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Minneapolis () is the largest city in
Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...
, United States, and the
county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US ...
of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins in timber and as the
flour milling A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated ...
capital of the world. It occupies both banks of the Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota. Prior to European settlement, the site of Minneapolis was inhabited by Dakota people. The settlement was founded along Saint Anthony Falls on a section of land north of Fort Snelling; its growth is attributed to its proximity to the fort and the falls providing power for industrial activity. , the city has an estimated 425,336 inhabitants. It is the most populous city in the state and the 46th-most-populous city in the United States. Minneapolis, Saint Paul and the surrounding area are collectively known as the Twin Cities. Minneapolis has one of the most extensive public park systems in the US; many of these parks are connected by the
Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway The Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board developed the system over many years. ...
. Biking and walking trails, some of which follow abandoned railroad lines, run through many parts of the city; such as the Mill District in the
Saint Anthony Falls Historic District Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony ( dak, italics=no, Owámniyomni, ) located at the northeastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the only natural major waterfall on the Mississippi River. Throughout the mid-to-la ...
, around the banks of Lake of the Isles, Bde Maka Ska, and Lake Harriet, and by Minnehaha Falls. Minneapolis has cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. Minneapolis is the birthplace of General Mills, Pillsbury Company, and the Target Corporation. The city's cultural offerings include the Guthrie Theater, the First Avenue nightclub, and four professional sports teams. Most of the University of Minnesota's main campus, and several other post-secondary educational institutions are in Minneapolis. Part of the city is served by a light rail system. Minneapolis has a mayor-council government system. The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) has held a majority of council seats there for 50 years and Jacob Frey (DFL) has been mayor since 2018. In May 2020, Derek Chauvin, a White officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, murdered George Floyd, a Black man, and the resulting global protests put Minneapolis and racism at the center of national and international attention.


History


Dakota natives, city founded

Prior to European settlement, the
Dakota Sioux The Dakota (pronounced , Dakota language: ''Dakȟóta/Dakhóta'') are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into ...
were the sole occupants of the site of modern-day Minneapolis. In the
Dakota language Dakota (''Dakhótiyapi, Dakȟótiyapi''), also referred to as Dakhota, is a Siouan language spoken by the Dakota people of the Sioux tribes. Dakota is closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Lakota language. It is critically endang ...
, the city's name is ''Bde Óta Othúŋwe'' ('Many Lakes Town'). The French explored the region in 1680. Gradually, more European-American settlers arrived, competing with the Dakota for game and other natural resources. Following the Revolutionary War, the 1783 Treaty of Paris gave British-claimed territory east of the Mississippi River to the United States. In 1803, the U.S. acquired land to the west of the Mississippi from France in the Louisiana Purchase. In 1819, US Army built Fort Snelling at the southern edge of present-day Minneapolis to direct Native American trade away from British-Canadian traders, and to deter warring between the Dakota and Ojibwe in northern Minnesota. The fort attracted traders, settlers and merchants, spurring growth in the surrounding region. At the fort, agents of the St. Peters Indian Agency enforced the US policy of assimilating Native Americans into European-American society, encouraging them to give up subsistence hunting and to cultivate the land. Missionaries encouraged Native Americans to convert from their own religion to Christianity. The U.S. government pressed the Dakota to sell their land, which they ceded in a series of treaties that were negotiated by corrupt officials. In the decades following the signings of these treaties, their terms were rarely honored. During the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, officials plundered annuities promised to Native Americans, leading to famine among the Dakota. In 1862, a faction of the Dakota who were facing starvation declared war and killed settlers. The Dakota were interned and exiled from Minnesota. While the Dakota were being expelled, Franklin Steele laid claim to the east bank of Saint Anthony Falls, and John H. Stevens built a home on the west bank. Residents had divergent ideas on names for their community. In 1852, Charles Hoag proposed combining the Dakota word for 'water' (''mni'') with the Greek word for 'city' (), yielding ''Minneapolis''. In 1851 after a meeting of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature, leaders of St. Anthony lost their bid to move the capital from Saint Paul. In a close vote, St. Paul and Stillwater agreed to divide federal funding between them: St. Paul would be the capital, while Stillwater would build the prison. The St. Anthony contingent eventually won the state university. Courtesy ''Star Tribune'' and the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, in In 1856, the territorial legislature authorized Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank. Minneapolis was incorporated as a city in 1867 and in 1872, it merged with the city of St. Anthony on the river's east bank. and and , and and


Waterpower; lumber and flour milling

Minneapolis developed around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi River, which was used as a source of energy. A lumber industry was built around forests in northern Minnesota, and 17 sawmills operated from energy provided by the waterfall. By 1871, the river's west bank had 23 businesses, including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes and wood-planing. Due to the occupational hazards of milling, by the 1890s, six companies manufactured artificial limbs. Grain grown in the Great Plains was shipped by rail to the city's 34
flour mills A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated ...
. A 1989 Minnesota Archaeological Society analysis of the Minneapolis riverfront describes the use of water power in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen". Minneapolis was the nation's leading flour producer for nearly 50 years, and got the nickname "Mill City." Cadwallader C. Washburn, a founder of modern milling and of what became General Mills, converted his business from gristmills to "gradual reduction" by steel-and-porcelain roller mills that were capable of quickly producing premium-quality, pure, white flour. William Dixon Gray developed some ideas and
William de la Barre William de la Barre (April 15, 1849 in Vienna – March 24, 1936 in Minneapolis) was an Austrian-born civil engineer who developed a new process for milling wheat into flour, using energy-saving steel rollers at the Washburn-Crosby Mills (now kn ...
acquired others through industrial espionage in
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
. Charles Alfred Pillsbury and the C.A. Pillsbury Company across the river hired Washburn employees and immediately began using the new methods. An 1867 court case allowed digging the Eastman tunnel under the river at
Nicollet Island Nicollet Island is an island in the Mississippi River just north of Saint Anthony Falls in central Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to the United States Census Bureau the island has a land area of and a 2000 census population of 144 persons. T ...
. In 1869, a leak soon sucked the tailrace into a -wide chasm. Community-led repairs failed and in 1870, several buildings and mills fell into the river. For years, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...
struggled to close the gap with timber until their concrete dike held in 1876. The hard, red, spring wheat grown in Minnesota became valuable ($0.50 profit per barrel in 1871 increased to $4.50 in 1874), and Minnesota "patent" flour was recognized as the best in the world. Later consumers discovered value in the bran that " ... Minneapolis flour millers routinely dumped" into the Mississippi. A single mill at Washburn-Crosby could make enough flour for 12 million loaves of bread each day and by 1900, 14 percent of America's grain was milled in Minneapolis. By 1895, through the efforts of silent partner
William Hood Dunwoody William Hood Dunwoody (March 14, 1841 – February 8, 1914) was an American banker, miller, art patron and philanthropist. He was a partner in what is today General Mills and for thirty years a leader of Northwestern National Bank, today's Wells F ...
, Washburn-Crosby exported four million barrels of flour a year to the United Kingdom. When exports reached their peak in 1900, about one third of all flour milled in Minneapolis was shipped overseas.


