholic, liberal arts, and archdiocesan university located in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States...
have campuses there.
The Hennepin County Library
Hennepin County Library
Hennepin County Library is a library system serving the entire population of Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA. The Minneapolis Public Library, a separate system for Minneapolis, existed from its founding by T. B. Walker in 1885 until January 2008...
system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008. The Minneapolis Public Library
Minneapolis Public Library
The Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center was a library system serving the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. It was founded as the publicly traded Minneapolis Athenæum in 1860 and became a free public library in 1885 founded by T. B. Walker...
, founded by T. B. Walker
T. B. Walker
Thomas Barlow Walker was a highly successful American businessperson who acquired timber in Minnesota and California and became an art collector. Walker founded the Minneapolis Public Library. He was among the 10 wealthiest men in the world in 1923. He built two company towns, one of which his son...
in 1885, faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to close three of its neighborhood libraries. The new downtown Central Library designed by César Pelli
César Pelli
César Pelli is an Argentine architect known for designing some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. In 1991, the American Institute of Architects listed Pelli among the ten most influential living American architects...
opened in 2006. Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection. At recent count 1,696,453 items in the system are used annually and the library answers over 500,000 research and fact-finding questions each year.
In 2007, Minneapolis was named America's most literate city. The study, conducted by Live Science, surveyed 69 U.S. cities with a population over 250,000. They focused on six key factors: Number of book stores, newspaper circulation, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources. The city was ranked in 2011 by Men's Health
Men's health
Men's health refers to health issues specific to human male anatomy. These often relate to structures such as male genitalia or to conditions caused by hormones specific to, or most notable in, males....
as the nation's 15th most educated city.
Transportation
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
but 60% of the 160,000 people working downtown commute by means other than a single person per auto. Alternative transportation is encouraged. The Metropolitan Council
Metropolitan Council
The Metropolitan Council or Met Council is the regional governmental agency and metropolitan planning organization in Minnesota serving the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area. The Met Council is granted regional authority powers in state statutes by the Minnesota Legislature. These powers...
's Metro Transit
Metro Transit (Minnesota)
Metro Transit is the transit division of the Metropolitan Council, a regional governmental agency in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Metro Transit is the largest operator of bus services in the seven-county region surrounding Minneapolis and St...
, which operates the light rail
Light rail
Light rail or light rail transit is a form of urban rail public transportation that generally has a lower capacity and lower speed than heavy rail and metro systems, but higher capacity and higher speed than traditional street-running tram systems...
system and most of the city's buses, provides free travel vouchers through the Guaranteed Ride Home program to allay fears that commuters might otherwise be occasionally stranded if, for example, they work late hours.
On January 1, 2011, the city's limit of 343 taxis was lifted.
Minneapolis currently has one light rail
Light rail
Light rail or light rail transit is a form of urban rail public transportation that generally has a lower capacity and lower speed than heavy rail and metro systems, but higher capacity and higher speed than traditional street-running tram systems...
and one commuter rail line. The Blue Line
Hiawatha Line
The Hiawatha Line is a light rail corridor in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from downtown Minneapolis to the southern suburb of Bloomington. It was formerly known as the Hiawatha Line named after Hiawatha Avenue. Major connections on the line include the Minneapolis-St...
LRT serves 34,000 riders daily and connects the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International airport
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is the largest and busiest airport in the five-state upper Midwest region of Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.-Overview:...
and Mall of America
Mall of America
The Mall of America, also called MOA and the Megamall, is a shopping mall located in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities, in the United States. It is located southeast of the junction of Interstate 494 and Minnesota State Highway 77, north of the Minnesota River and is across the...
in Bloomington
Bloomington, Minnesota
Bloomington is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota in Hennepin County. Located on the north bank of the Minnesota River above its confluence with the Mississippi River, Bloomington lies at the heart of the southern...
to downtown. Most of the line runs at surface level, although parts of the line run on elevated tracks (including the Franklin Ave. and Lake St./Midtown stations) and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of the line runs underground, including the Lindbergh terminal subway station at the airport. The 40-mile Northstar Commuter rail, which runs from Big Lake
Big Lake, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 6,063 people, 2,117 households, and 1,570 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,688.4 people per square mile . There were 2,206 housing units at an average density of 614.3 per square mile...
through the northern suburbs and terminates at the multi-modal transit station at Target Field, opened on November 16, 2009. It utilizes existing railroad tracks and will serve a projected 5,000 daily commuters.