Social tensions

In 1886, when
Martha Ripley Martha George Rogers Ripley (November 30, 1843 – April 18, 1912) was an American physician, suffragist, and professor of medicine. Founder of the Maternity Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ripley was one of the most outspoken activists for d ...
founded Maternity Hospital for both married and unmarried mothers, Minneapolis made changes to rectify discrimination against unmarried women. Known initially as a kindly physician, mayor Doc Ames made his brother police chief, ran the city into corruption, and tried to leave town in 1902. Lincoln Steffens published Ames's story in "The Shame of Minneapolis" in 1903. Minneapolis has a long history of structural racism and has large racial disparities in housing, income, health care, and education. Some historians and commentators have said White Minneapolitans used discrimination based on race against the city's non-White residents. As White settlers displaced the indigenous population during the 19th century, they claimed the city's land, and Kirsten Delegard of Mapping Prejudice explains that today's disparities evolved from control of the land. In 1910, Minneapolis "was not a particularly segregated place". Discrimination increased when flour milling moved to the east coast and the economy declined. During the early 20th century, bigotry presented in several ways. In 1910, a Minneapolis developer wrote restrictive covenants based on race and ethnicity into his deeds. Other developers copied the practice, preventing Asian and African Americans from owning or leasing certain properties. Though such language was prohibited by state law in 1953 and by the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, restrictive covenants against minorities remained in many Minneapolis deeds as recently as 2021, when the city gave residents a means to remove them. The Ku Klux Klan entered family life but was only effectively a force in the city from 1921 until 1923. and The gangster
Kid Cann Isadore Blumenfeld (September 8, 1900 – June 21, 1981), commonly known as Kid Cann, was a Romanian Jewish-American organized crime enforcer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over four decades. He remains the most notorious mobster in the ...
engaged in bribery and intimidation between the 1920s and the 1940s. After Minnesota passed a eugenics law in 1925, the proprietors of Eitel Hospital sterilized about 1,000 people at Faribault State Hospital. From the end of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
in 1918 until 1950, antisemitism was commonplace in Minneapolis— Carey McWilliams called the city the anti-Semitic capital of the United States. A hate group called the Silver Legion of America held meetings in the city from 1936 to 1938. In 1948, Mount Sinai Hospital opened as the city's first hospital to employ members of minority races and religions. During the financial downturn of the Great Depression, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934 led to laws acknowledging workers' rights. Mayor Hubert Humphrey helped the city establish fair employment practices and by 1946, a human-relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities was established. In 1966 and 1967, years of significant turmoil across the US, suppressed anger among the Black population was released in two disturbances on Plymouth Avenue. A coalition reached a peaceful outcome but failed to solve Black poverty and unemployment;
Charles Stenvig Charles A. Stenvig (January 16, 1928 – February 22, 2010) served as mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota for two two-year terms from 1969 to 1973 and a third term from 1976 to 1978. He was a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department bef ...
, a law-and-order candidate, became mayor. Minneapolis engaged with the civil rights movement ; in 1968, the American Indian Movement was founded in Minneapolis. Between 1958 and 1963, as part of urban renewal in America, Minneapolis demolished roughly 40 percent of downtown, including the Gateway District and its significant architecture, such as the Metropolitan Building. Efforts to save the building failed but encouraged interest in historic preservation. On May 25, 2020, a citizen recorded the murder of George Floyd, an African-American man who suffocated when Derek Chauvin, a White Minneapolis police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for more than nine minutes. The incident sparked national unrest, riots and mass protests. Local protests and riots resulted in extraordinary levels of property damage in Minneapolis; the destruction including a police station that demonstrators overran and set on fire. The Twin Cities experienced prolonged unrest over racial injustice from 2020 to 2022.


Geography

The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are linked to water, the city's defining physical characteristic. Long periods of glaciation and interglacial melt carved several riverbeds through what is now Minneapolis. During the last glacial period, around 10,000 years ago, ice buried in these ancient river channels melted, resulting in basins that filled with water to become the lakes of Minneapolis. Meltwater from
Lake Agassiz Lake Agassiz was a large glacial lake in central North America. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined. First postulated in 1823 by William H. Keating, i ...
fed the glacial River Warren, which created a large waterfall that eroded upriver past the confluence of the Mississippi River, where it left a drop in the Mississippi. This site is located in what is now downtown Saint Paul. The new waterfall, later called Saint Anthony Falls, in turn eroded up the Mississippi about to its present location, carving the Mississippi River gorge as it moved upstream. Minnehaha Falls also developed during this period via similar processes. Minneapolis is sited above an artesian aquifer and on flat terrain. Minneapolis has a total area of , six percent of which is covered by water. Water supply is managed by four
watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
districts that correspond with the Mississippi and the city's three creeks. The city has thirteen lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands. A 1959 report by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service listed Minneapolis's elevation above
mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ...
as . The city's lowest elevation of above sea level is near the confluence of Minnehaha Creek with the Mississippi River. Sources disagree on the exact location and elevation of the city's highest point, which is cited as being between above sea level.


Neighborhoods

Minneapolis is divided into eleven communities, each containing several neighborhoods, of which there are 83. In some cases, two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization. Some areas are known by nicknames of business associations. In 2018, Minneapolis City Council voted to approve the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which resulted in a city-wide end to single-family zoning. Minneapolis was the first major city in the United States to make this change. At the time, 70 percent of residential land was zoned for detached, single-family homes, however many of those areas had "nonconforming" buildings with more housing units. City leaders sought to increase the supply of housing so more neighborhoods would be affordable and to decrease the effects single-family zoning had caused on racial disparities and segregation. The Brookings Institution called it "a relatively rare example of success for the YIMBY agenda". A Hennepin County District Court judge blocked the city from enforcing the plan because it lacked an overall environmental review. Arguing it will evaluate projects on an individual basis, as of July 2022, the city is allowed to use the plan while an appeal is pending.


Climate

Minneapolis experiences a hot-summer humid continental climate (''Dfa'' in the
Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...
), that is typical of southern parts of the Upper Midwest, and is situated in USDA
plant hardiness Hardiness of plants describes their ability to survive adverse growing conditions. It is usually limited to discussions of climatic adversity. Thus a plant's ability to tolerate cold, heat, drought, flooding, or wind are typically considered measu ...
zone 4b; small enclaves of Minneapolis are classified as zone 5a. Minneapolis has cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers, as is typical in a continental climate. The difference between average temperatures in the coldest winter month and the warmest summer month is . According to the NOAA, the annual average for
sunshine duration Sunshine duration or sunshine hours is a climatological indicator, measuring duration of sunshine in given period (usually, a day or a year) for a given location on Earth, typically expressed as an averaged value over several years. It is a gen ...
is 58%. Minneapolis experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The highest recorded temperature is in July 1936 while the lowest is in January 1888. The snowiest winter on record was 1983–84, when of snow fell: the least-snowiest winter was 1890–91, when fell.


Demographics

Dakota tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton, permanently occupied the present-day site of Minneapolis near their sacred site, St. Anthony Falls. During the 1850s and 1860s, European and Euro-American settlers from New England, New York, Bohemia and Canada, and, during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark moved to the Minneapolis area, as did migrant workers from Mexico and Latin America. Other migrants came from Germany, Poland, Italy, and Greece. Central European migrants settled in the Northeast neighborhood, which is still known for its Czech and Polish cultural heritage. Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia began arriving in the 1880s, and settled primarily on the north side before moving to western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s. For a short period of the 1940s, Japanese and Japanese Americans resided in Minneapolis due to US-government relocations, as did Native Americans during the 1950s. In 2013, Asians were the state's fastest-growing population. Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Hmong, Lao, Cambodians and Vietnamese arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, and people from Tibet, Burma and Thailand came in the 1990s and 2000s. The population of people from India doubled by 2010. After the Rust Belt economy declined during the early 1980s, Minnesota's Black population, a large fraction of whom arrived from cities such as Chicago and Gary, Indiana, nearly tripled in less than twenty years. Black migrants were drawn to Minneapolis and the Greater Twin Cities by its abundance of jobs, good schools, and relatively safe neighborhoods. Beginning in the 1990s, a sizable Latin American population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia; however, immigration of 1,400 Somalis in 2016 slowed to 48 in 2018 under President Trump. As of 2019, more than 20,000 Somalis live in Minneapolis. In 2015, the Brookings Institution characterized Minneapolis as a re-emerging immigrant gateway where about 10 percent of residents were born outside the US. As of 2019, African Americans make up about one fifth of the city's population. The population of Minneapolis grew until 1950, when the census peaked at 521,718—the only time it has exceeded a half million. The population then declined for decades; after World War II, people moved to the suburbs, and generally out of the Midwest. In 2015,
Gallup Gallup may refer to: * Gallup, Inc., a firm founded by George Gallup, well known for its opinion poll * Gallup (surname), a surname *Gallup, New Mexico, a city in New Mexico, United States ** Gallup station, an Amtrak train in downtown Gallup, New ...
reported the Twin Cities had an estimated
LGBT+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...
adult population of 3.6%, roughly the same as the national average, and had the 38th-highest number of LGBT+ residents of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the US. Human Rights Campaign gave Minneapolis its highest-possible score in 2019. A Black family in Minneapolis earns less than half as much per year as a White family. Black people own their homes at one-third the rate of White families. Specifically, the median income for a Black family was $36,000 in 2018, about $47,000 less than for a white family. Black Minneapolitans thus earn about 44 percent per year compared to White Minneapolitans, one of the country's largest income gaps. A 2020 study found little change in economic racial inequality, with Minnesota ranking above only the neighboring state Wisconsin, and equal to the states of Iowa, Louisiana, and New Mexico.


Religion

The indigenous Dakota people, the original inhabitants of the Minneapolis area, believed in the Great Spirit. More than 50 denominations and religions are present in Minneapolis; a majority of the city's population are Christian. Settlers who arrived from New England were for the most part
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
s, Quakers, and Universalists. The oldest continuously used church, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, was built in 1856 by Universalists and soon afterward was acquired by a French Catholic congregation. The first Jewish congregation was formed in 1878 as Shaarai Tov, and built Temple Israel in 1928. St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral was founded in 1887; it opened a missionary school and created the first Russian Orthodox seminary in the US. Edwin Hawley Hewitt designed St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral and Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church, both of which are located south of downtown. The Basilica of Saint Mary, the first basilica in the US and co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, was named by Pope Pius XI in 1926. By 1959, Temple of Islam was located in north Minneapolis, and the Islamic Center of Minnesota was established in 1965. The city's first mosque was built in 1967. Somalis who live in Minneapolis are primarily Sunni Muslim. In 1971, a reported 150 persons attended classes at a Hindu temple near the university. In 1972, a relief agency resettled the first
Shi'a Muslim Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mo ...
family from Uganda in the Twin Cities. The city has about 20 Buddhist centers and meditation centers. Minneapolis has a body of Ordo Templi Orientis. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was headquartered in Minneapolis from the late 1940s until the early 2000s. Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye met while attending Pentecostal North Central University, and began a television ministry that by the 1980s reached 13.5 million households. As of 2012, Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in southwest Minneapolis was the nation's second-largest Lutheran congregation, with about 6,000 attendees. Christ Church Lutheran in the
Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...
neighborhood, the final work in the career of Eliel Saarinen, has an education building designed by his son
Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...
.


Economy

As of 2020, the Minneapolis–St. Paul area is the second-largest economic center in the
American Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
behind
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
. Early the city's history, millers were required to pay for wheat with cash during the growing season, and then to store the wheat until it was needed for flour. This required large amounts of capital, which stimulated the local banking industry and made Minneapolis a major financial center. As of mid-2022, Minneapolis area employment is primarily in trade, transportation, utilities, education, health services, professional and business services. Smaller numbers are employed in manufacturing, leisure and hospitality; mining, logging, and construction. The Twin Cities metropolitan area has the seventh-highest concentration of major corporate headquarters in the US as of 2021, and in 2020, four Fortune 500 corporations were headquartered within the city limits of Minneapolis. American companies with US offices in Minneapolis include Accenture, Bellisio Foods, Canadian Pacific,
Coloplast Coloplast A/S is a Danish multinational company that develops, manufactures and markets medical devices and services related to ostomy, urology, continence, and wound care. History Coloplast was founded in 1957 by Aage Louis-Hansen. His son Ni ...
, RBC and Voya Financial. The National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology & Education has Minneapolis headquarters. As of 2020, the Minneapolis metropolitan area contributes $273 billion or 74% to the gross state product of Minnesota. Measured by gross metropolitan product per resident (62,054), as of 2015, Minneapolis is the fifteenth richest city in the US. In 2011, the area's $199.6 billion gross metropolitan product and its per capita personal income ranked 13th in the US. The
Minneapolis Grain Exchange The Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX) is a commodities and futures exchange of grain products. It was formed in 1881 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States as a regional cash marketplace to promote fair trade and to prevent trade abuses in ...
, which was founded in 1881, is located near the riverfront and is the only exchange for hard, red, spring wheat futures and
options Option or Options may refer to: Computing *Option key, a key on Apple computer keyboards *Option type, a polymorphic data type in programming languages *Command-line option, an optional parameter to a command *OPTIONS, an HTTP request method ...
. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis serves Minnesota, Montana, North and
South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large po ...
, and parts of Wisconsin and
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...
; it has the smallest population of the 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System. Along with supporting consumers and the community, the bank executes monetary policy, regulates banks in its territory, and provides cash and oversees electronic deposits.