Minneapolis' second light rail line, the Green Line
Central Corridor (Minnesota)
The Central Corridor is a light rail line under construction that is to cover the stretch between the downtown regions of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota...
, will share stations with the Blue Line in downtown Minneapolis, and then at the Downtown East/Metrodome station, travel east through the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, and then along University Avenue into downtown St. Paul
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
. Construction began in November 2010 and expected completion is in 2014. The third line, the Southwest Line, will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburb of Eden Prairie. Completion is expected in 2017.
Minneapolis ranks second in the nation for the highest percentage of commuters by bicycle, and was named the top bicycling city in the 2010 "Bicycling's Top 50" ranking. Ten thousand cyclists use the bike lanes in the city each day, and many ride in the winter. The Public Works Department expanded the bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
trail system from the Grand Rounds
Grand Rounds Scenic Byway
The Grand Rounds Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The corridors include roads for automobile traffic plus paths for pedestrians and bicycles, and extend slightly into neighboring cities...
to 56 miles (90 km) of off-street commuter trails including the Midtown Greenway
Midtown Greenway
The Midtown Greenway is a rail trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is considered under segregated cycle facilities.Used both recreationally and for commuting, the partially below-grade Greenway runs east-west about one block north of Lake Street...
, the Light Rail Trail, Kenilworth Trail, Cedar Lake Trail
Cedar Lake Trail
The Cedar Lake Regional Trail is America's first bicycle freeway. It is a rail trail that runs about from downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota west to Minnesota State Highway 100 in the neighboring suburb of St. Louis Park. The trail was inaugurated on February 17, 1995. At the trail's west end,...
and the West River Parkway Trail along the Mississippi. Minneapolis also has 34 miles (54 km) of dedicated bike lanes on city streets and encourages cycling by equipping transit buses with bike racks and by providing online bicycle maps. Many of these trails and bridges, such as the Stone Arch Bridge, were former railroad lines that have now been converted for bicycles and pedestrians. In 2007 citing the city's bicycle lanes, buses and LRT, Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
identified Minneapolis the world's fifth cleanest city. By 2010, Nice Ride Minnesota
Nice Ride Minnesota
Nice Ride Minnesota is a nonprofit bicycle sharing system in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota based on the Bixi system from Montreal. Launched on June 10th, 2010, it served over 10,000 trips in its first month....
launched with about 60 kiosks for bicycle sharing, and 19 pedicabs
Cycle rickshaw
The cycle rickshaw is a small-scale local means of transport; it is also known by a variety of other names such as velotaxi, pedicab, bikecab, cyclo, becak, trisikad, or trishaw or, simply, rickshaw which also refers to auto rickshaws, and the, now uncommon, rickshaws pulled by a person on foot...
were operating downtown.
A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Minneapolis the ninth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.
Seven miles (11 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyway
Skyway
In an urban setting, a skyway, catwalk, sky bridge, or skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two buildings. This protects pedestrians from the weather. These skyways are usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces...
s, the Minneapolis Skyway System
Minneapolis Skyway System
The Minneapolis Skyway System is an interlinked collection of enclosed pedestrian footbridges that connects various buildings in Downtown Minneapolis enabling people to walk in a climate-controlled environment...
, link eighty city blocks downtown. Second floor restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
s and retailers
Retailing
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
connected to these passageways are open on weekdays.
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is the largest and busiest airport in the five-state upper Midwest region of Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.-Overview:...
(MSP) sits on 3400 acres (1,375.9 ha) on the southeast border of the city between Minnesota State Highway 5
Minnesota State Highway 5
Minnesota State Highway 5 is a highway in Minnesota, which runs from its intersection with State Highways 19 and 22 in Gaylord and continues east and northeast to its eastern terminus at its interchange with State Highway 36 and Washington County Road 5 in Stillwater...
, Interstate 494
Interstate 494
Interstate 494 is a loop route making up part of a beltway of Interstate 94, circling through the southern and western portions of the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area in Minnesota...
, Minnesota State Highway 77
Minnesota State Highway 77
Minnesota State Highway 77 is a highway in Minnesota, which runs from its intersection with 138th Street in Apple Valley and continues north to its northern terminus at its interchange with State Highway 62 in Minneapolis. The route is in length...