Arts and culture


Visual arts

Walker Art Center is located at the summit of
Lowry Hill Lowry Hill is a neighborhood within the Calhoun-Isles community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The neighborhood is regarded as being one of the city’s most upscale and wealthy neighborhoods. It was historically the home of Minneapolis’s most pr ...
near downtown. The center's size doubled in 2005 with an addition by Herzog & de Meuron, and expanded with a park that was designed by Michel Desvigne and is located across the street from the
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is an 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. It reopened June 10, 2017 a ...
. Minneapolis Institute of Art, which is known as since its 100th anniversary and is located in south-central Minneapolis, was designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1915; is the largest art museum in the city and has 100,000 pieces in its permanent collection. New wings, which were designed by Kenzo Tange and Michael Graves, opened in 1974 and 2006, respectively; the new wings house contemporary and modern works, and provide additional gallery space. Frank Gehry designed Weisman Art Museum, which opened in 1993, for the University of Minnesota. A 2011 addition by Gehry doubled the size of the galleries.
The Museum of Russian Art The Museum of Russian Art (TMORA), a nonprofit museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, is the only major institution in North America devoted entirely to Russian art and culture from the entire scope of Russia's history. The Museum was f ...
opened in a restored church in 2005, and hosts a collection of 20th-century Russian art and special events. Northeast Minneapolis Arts District hosts 400 independent artists, a center at the Northrup-King Building, and recurring annual events.


Theater and performing arts

Minneapolis has hosted theatrical performances since the end of the American Civil War. Early theaters included Pence Opera House, the Academy of Music, Grand Opera House, Lyceum, and later Metropolitan Opera House, which opened in 1894. , Minneapolis has numerous theater companies. Guthrie Theater, the area's largest theater company, occupies a three-stage complex that was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and overlooks the Mississippi River. The company was founded in 1963 by Sir Tyrone Guthrie as a prototype alternative to Broadway, and it produces a wide variety of shows throughout the year. Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres, vaudeville and film houses on
Hennepin Avenue Hennepin Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs from Lakewood Cemetery (at West 36th Street), north through the Uptown District of Southwest Minneapolis, through the Virginia Triangle, the former "Bottleneck" ...
that are now used for concerts and plays. Another renovated theater, the Shubert, joined with the Hennepin Center for the Arts to become the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, which houses more than 12 performing arts groups.


Music

Minnesota Orchestra plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall under
Thomas Søndergård Thomas Søndergård (born 4 October 1969 in Holstebro, Denmark) is a Danish conductor and percussionist. Biography EUYO Søndergård studied percussion at the Royal Danish Academy of Music from 1989 to 1992, where his teachers included Gert Mort ...
, the music director effective with the 2023–2024 season; '' The New Yorker'' critic Alex Ross said of one 2010 special performance at Carnegie Hall, "...  the Minnesota Orchestra sounded, to my ears, like the greatest orchestra in the world". The orchestra recorded '' Casa Guidi'', winning a Grammy Award in 2004 for composer
Dominick Argento Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas ''Postcard from Morocco'', '' Miss Havisham's Fire'', ''The Masque of An ...
. Singer and multi-instrumentalist
Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. ...
was born in Minneapolis, and lived in the area most of his life. After Jimmy Jam and the 11-piece Mind & Matter broke through discrimination and racial barriers, Prince reached a global, multiracial audience with his combination of rock and funk. Prince, an authentic musical prodigy who was enriched by a music program at The Way Community Center, learned to operate a
Polymoog The Polymoog is a hybrid polyphonic analog synthesizer that was manufactured by Moog Music from 1975 to 1980. The Polymoog was based on divide-down oscillator technology similar to electronic organs and string synthesizers of the time. Histo ...
synthesizer at
Sound 80 Sound 80 is a recording studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States founded by engineer Tom Jung and composer/musician Herb Pilhofer in 1969. Largely involved with local artists, the studio is best known for recording portions of Bob Dylan's ...
for his first album that became an element of the Minneapolis sound. With fellow local musicians, many of whom recorded at Twin/Tone Records, Prince helped change First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry into prominent venues for artists and audiences. The city hosts a number of other concert venues, including Icehouse, the Cedar, the Dakota and the Cabooze. Live Nation books The Armory, the Fillmore and the Varsity Theater. Hüsker Dü and The Replacements were pivotal in the US alternative rock boom during the 1980s. Their respective
frontmen The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
Bob Mould and Paul Westerberg developed successful solo careers. MN Spoken Word Association and independent hip hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment have garnered attention for their rap, hip hop, and
spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics o ...
performances and recordings. Underground Minnesota hip hop acts such as Atmosphere and Manny Phesto prominently feature the city and Minnesota in their song lyrics. Minneapolis Electronic dance music artists include Woody McBride, Freddy Fresh, and
DVS1 Zak Khutoretsky, also known as DVS1 is an American DJ and techno producer based out of Minneapolis. He has toured extensively, headlined international music festivals such as Decibel and Dekmantel, and played along the likes of techno pioneers ...
. Tom Waits released two songs about the city; "
Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" is a song written and performed by Tom Waits, released on his 1978 album '' Blue Valentine''.
" ('' Blue Valentine,'' 1978) and "9th & Hennepin" ('' Rain Dogs,'' 1985). Lucinda Williams recorded "Minneapolis" (''
World Without Tears ''World Without Tears'' is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released on April 8, 2003, by Lost Highway Records. The album debuted at No. 18 on the ''Billboard'' 200, selling 54,000 copies in its first week. ...
,'' 2003). Minneapolis grunge band Babes in Toyland recorded ''
Minneapolism Babes in Toyland was an American punk rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1987. The band was formed by Oregon native Kat Bjelland (lead vocals and guitar), with Lori Barbero ( drums) and Michelle Leon (bass), who was later replaced by ...
'' (2001). In 2008, the century-old
MacPhail Center for Music The MacPhail Center for Music is one of the nation's oldest and largest community-based music education centers. Located in the Mills District of Downtown East, Minneapolis, Minnesota, the school has over 16,000 students, providing instruction ...
opened a new facility that was designed by James Dayton. In 2012, the anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs measured −13decibels, and the company has applied to Guinness World Records with a −24.9decibel measurement as of 2022. Minneapolis's opera companies are Minnesota Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, the Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, and Really Spicy Opera.


Museums

Exhibits at
Mill City Museum Mill City Museum is a Minnesota Historical Society museum in Minneapolis. It opened in 2003 built in the ruins of the Washburn "A" Mill next to Mill Ruins Park on the banks of the Mississippi River. The museum focuses on the founding and grow ...
feature the city's history of flour milling, and Minnehaha Depot was built in 1875. The
American Swedish Institute The American Swedish Institute (ASI) is a museum and cultural center in the Phillips West neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The organization is dedicated to the preservation and study of the historic role Sweden and Swedish A ...
occupies a former mansion on Park Avenue. The American Indian Cultural Corridor, about eight blocks on Franklin Avenue, houses All My Relatives Gallery. On Penn Avenue North is the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery which was founded in 2018. In a former mansion one block from Mia is
Hennepin History Museum Hennepin History Museum is a museum dedicated to the history, people, and communities of Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. The museum provides in-house exhibits, history-themed programming, and social events throughout the year. Locatio ...
. On East Lake Street is the world's only Somali history museum, the tiny Somali Museum of Minnesota. The Bakken, which was formerly known as Museum of Electricity in Life, shifted focus in 2016 from electricity and magnetism to invention and innovation, and in 2020 opened a new entrance on Bde Maka Ska.


Charity

Philanthropy and charitable giving have been part of the Minneapolis community since the 1800s. , Alight helps 2.5 million refugees and displaced persons each year in developing countries in Africa and Asia.
Catholic Charities The Catholic Church operates numerous charitable organizations. Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel, while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and s ...
of Minneapolis and Saint Paul is one of the largest non-profit organizations in the state, and a provider of several social services. The Minneapolis Foundation invests and administers over 1,000 charitable funds. According to AmeriCorps, in 2017, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, with 46.3% of the population volunteering, had the highest proportion of volunteers among US cities.


Literary arts

The nonprofit literary presses
Coffee House Press Coffee House Press is a nonprofit independent press based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The press’s goal is to "produce books that celebrate imagination, innovation in the craft of writing, and the many authentic voices of the American experience ...
,
Milkweed Editions Milkweed Editions is an independent nonprofit literary publisher that originated from the ''Milkweed Chronicle'' literary and arts journal established in Minneapolis in 1979. The journal ceased and the business transitioned to publishing. It relea ...
, and Graywolf Press are based in Minneapolis. The University of Minnesota Press publishes books, journals, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Open Book,
Minnesota Center for Book Arts Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) is the largest and most comprehensive independent nonprofit book arts center in the United States. Located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, MCBA is a nationally recognized leader in the celebration and preservation o ...
, and The Loft Literary Center are located in Minneapolis.


Cuisine

West Broadway Avenue was a cultural center during the early 20th century but by the 1950s, flight to the suburbs began and streetcar service ended citywide. One of the largest urban food deserts in the US was on the north side of Minneapolis, where as of mid-2017, 70,000 people had access to only two grocery stores. Wirth Co-op opened in 2017 but closed within a year. North Market opened in 2017. The nonprofit Appetite for Change sought to improve the diet of local residents, competing against an influx of fast-food stores, and by 2017 it administered 10 gardens, sold produce in the mid-year months at West Broadway Farmers Market, supplied its restaurants, and gave away boxes of fresh produce. Many Minneapolis-based individuals have won James Beard Foundation Awards; these include chef Sean Sherman—whose restaurant Owamni received James Beard's 2022 national award for the best new restaurant—writer
Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a food and wine writer, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Personal life Dara Moskowitz was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1988. She got her start in the world of food as a ...
and television personality Andrew Zimmern. Both credible originators of the
Jucy Lucy A Jucy Lucy or Juicy Lucy is a stuffed burger with cheese inside the meat instead of on top, resulting in a melted core of cheese. Two bars in Minneapolis claim to be the inventor of the burger, while other bars and restaurants have created t ...
burger the
5-8 Club The 5-8 Club Tavern & Grill is a restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1928 as a speakeasy, the eatery is one of two Minneapolis establishments that claim to have invented the Juicy Lucy cheeseburger in the 1950s, the other being Ma ...
and
Matt's Bar Matt's Bar is a restaurant in south Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is known as one of two businesses that created the Jucy Lucy. History The bar was originally named Nibs prior to 1954 and was owned by Nibs Martin, who later purchased the Magic Ba ...
have served it since the 1950s. The United States' first vegan butcher shop The Herbivorous Butcher opened in 2016. East African cuisine arrived in Minneapolis with the wave of migrants from Somalia that started in the 1990s.
Gavin Kaysen Gavin Kaysen (born 1979 in Thousand Oaks, California) is executive chef and owner of Spoon and Stable, Bellecour Bakery, Demi, Socca, and Mara all in Minneapolis. He received the James Beard Foundation Award, James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwe ...
and others on Team USA won a silver medal in the 2015 Bocuse d'Or.


Annual events

Each January and February, a series of events called The Great Northern is held in Minneapolis. The series includes the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships; the City of Lakes Loppet, a cross-country ski race; and the Saint Paul Winter Carnival. The annual MayDay Parade returned in 2021 following the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
; other events include Art-A-Whirl; Pride Festival & Parade, Stone Arch Bridge Festival, and Twin Cities Juneteenth Celebration in June; Minneapolis Aquatennial in July; Minnesota Fringe Festival, Loring Park Art Festival, Metris Uptown Art Fair, Powderhorn Festival of Arts and the Lake Hiawatha Neighborhood Festival in August; Minneapolis Monarch Festival in September that celebrates the Monarch butterfly's migration; and the Twin Cities Marathon in October.


Libraries

The
Minneapolis Public Library The Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) was a library system that served the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. It was founded in 1885 with the establishment of the Minneapolis Library Board by an amendment to the Minneapolis ...
, founded by
T. B. Walker Thomas Barlow Walker (February 1, 1840 – July 28, 1928) was an American business magnate who acquired lumber in Minnesota and California and became an art collector. Walker founded the Minneapolis Public Library. He was among the ten wealthiest ...
in 1885, merged with the
Hennepin County Library Hennepin County Library is a public library system serving Hennepin County, Minnesota, US. The current iteration of Hennepin County Library was formed by the merger of urban Minneapolis Public Library and suburban Hennepin County Library on J ...
system in 2008. Fifteen branches of the Hennepin County Library serve Minneapolis. The 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.


Sports

Minneapolis has four professional sports teams. The American football team Minnesota Vikings and the baseball team Minnesota Twins have played in the state since 1961. The Vikings were an
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...
(NFL) expansion team and the Twins were formed when the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota. The Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991, and have played at
Target Field Target Field is a baseball stadium in the historic warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis. Since its opening in 2010, the stadium has been the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins. The stadium hosted the 2014 Major Leagu ...
since 2010. The Vikings played in the Super Bowl following the 1969, 1973, 1974, and 1976 seasons, losing all four games. The basketball team Minnesota Timberwolves returned National Basketball Association (NBA) basketball to Minneapolis in 1989, and were followed by Minnesota Lynx in 1999. Both basketball teams play in the Target Center. In the 2010s, the Lynx were the most-successful sports team in the city and a dominant force in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), reaching the WNBA finals in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017, and winning in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017. In 2016, following the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, Lynx captains wore black shirts as a protest by Black athletes for social change. In addition to professional sports teams, Minneapolis also hosts a majority of the Minnesota Golden Gopher
college sports College athletics encompasses non- professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games. World University Games The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale de ...
teams of the University of Minnesota. The Gophers football team plays at Huntington Bank Stadium and have won national championships in 1904, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1941, and 1960. The Gophers women's ice hockey team plays at
Ridder Arena Ridder may refer to: Places *DeRidder, Louisiana, city in US state of Louisiana * Ridder, Kazakhstan, settlement in Kazakhstan (named for Philip Ridder) Things *Ridder (title), Dutch and Belgian title equivalent to knight *Knight Ridder, newspaper ...
and is a six-time
NCAA champion The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges a ...
, and were the national champion in 2000, 2004, 2005, 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016. The Gophers men's ice hockey team plays at
3M Arena at Mariucci 3M Arena at Mariucci 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 (9,600 in the main bowl plus club r ...
, and won NCAA national championships in 1974, 1976, 1979, 2002, and 2003. Both the Golden Gophers men's basketball and women's basketball teams play at Williams Arena. The U.S. Bank Stadium was built for the Vikings at a cost of $1.122 billion, $348 million of which was provided by the state of Minnesota and $150 million came from the city of Minneapolis. The stadium, which was called "Minnesota's biggest-ever public works project", opened in 2016 with 66,000 seats, which was expanded to 70,000 for the 2018 Super Bowl. U.S. Bank Stadium also hosts indoor running and rollerblading nights, concerts, and other events. The city hosts some major sporting events, including baseball All-Star Games, World Series, Super Bowls, NCAA Division 1 men's and women's basketball Final Four, the AMA Motocross Championship, the
X Games The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...
, and the
WNBA All-Star Game The Women's National Basketball Association All-Star Game, commonly referred to as the WNBA All-Star Game, is an annual exhibition basketball game played in the United States between the best players of the Western and Eastern Conference of ...
. Minnesota Wild, an
National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...
team, play at the Xcel Energy Center; and the Major League Soccer soccer team Minnesota United FC play at Allianz Field, both of which are located in Saint Paul. Six golf courses are located within Minneapolis' city limits. While living in Minneapolis, Scott and Brennan Olson founded and later sold Rollerblade, the company that popularized the sport of inline skating. The
Twin Cities Marathon The Twin Cities Marathon (TCM) is an annual marathon in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area which normally takes place the first weekend in October. The race is often called "The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America" due to a course that wind ...
is a Boston Marathon qualifier.