, and Minnesota State Highway 62
Minnesota State Highway 62 (east)
Minnesota State Highway 62 is a highway in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota. The route was part of Hennepin County Road 62 until 1988, when a portion of the route was inherited by the state. The western terminus of the route is at Interstate Highway 494 in Eden Prairie, where the roadway...
. The airport serves three international, twelve domestic, seven charter and four regional carriers and is a hub and home base for Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a major airline based in the United States and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline operates an extensive domestic and international network serving all continents except Antarctica. Delta and its subsidiaries operate over 4,000 flights every day...
, Mesaba Airlines
Mesaba Airlines
Mesaba Airlines is an American regional airline based in Eagan, Minnesota. The airline operates under Mesaba Aviation, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Pinnacle Airlines Corporation...
, and Sun Country Airlines
Sun Country Airlines
MN Airlines, LLC, operating as Sun Country Airlines, is an American low-cost airline headquartered in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Mendota Heights, Minnesota...
.
Media
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...
, Finance and Commerce
Finance & Commerce
Finance and Commerce is the only daily newspaper devoted exclusively to business in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Founded in 1887, it provides extensive coverage of Twin Cities business news in the areas of real estate, construction, technology, banking, energy, health care and advertising...
, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the university's The Minnesota Daily
Minnesota Daily
The Minnesota Daily is the campus newspaper of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, published Monday-Thursday while school is in session, and published weekly on Wednesdays during summer sessions. Published since 1900, the paper is one of the largest student-run and student-written newspapers...
and MinnPost.com
MinnPost.com
MinnPost.com also known as MinnPost is a non-profit news website in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a focus on Minnesota news. Its mission is "to provide high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota."...
. Other publications are the City Pages
City Pages
City Pages is an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. It features news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews, and music criticism. It is printed in a tabloid format, and is available free every Wednesday...
weekly, the Mpls.St.Paul and Minnesota Monthly monthlies, and Utne magazine. In 2008 readers of online news also used The UpTake
The UpTake
The UpTake is a Minnesota-based citizen journalist organization. It was founded in July 2007 and has provided online news coverage on a low budget since.Because of its role as a provider of citizen journalism, The UpTake is a not-for-profit organization...
, Minnesota Independent
Minnesota Independent
The Minnesota Independent, formerly Minnesota Monitor, and sometimes known as MnIndy, is an independent online newsmagazine. It launched in August 2006, with a focus on coverage of political issues...
, Twin Cities Daily Planet
Twin Cities Daily Planet
The Twin Cities Daily Planet is an independent website specializing in news events in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area. It is a non-automated news aggregator, which edits and reprints news items submitted to it by online stringers or published by affiliated local and neighborhood blogs...
, Downtown Journal
Downtown Journal
Downtown Journal, founded during the 1970s as a print newspaper, is an online and print newspaper serving Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States...
, Cursor, MNSpeak and about fifteen other sites. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said in 1996, "Now there are T-shirts that read, 'Murderapolis,'" a name for the city that members of the local media have mistakenly attributed to the paper.
Minneapolis has a mix of radio stations and healthy listener support for public radio but in the commercial market, a single organization Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...
operates seven stations. Listeners support three Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio , is the flagship National Public Radio member network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, Classical Music and The Current, MPR operates a 42-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest serving over 8 million people...
non-profit stations, the Minneapolis Public Schools and the University of Minnesota each operate a station, the networks broadcast on affiliate stations, and religious organizations run two stations.
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
affiliate KSTP-TV
KSTP-TV
KSTP-TV, channel 5, is the ABC affiliate for the Twin Cities. Its transmitter is located at the Shoreview Telefarm. It is the flagship station of Hubbard Broadcasting, which also owns several other broadcasting properties across the United States....
. The first to broadcast in color was WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV, is the CBS owned and operated television station that serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota. Its transmitter is at the Telefarm complex in Shoreview, Minnesota.- History :...
, the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate which is located in downtown Minneapolis. The city and suburbs are also home to affiliates of FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
, The CW
The CW Television Network
The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
and one independent station. Twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh were from Minneapolis on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210 is an American drama series that originally aired from October 4, 1990 to May 17, 2000 on Fox and was produced by Spelling Television in the United States, and subsequently on various networks around the world. It is the first series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise...