Parks and recreation

In his book ''The American City: What Works, What Doesn't'',
Alexander Garvin Alexander Garvin (March 8, 1941 – December 17, 2021) was an American urban planner, educator, and author. At the time of his death, he was in private practice at AGA Public Realm Strategists in New York City and was also an adjunct professor at ...
wrote Minneapolis built "the best-located, best-financed, best-designed, and best-maintained public open space in America". The city's parks are governed and operated by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, an independent park district with broader powers than any other parks agency in the US. Foresight, donations, and effort by community leaders enabled
Horace Cleveland Horace William Shaler Cleveland (December 16, 1814 – December 5, 1900) was an American landscape architect. His approach to natural landscape design can be seen in projects such as the Grand Rounds in Minneapolis; Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Conco ...
to create his finest landscape architecture, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevards and parkways. The city's Chain of Lakes, consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek, is connected by bicycle paths, and running and walking paths, and are used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians run parallel along the route of the
Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway The Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board developed the system over many years. ...
.
Theodore Wirth Theodore Wirth (1863–1949) 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 pa ...
is credited with developing the parks system. Approximately 15 percent of land in Minneapolis is parks, in accordance with the 2020 national median, and 98 percent of residents live within of a park.and 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, is located within
Theodore Wirth Park Theodore Wirth Park is the regional park managed by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The park land is shared by Minneapolis and the neighboring suburb of Golden Valley. Formally named Theodore Wirth Regional Park, it includes two golf ...
, which is shared with Golden Valley and is about 90 percent of the area of Central Park, New York City.
Minnehaha Park Minnehaha Park is a city park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and home to Minnehaha Falls and the lower reaches of Minnehaha Creek. Officially named Minnehaha Regional Park, it is part of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board syst ...
contains the 53-foot (16 m) waterfall Minnehaha Falls, and is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks. The regional park received over 2,050,000 visitors in 2017. In the bestselling and often-parodied 19th-century epic poem ''
The Song of Hiawatha ''The Song of Hiawatha'' is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of hi ...
'', Henry Wadsworth Longfellow named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall. The , hiking-only
Winchell Trail Winchell Trail is a round trip, pedestrian-only trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that runs along the west side of the Mississippi River between Franklin Avenue South and East 44th Street. Popular with bird watchers and naturalist ...
runs along the Mississippi River, and offers views of and access to the Mississippi Gorge and a rustic hiking experience. Minneapolis's climate provides opportunities for winter activities such as
ice fishing Ice fishing is the practice of catching fish with lines and fish hooks or spears through an opening in the ice on a frozen body of water. Ice fishers may fish in the open or in heated enclosures, some with bunks and amenities. Shelters Long ...
, snowshoeing, ice skating, cross-country skiing, and
sledding Sledding, sledging or sleighing is a winter sport typically carried out in a prone or seated position on a vehicle generically known as a sled (North American), a sledge (British), or a sleigh. It is the basis of three Olympic sports: luge, ske ...
at many parks and lakes between December and March. When there is sufficient snowfall or in the presence of
snowmaking Snowmaking is the production of snow by forcing water and pressurized air through a "snow gun", also known as a "snow cannon". Snowmaking is mainly used at ski resorts to supplement natural snow. This allows ski resorts to improve the reliabilit ...
, a partnership between the park board and Loppet Foundation provides for the grooming of of cross-country ski trails between Wirth Park, the Chain of Lakes, and two of the city's golf courses. The City of Lakes Loppet cross-country ski race is part of the American ski marathon series. The park board maintains 20 outdoor
ice rink An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or an artificial sheet of ice created using hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Ice rinks are also used for exhibitions, contests and ice shows. The ...
s in winter and the city's
Lake Nokomis Lake Nokomis is one of several lakes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and part of the city's Chain of Lakes. The lake was previously named Lake Amelia in honor of Captain George Gooding's daughter, Amelia, in 1819. Its current name was adopted in 19 ...
is host to the annual U.S. Pond Hockey Championships.