. American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
held auditions for its sixth season in Minneapolis in 2006 and Last Comic Standing
Last Comic Standing
Last Comic Standing is an American reality television talent show that has aired from 2003 through 2010.The goal of the program is to select a comedian from a group, who will receive a development contract with the NBC network, and a television special first to air on the cable-TV network Comedy...
held auditions for its fifth season in Minneapolis in 2007.
A statue of Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...
downtown on the Nicollet Mall commemorates the legendary 1970s CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
television situation comedy fictionally based in Minneapolis, The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977...
. It marks the site where producers filmed the series' iconic opening sequence in which character Mary Richards, played by Moore, throws her hat up in the air. The show was awarded three Golden Globes
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
and thirty-one Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
s.
Religion and charity
Great Spirit
The Great Spirit, also called Wakan Tanka among the Sioux, the Creator or the Great Maker in English, and Gitchi Manitou in Algonquian, is a conception of a supreme being prevalent among some Native American and First Nations cultures...
and were surprised that not all European settlers were religious. Over fifty denominations and religions and some well known churches have since been established in Minneapolis. Those who arrived from New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
were for the most part Christian Protestants, Quakers, and Universalists. The oldest continuously used church in the city, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is a Roman Catholic parish church of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis located in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. It was built on the east bank of the Mississippi River in today's Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood; it is the oldest...
in the Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood was built in 1856 by Universalists and soon afterward was acquired by a French Catholic congregation. Formed in 1878 as Shaarai Tov, in 1902 the first Jewish congregation in Minneapolis built the synagogue in East Isles known since 1920 as Temple Israel
Temple Israel (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Temple Israel is a Reform Jewish synagogue in Minneapolis, Minnesota.The congregation was founded in 1878 as an Orthodox congregation known as Shaarai Tov....
. St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral was founded in 1887, opened a missionary school in 1897 and in 1905 created the first Russian Orthodox seminary in the U.S. The first basilica in the United States, the Roman Catholic Basilica of Saint Mary near Loring Park
Loring Park
Loring Park is the largest park in the Central Community of Minneapolis, Minnesota on the southwest corner of downtown Minneapolis. It also lends its name to the surrounding neighborhood.- Park :...
was named by Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
in 1926. In 1972, a relief agency resettled the first Shi'a Muslim family from Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
. By 2004, between 20,000 and 30,000 Somali
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
Muslims made the city their home.
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is an organization started by Billy Graham in 1950. The main focus of the BGEA is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible...
, Decision magazine, and World Wide Pictures
World Wide Pictures
World Wide Pictures is a film distributor and production company established as a subsidiary of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 1951...
film and television distribution were headquartered in Minneapolis for about forty of the years between the late 1940s into the 2000s. Minneapolis has had a chartered local body of Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
since 1994. Jim Bakker
Jim Bakker
James Orsen "Jim" Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host of The PTL Club, a popular evangelical Christian television program.A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry...
and Tammy Faye
Tammy Faye
Tamara Faye LaValley Bakker Messner was an American Christian singer, evangelist, entrepreneur, author, talk show host, and television personality. She was married to televangelist, and later convicted felon, Jim Bakker . She co-hosted with him on The PTL Club...
met while attending the Pentecostal North Central University
North Central University
North Central University is a coeducational, undergraduate, primarily residential college owned and operated by 11 Assemblies of God districts of the upper Midwest. It is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA...
and began a television ministry that by the 1980s reached 13.5 million households. Today, Mount Olivet Lutheran Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA officially came into existence on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three churches. As of December 31, 2009, it had 4,543,037 baptized members, with 2,527,941 of them...
in southwest Minneapolis has 6,000 active members and is the world's largest Lutheran congregation. Christ Church Lutheran
Christ Church Lutheran (Minneapolis)
Christ Church Lutheran is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located at 3244 34th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota...
in the Longfellow neighborhood is among the finest work by architect Eliel Saarinen
Eliel Saarinen
Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen was a Finnish architect who became famous for his art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century....
. The congregation later added an education building designed by his son Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...
.