Government

Minneapolis is currently a majority holding for the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party, and had its last Republican mayor in 1973. DFL council member Jacob Frey was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 2017, and was re-elected in 2021. In 2021, a
ballot question A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
shifted more power from the city council to the mayor, a change that proponents had tried to achieve since the early 20th century. Parks, taxation, and public housing are semi-independent boards that levy their own taxes and fees, which are subject to Board of Estimate and Taxation limits. The Minneapolis City Council represents the city's 13 wards. The city adopted instant-runoff voting in 2006, first using it in the 2009 elections. The council is progressive; it has 12 DFL council members and one from the
Democratic Socialists of America The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing Democratic Socialists of America#Tendencies within the DSA, multi-tendency Socialism, socialist and Labour movement, labor-oriented political organization. Its roots ...
. Andrea Jenkins was unanimously chosen as president of the City Council in 2022. In 2022, the 13-member council has seven political newcomers and for the first time has a majority of non-White council members. At the federal level, Minneapolis is within
Minnesota's 5th congressional district Minnesota's 5th congressional district is a geographically small urban and suburban congressional district in Minnesota. It covers eastern Hennepin County, including the entire city of Minneapolis, along with parts of Anoka and Ramsey counti ...
, which since 2018 has been represented by Democrat Ilhan Omar, one of the first two practicing Muslim women and the first
Somali-American Somali Americans are Americans of Somali people, Somali ancestry. The first ethnic Somalis to arrive in the U.S. were Somali maritime history, sailors who came in the 1920s from British Somaliland. They were followed by students pursuing higher st ...
in Congress. Minnesota's US Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, were elected or appointed while living in Minneapolis, and are also Democrats. In 2015, the City Council passed a resolution making fossil fuel divestment city policy, joining 17 cities worldwide in the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance. Minneapolis' climate plan calls for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Minneapolis has a separation ordinance that directs local law-enforcement officers not to "take any law enforcement action" for the sole purpose of finding undocumented immigrants, nor to ask an individual about his or her immigration status. The city council unanimously approved Frey's budget of $1.66 billion for 2023, after the council made amendments that moved a few civilian police jobs to oversight and to immigration. The source of funding is a 6.5 percent property tax increase in 2023. and The US Justice Department and the
Minnesota Department of Human Rights The Minnesota Department of Human Rights is a state-level governmental body in Minnesota tasked with investigating abuses of its human rights laws and educating the public about them. History Prior to the establishment of the Minnesota Departme ...
. have been investigating policing practices in Minneapolis. The budget plans for one negotiated consent decree and the statutory minimum of 731 officers in 2023, in the police department which is about 260 officers short. After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, about 166 police officers left of their own accord either to retirement or to temporary leave—many with PTSD—and a crime wave resulted in more than 500 shootings. A
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...
investigation found that killings surged when a "hands-off" attitude resulted in fewer officer-initiated encounters. As of July 2022, violent crime rose about 3% across Minneapolis compared with 2021, and in 2020, it rose 21%. A 2021 ballot question to abolish the police department failed. The restructured mayor's role created a new Minneapolis Office of Community Safety, with its commissioner overseeing the police and fire departments, 911 dispatch, emergency management, and violence prevention. The city in 2021 proposed a new cooperation with the police department and a mental health services company, Canopy Mental Health & Consulting, to respond to some 911 calls that do not require police. The organization had responded to more than three thousand 911 calls as of September 2022 and was proposed to continue through the 2023-2024 budget year.


Education


Primary and secondary education

Minneapolis Public Schools enroll over 35,000 students in public primary and secondary schools. The district administers about 100 public schools, including 45 elementary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools, eight special education schools, eight alternative schools, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter schools. 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. In 2017, the graduation rate was 66 percent. Students speak over 100 languages at home and most school communications are printed in English, Hmong, Spanish, and
Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Somali ...
. Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute. Besides public schools, the city has more than 20 private schools and academies, and about 20 additional charter schools.


Colleges and universities

Minneapolis's collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota, where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend 20 colleges, schools, and institutes. The university offers free tuition to students from Minnesota families earning less than $50,000 per year. The graduate school programs with exceptional, top-five national rankings in 2020 were health care management, nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, and clinical psychology. The university has unusual constitutional autonomy that has existed in three US states since 1851, when the provision was included in Minnesota's constitution.
Augsburg University Augsburg University is a private university in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It was founded in 1869 as a Norwegian-American Lutheran seminary known as Augsburg Seminarium. Today, the ...
, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and North Central University are private four-year colleges.
Minneapolis Community and Technical College Minneapolis Community and Technical College (Minneapolis College) is a public community college in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has one of the most diverse student populations in the state and enrolls nearly 11,100 credit students annually. Minneap ...
and the private
Dunwoody College of Technology Dunwoody College of Technology is a private technology school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It offers Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Bachelor of Architecture (B. Arch) and Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees. History Dunwoody College was ...
provide career training. St. Mary's University of Minnesota has a Twin Cities campus for its graduate and professional programs. The large, principally
online universities Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
Capella University Capella University is a private for-profit, online university headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school is owned by the publicly traded Strategic Education, Inc. and delivers most of its education online. Capella has 52 degree pr ...
and
Walden University Walden University is a private online for-profit university headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It offers Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, Master of Business Administration, Master of Public Administration, Master of Public Health, ...
are both headquartered in the city. The public four-year Metropolitan State University and the private four-year University of St. Thomas are among post-secondary institutions based elsewhere that have campuses in Minneapolis.


Media

Several newspapers are published in Minneapolis; '' Star Tribune'', ''
Finance & Commerce The ''Finance & Commerce'' is a daily newspaper devoted exclusively to business in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis–Saint Paul) and Rochester, Minnesota. Overview Founded in 1887, it provides coverage of Twin Cities business news in the areas o ...
'', ''
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder The ''Minnesota SpokesmanRecorder'' is an African-American, English-language newspaper headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and serves readers in the Twin Cities. Founded in 1934 by Cecil Earle Newman (who remained editor until his death in ...
'', the university's '' The Minnesota Daily'', and '' MinnPost.com''. TMC Publications publishes '' The Monitor'', ''Longfellow Nokomis Messenger'' and the ''Southwest Connector''. MSP Communications publishes ''Mpls.St.Paul'' and ''Twin Cities Business'' magazines. Other publications include '' Minnesota Women's Press'', ''North News'', ''Northeaster'', ''Insight News'', ''The Circle'', ''Southwest Voices'', and ''Dispatch'' and '' Racket.'' Nineteen FM and AM radio stations are licensed to Minneapolis, including one from the University of Minnesota and one from the public schools. Up to 79 FM and AM signals can be received in one or more areas of the city. There are 10 full-power television stations in the metro area, and one non-profit public-access cable network.
WCCO-TV WCCO-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, broadcasting the CBS network to the Twin Cities area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studio ...
is based in Minneapolis proper. A majority of these signals can be streamed. Krista Tippett, winner of a Peabody Award and the
National Humanities Medal The National Humanities Medal is an American award that annually recognizes several individuals, groups, or institutions for work that has "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens' engagement with the huma ...
, produces the '' On Being'' project from her studio across Hennepin from the basilica. In 2022, she changed her show from weekly radio to seasonal podcasts. Movies filmed in Minneapolis include ''
Airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...
'' (1970), '' The Heartbreak Kid'' (1972), '' Slaughterhouse-Five'' (1972), '' Ice Castles'' (1978), '' Foolin' Around'' (1980), '' Take This Job and Shove It'' (1981), '' Purple Rain'' (1984), ''
That Was Then, This Is Now ''That Was Then, This Is Now'' is a Bildungsroman, coming-of age, young adult literature, young adult novel by S. E. Hinton, first published in 1971 in literature, 1971. Set in the 1960s, it follows the relationship between two brothers, Mark Jen ...
'' (1985), '' The Mighty Ducks'' (1992), '' Untamed Heart'' (1993), '' Little Big League'' (1994), '' Beautiful Girls'' (1996), '' Jingle All the Way'' (1996), '' Fargo'' (1996), and '' Young Adult'' (2011). In 1960s television, two episodes of '' Route 66'' were made in Minneapolis. The 1970s CBS situation comedy set in Minneapolis, '' The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', won three Golden Globes and 29 Emmy Awards. The show's opening sequences were filmed in the city.