Philanthropy and charitable giving are part of the community. More than 40% of adults in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area give time to volunteer work, the highest such percentage of any large metropolitan area in the United States. Catholic Charities
Catholic Charities
Catholic Charities is a network of charities whose aim is "to provide service to people in need, to advocate for justice in social structures, and to call the entire church and other people of good will to do the same." It is one of the largest charities in the United States...
is one of the largest providers of social services locally. The American Refugee Committee
American Refugee Committee
The American Refugee Committee is an international nonprofit, nonsectarian organization that has provided humanitarian assistance and training to millions of beneficiaries over the last 30 years....
helps one million refugees and displaced persons in ten countries in Africa, the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Asia each year. In 2011, Target Corp. was #42 in a list of the best 100 corporate citizens in CR magazine for corporate responsibility officers. The oldest foundation in Minnesota, the Minneapolis Foundation invests and administers over nine hundred charitable funds and connects donors to nonprofit organizations. The metropolitan area gives 13% of its total charitable donations to the arts and culture. The majority of the estimated $1 billion recent expansion of arts facilities was contributed privately.
Health and utilities
Minneapolis has seven hospitals, four ranked among America's best by U.S. News & World Report—Abbott Northwestern HospitalAbbott Northwestern Hospital
Abbott Northwestern Hospital is a 627 bed teaching and specialty hospital based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the largest not-for-profit hospital in the Twin Cities and a part of the Allina network of hospitals and clinics...
(part of Allina
Allina Hospitals & Clinics
Allina Hospitals & Clinics is network of health care providers based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Allina owns or operates 11 hospitals and more than 85 clinics throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin...
), Children's Hospitals and Clinics
Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is one of the largest children’s health care organization in the U.S.A, with 326 staffed beds at its two hospital campuses in St. Paul and Minneapolis...
, Hennepin County Medical Center
Hennepin County Medical Center
Hennepin County Medical Center is a Level I trauma center based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the county seat of Hennepin County. The primary 422-bed facility is located on five city blocks across the street from the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, with satellite clinics in Minneapolis, Brooklyn...
(HCMC) and the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview
University of Minnesota Medical Center
The University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview is the main university hospital for the University of Minnesota Medical School. There are two campuses: one located on the East Bank of the Mississippi River, known as the University Campus, and the other located on the West Bank, known as the...
. Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Shriners Hospitals for Children
Shriners Hospitals for Children
Shriners Hospitals for Children is a network of 22 non-profit hospitals across North America. Children with orthopaedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate are eligible for care and receive all services in a family-centered environment, regardless of the patients’...
and Allina's Phillips Eye Institute
Phillips Eye Institute
Phillips Eye Institute consists of two specialty eye hospitals in the Minnesota, United States. Phillips Eye Institute’s location, in Minneapolis, Minnesota opened in 1987. Phillip’s newest location, in Buffalo, Minnesota opened in 2008. Phillips Eye Institute specializes in the diagnosis,...
also serve the city. The Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a not-for-profit medical practice and medical research group specializing in treating difficult patients . Patients are referred to Mayo Clinic from across the U.S. and the world, and it is known for innovative and effective treatments. Mayo Clinic is known for being at the top of...
in Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...
is a 75-minute drive away.
Cardiac surgery
Cardiac surgery
Cardiovascular surgery is surgery on the heart or great vessels performed by cardiac surgeons. Frequently, it is done to treat complications of ischemic heart disease , correct congenital heart disease, or treat valvular heart disease from various causes including endocarditis, rheumatic heart...
was developed at the university's Variety Club Hospital, where by 1957, more than two hundred patients had survived open-heart operations, many of them children. Working with surgeon C. Walton Lillehei
C. Walton Lillehei
Clarence Walton Lillehei , was an American surgeon who pioneered open-heart surgery, as well as numerous techniques, equipment and prostheses for cardiothoracic surgery.-Background:...
, Medtronic
Medtronic
Medtronic, Inc. , based in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the world's largest medical technology company and is a Fortune 500 company.- History :...
began to build portable and implantable cardiac pacemaker
Cardiac pacemaker
right|thumb|350px|Image showing the cardiac pacemaker which is the SA nodeThe contraction of heart muscle in all animals with hearts is initiated by chemical impulses. The rate at which these impulses fire controls the heart rate...
s about this time.
HCMC opened in 1887 as City Hospital and was also known as General Hospital. A public teaching hospital and Level I trauma center, the HCMC safety net
Safety net
A safety net is in most cases a net to protect people from injury after falling by limiting the distance they fall. It may also be a device to arrest falling or flying objects for the safety of people beyond the net....
sees 325,000 clinic visits and 100,000 emergency room visits each year and in 2008 provided about 18% of the uncompensated care given in Minnesota.
Funded in part by assessments on commercial properties, beginning in 2009, Ambassadors of the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (DID) work on 120 blocks of downtown to improve its cleanliness, friendliness and acceptability of behavior. They are employees of Block by Block
SMS Holdings Corporation
SMS Holdings Corporation is a holding company for several companies which provide services to multiple industries including healthcare, hospitality, retail, sports & leisure, transportation and aviation...
, a company in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
that serves 33 U.S. cities.
Utility providers are regulated
Regulation
Regulation is administrative legislation that constitutes or constrains rights and allocates responsibilities. It can be distinguished from primary legislation on the one hand and judge-made law on the other...
monopolies
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
: Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy, Inc. is a public utility company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving customers in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. Primary services are electricity and natural gas...
supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy
CenterPoint Energy
CenterPoint Energy is a Fortune 500 electric and natural gas utility serving several markets in the U.S. states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas. It was formerly known as Reliant Energy , NorAm Energy, Houston Industries, and HL&P...
supplies gas, Qwest
Qwest
Qwest Communications International, Inc. was a large United States telecommunications carrier. Qwest provided local service in 14 western U.S. states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.On April...
is the landline telephone provider, and Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
is the cable service. In 2007 citywide wireless internet coverage
Minneapolis wireless internet network
The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota is covered by a citywide broadband wireless internet network, sometimes called Wireless Minneapolis. The network was first proposed in 2003, at which point only a few other cities nationwide had such systems in place...
began, provided for 10 years by US Internet of Minnetonka to residents for about $20 per month and to businesses for $30, which earns $1.2 million annual profit and as of 2010 has about 20,000 customers. The city treats and distributes water and requires payment of a monthly solid waste fee for trash removal, recycling, and drop off for large items. Residents who recycle receive a credit. Hazardous waste is handled by Hennepin County drop off sites. After each significant snowfall, called a snow emergency
Snow emergency
A Snow Emergency is the term used to indicate the active response plan when a snow storm severely impacts a city, county or town in the United States or Canada. Schools, universities, government offices, airports and public buildings may close during a Snow Emergency. The precise meaning of "snow...
, the Minneapolis Public Works Street Division plows over one thousand miles (1609 km) of streets and four hundred miles (643.7 km) of alleys—counting both sides, the distance between Minneapolis and Seattle and back. Ordinances govern parking on the plowing routes during these emergencies as well as snow shoveling throughout the city.
Sister cities
As shown below Minneapolis has 10 sister citiesTown twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
:
Najaf
Najaf
Najaf is a city in Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad. Its estimated population in 2008 is 560,000 people. It is the capital of Najaf Governorate...
(Iraq) since 2009 Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca
Cuernavaca is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. It was established at the archeological site of Gualupita I by the Olmec, "the mother culture" of Mesoamerica, approximately 3200 years ago...
(Mexico) since 2008 Uppsala
Uppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
(Sweden) since 2000 Eldoret
Eldoret
Eldoret is a town in western Kenya and the administrative centre of Uasin Gishu District of Rift Valley Province. Lying south of the Cherangani Hills, the local elevation varies from about 2100 metres above sea level at the airport to more than 2700 metres in nearby areas...
(Kenya) since 2000 Harbin
Harbin
Harbin ; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian: Харби́н Kharbin ), is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China, lying on the southern bank of the Songhua River...
(PR China) since 1992 Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
(France) since 1991 Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...
(Russia) since 1988 Ibaraki
Ibaraki, Osaka
is a city located in Osaka, Japan. It is a suburban city of Osaka city and a part of Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area. Literally Ibaraki in English means Wild Trees or Thorny trees....
(Japan) since 1980 Kuopio (Finland) since 1972 Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
(Chile) since 1961
And informal connections with
Japan HiroshimaHiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
, Japan
Minneapolis once was sister cities with
Canada WinnipegWinnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, Canada.
See also
- Minneapolis – Saint Paul
- Northeast Minneapolis
- List of events and attractions in Minneapolis
- List of Minneapolitans
- List of tallest buildings in Minneapolis
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Hennepin County, Minnesota
External links
Visitors