Infrastructure


Transportation

Minneapolis has two light rail lines, one commuter rail line, five bus rapid transit (BRT) lines, and about 90 bus lines with over 8,000 stops. Among bus lines, local Minneapolis routes are numbered 1 to 49, and higher numbers are for limited-stop, commuter, express, and routes in directional parts of the city. Riders of Metro Transit system-wide are 44 percent persons of color. The Metro Blue Line light rail line connects the Mall of America and Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport in Bloomington to downtown, and the
Metro Green Line The Metro Green Line (formerly called the Central Corridor) is an light rail line that connects the central business districts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota as well as the University of Minnesota. An extension is under constructi ...
travels east from downtown through the University of Minnesota campus to downtown Saint Paul. Hundreds of homeless people nightly sought shelter on Green Line trains until overnight service was cut back in 2019. In 2020, a rise in crime on the light rail system led to discussion in the
state legislature A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...
on how to best address the problem. A Green Line extension called the Southwest LRT will connect downtown Minneapolis with the southwestern suburbs St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. About a decade late, the Southwest line is expected to open in 2027, and has cost $1.8 billion as of 2022. An extension of the Blue Line to the northwest suburbs re-entered the planning stages for a new route alignment in 2020. The Northstar Commuter rail runs from Big Lake through the northern suburbs and terminates at the multi-modal transit station at
Target Field Target Field is a baseball stadium in the historic warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis. Since its opening in 2010, the stadium has been the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins. The stadium hosted the 2014 Major Leagu ...
using existing railroad tracks. BRT lines are 25 percent faster than regular bus lines because riders pay before boarding, stops are limited, and sometimes they employ signal prioritization. Due to staffing shortages, BRT lines started just as Metro Transit reduced or cut service on the local bus lines they largely replaced. The newest BRT line, the D Line, runs along one of Minnesota's most used bus lines, the route 5, where a quarter of households don’t have access to a car. Public transit ridership in the Twin Cities was 91.6 million in 2019, a three-percent decline over the previous year, which is part of a national trend in falling local bus ridership. Ridership on the Metro system remained steady or grew slightly. About 4 percent of commuters cycle to work as of 2019. Minneapolis has of on-street protected bikeways, of bike lanes and of off-street bikeways and trails. Off-street facilities include the
Grand Rounds Scenic Byway The Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board developed the system over many years. ...
, Midtown Greenway,
Little Earth Trail Little Earth Trail is an approximately , multi-use bicycle path in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that links several neighborhoods, parks, businesses, and trails in the Phillips community. The trail begins at its northern end near the i ...
, Hiawatha LRT Trail, Kenilworth Trail, and Cedar Lake Trail. Seeking funding for 2023, bicycle-sharing provider
Nice Ride Minnesota Nice Ride Minnesota is a seasonally operated nonprofit bicycle sharing system in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota based on the BIXI brand created by Public Bike System Company and first used in Montreal. Launched on June 10, 2010, it served ...
served 70,000 riders in 2021. In 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi, which was overloaded with of repair materials, collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was rebuilt in 14 months. Only one quarter of the US's structurally deficient bridges had been repaired ten years later. The Minneapolis Skyway System, of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyways, links 80 city blocks downtown with second-floor restaurants and retailers that are open on weekdays. Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) is served by 18 international, domestic, charter, and regional carriers, and is the headquarters of
Sun Country Airlines Sun Country Airlines is an American Low-cost carrier, ultra-low-cost passenger airline, passenger and cargo airline, and the List of largest airlines in North America, eleventh largest in the US by passengers carried. Based at Minneapolis–Sai ...
. As of 2019, MSP is also the second-largest hub for Delta Air Lines, which operates more flights out of MSP than any other airline.


Health care

Abbott Northwestern Hospital,
University of Minnesota Medical Center M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center (UMMC) previously known as University of Minnesota Medical Center, is an 1700-bed non-profit, tertiary, research and academic medical center located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, servicing the ...
, Hennepin Healthcare, Minneapolis VA Medical Center, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Children's Hospitals and Clinics, University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital, and Phillips Eye Institute serve the city. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is from Minneapolis. Cardiac surgery was developed at the university's Variety Club Hospital, where by 1957, more than 200 patients—many of whom were children—had survived open-heart operations. Working with surgeon
C. Walton Lillehei Clarence Walton Lillehei (October 23, 1918 – July 5, 1999), was an American surgeon who pioneered open-heart surgery, as well as numerous techniques, equipment and prostheses for cardiothoracic surgery. Background Clarence (often called " ...
, Medtronic began to build portable and implantable cardiac pacemakers about this time. Hennepin Healthcare, a public teaching hospital and Level I trauma center, opened in 1887 as City Hospital, and has also been known as Minneapolis General Hospital, Hennepin County General Hospital, and HCMC. The Hennepin Healthcare safety net counted 643,739 clinic visits, and 111,307 emergency and urgent care visits in 2019. The Mashkiki Waakaa'igan Pharmacy on Bloomington Avenue dispenses free prescription drugs and culturally sensitive care to members of any federally recognized tribes living in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, regardless of insurance status. The pharmacy has 3,500 active patients and is funded by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.


Utilities

"Ambassadors", who are identified by their blue-and-green-yellow fluorescent jackets, daily patrol a 120-block area of downtown to greet and assist visitors, remove trash, monitor property, and call police when they are needed. The ambassador program is a public-private partnership with a $6.6 million annual budget that is paid for by a special downtown tax district.
Xcel Energy Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four oper ...
supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy supplies gas, CenturyLink provides landline telephone service, and Comcast provides cable service. The city treats and distributes water, and charges a monthly fee for trash removal. After each significant snowfall, called a snow emergency, the Minneapolis Public Works Street Division plows over of streets as wide as possible—in "lane miles," enough to plow a lane between Minneapolis and Anchorage, Alaska. Ordinances govern parking on plowing routes during these emergencies, as well as snow shoveling.


Notable people


Sister cities

Minneapolis's sister cities are: * Bosaso, Somalia (2014) * Cuernavaca, Mexico (2008) * Eldoret, Kenya (2000) * Harbin, China (1992) *
Ibaraki Ibaraki may refer to any of the following places in Japan: * Ibaraki Prefecture, one of the 47 prefectures of Japan **Ibaraki, Ibaraki, a town in Ibaraki Prefecture **Ibaraki Airport, an airport in Omitama, Ibaraki **Ibaraki dialect, the dialect sp ...
, Japan (1980) * Kuopio, Finland (1972) * Najaf, Iraq (2009) * Novosibirsk, Russia (1988) * Santiago, Chile (1961) * Tours, France (1991) * Uppsala, Sweden (2000) * Winnipeg, Canada (1973)


See also

* List of events and attractions in Minneapolis * List of tallest buildings in Minneapolis * National Register of Historic Places listings in Hennepin County, Minnesota


Notes


References


Works cited

* * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * *


External links

*
"Minneapolis Past"
— ''documentary produced by
Twin Cities Public Television Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. (abbreviated TPT, doing business as Twin Cities PBS) is a nonprofit organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that operates the Twin Cities' two PBS member television stations, KTCA-TV (chan ...
''. {{Featured article Cities in Hennepin County, Minnesota County seats in Minnesota Minneapolis–Saint Paul Minnesota populated places on the Mississippi River Articles containing video clips Populated places established in 1856 1856 establishments in Minnesota Territory Cities in Minnesota