Minneapolis

This article is about the city in Minnesota. For other uses, see Minneapolis (disambiguation).

For the Twin Cities region, see Minneapolis–Saint Paul.

Minneapolis, Minnesota
City
Downtown (from the Mississippi River) Lake Nokomis Mill City Museum First Avenue Minnehaha Falls
Flag Seal Logo
Etymology: Dakota mni ('water') with Greek polis ('city')
Nickname(s):  "City of Lakes", "Mill City", "Twin Cities" (with Saint Paul), "Mini Apple"
Motto:  En Avant (French: 'Forward')
Interactive map of Minneapolis
Coordinates: 44°58′55″N 93°16′09″W
Country	United States
State	Minnesota
County	Hennepin
Incorporated	1867
Founded by	Franklin Steele and John H. Stevens
Government
• Type	Mayor-council (strong mayor)
• Body	Minneapolis City Council
• Mayor	Jacob Frey (DFL)
Area
• City	57.51 sq mi (148.94 km2)
• Land	54.00 sq mi (139.86 km2)
• Water	3.51 sq mi (9.08 km2)
Elevation	830 ft (250 m)
Population  (2020)
• City	429,954
• Estimate  (2021)	425,336
• Rank	46th (U.S.) 1st (Minnesota)
• Density	7,962.11/sq mi (3,074.21/km2)
• Urban	2,914,866
• Urban density	2,872.4/sq mi (1,109/km2)
• Metro	3,690,512
Demonym	Minneapolitan
Time zone	UTC–6 (CST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC–5 (CDT)
ZIP Codes	55401-55419, 55423, 55429-55430, 55450, 55454-55455, 55484-55488
Area code	612
FIPS code	27-43000
GNIS ID	655030
Website	Minneapolis.org MinneapolisMN.gov

Minneapolis (/ˌmɪniˈæpəlɪs/ ^ⓘ MIN-ee-AP-əl-iss) is a city in the state of Minnesota and the county seat of Hennepin County. As of the 2020 census the population was 429,954, making it the largest city in Minnesota and the 46th-most-populous in the United States. Nicknamed the "City of Lakes", Minneapolis is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks, and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins as the 19th century lumber and flour milling capitals of the world, and, to the present day, preserved its financial clout. It occupies both banks of the Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota.

Before 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. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the surrounding area are collectively known as the Twin Cities, a metropolitan area home to 3.69 million inhabitants.

Minneapolis has one of the most extensive public park systems in the U.S.; many of these parks are connected by the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Biking and walking trails run through many parts of the city including the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, Boom Island Park, Lake of the Isles, Bde Maka Ska, and Lake Harriet, and Minnehaha Falls. Minneapolis has cold, snowy winters and warm, humid summers. A metropolis located far from competing neighbors, Minneapolis is the birthplace of General Mills, the Pillsbury brand, and the Target Corporation. The city's cultural offerings include the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the First Avenue nightclub, and four professional sports teams.

Minneapolis is home to University of Minnesota's main campus. The city's public transport is provided by Metro Transit and the international airport, serving the Twin Cities region, is located towards the south on the city limits.

The city's reputation for high quality of life notwithstanding, the striking disparities among the city's population may be the most significant issue facing 21st century Minneapolis. Minneapolis has a mayor-council government system. The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) holds a majority of the council seats and Jacob Frey has been mayor since 2018.

History

Main article: History of Minneapolis

Dakota natives, city founded

Before European settlement, the Dakota Sioux were the sole occupants of the site of modern-day Minneapolis. In the Dakota language, 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. Ending 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, the U.S. 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 U.S. policy of assimilating Native Americans into European-American society, encouraging them to give up subsistence hunting and cultivate the land. Missionaries encouraged Native Americans to convert from their 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, 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' (polis), 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, Saint Paul and Stillwater agreed to divide the federal funding between them: Saint Paul would be the capital, while Stillwater would build the prison. The St. Anthony contingent eventually won the state university. 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.

Lumber, waterpower, and flour milling

Loading flour, Pillsbury, 1939

Minneapolis's two founding industries—lumber and flour milling—developed in the 19th century concurrently. Flour milling overshadowed lumber by some decades; nevertheless, both came to prominence for about fifty years, and the magnitude of both industries extended beyond state borders—in the end, to the nation and the globe. A lumber industry was built around forests in northern Minnesota, largely by lumbermen emigrating from Maine's depleting forests. The city's first commercial sawmill was built in 1848, and the first gristmill in 1849. Towns built in western Minnesota with Minneapolis lumber shipped their wheat back to the city for milling.

The region's waterways were used to transport logs well after railroads developed; the Mississippi River carried logs to St. Louis until the early 20th century. In 1871, of the thirteen mills sawing lumber in St. Anthony, eight ran on water power and five ran on steam turbines. Minneapolis supplied the materials for farmsteads and settlement of rapidly expanding cities on the prairies that lacked wood. White pine milled in the city built Miles City, Montana; Bismarck, North Dakota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Omaha, Nebraska; and Wichita, Kansas.

Minneapolis developed around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi, which was used as a source of energy. By 1871, the river's west bank had 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 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 given the nickname "Mill City."

An 1867 court case allowed digging the Eastman tunnel under the river at Nicollet Island. In 1869, a leak soon sucked the 6 ft (1.8 m) tailrace into a 90 ft (27 m)-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 struggled to close the gap with timber until their concrete dike held in 1876.

The entrepreneurial founder of the company that became General Mills, Cadwallader C. Washburn adopted three technological innovations that added efficiency, speed, and safety to flour milling. Simple grist mills were revolutionized into modern machinery: middlings purifiers blew out the husks that had colored white flour, gradual reduction by steel and porcelain roller mills combined gluten with starch, and the Berhns Millstone Exhaust System decreased the risk of explosion by reducing the amount of flour dust in the air. William Dixon Gray developed some ideas and William de la Barre acquired others through industrial espionage in Hungary. Charles Alfred Pillsbury and the C. A. Pillsbury Company across the river hired Washburn employees and soon began using the new methods. 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 at the time 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, fourteen percent of America's grain was milled in Minneapolis. By 1895, through the efforts of silent partner William Hood Dunwoody, 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.

Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. At left, Pillsbury, power plants and the Stone Arch Bridge. Today the Minnesota Historical Society's Mill City Museum is in the Washburn "A" Mill, across the river just to the left of the falls. At center-left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall. In the right foreground are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

Social tensions

Main articles: List of incidents of civil unrest in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and 2020–2023 Minneapolis–Saint Paul racial unrest

In 1886, when Martha Ripley 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. Discrimination increased when flour milling moved to the east coast and the economy declined.

During the early 20th century, bigotry was presented in several ways. With a Black population of less than one percent, in Delegard's words, the city was "not a particularly segregated place" before 1910, when a developer wrote the first restrictive covenant based on race and ethnicity into a Minneapolis deed. But then realtors adopted the practice, thousands of times preventing non-Whites from owning or leasing properties, and they continued for four decades until the city became more and more racially divided. 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. The gangster Kid Cann 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 people at Faribault State Hospital. From the end of World War I 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.

Battle between striking teamsters and police, Minneapolis general strike of 1934

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, in 1946, a human-relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities. 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, a law-and-order candidate, became mayor. Minneapolis contended with White supremacy, and 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 then-17-year-old witness recorded the murder of George Floyd; her video contradicted the police department's initial statement. Floyd, an African-American man, suffocated when Derek Chauvin, a White Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck and back for more than nine minutes. While Floyd was neither the first nor the last Black man killed by Minneapolis police, his murder sparked international rebellions and mass protests. The local insurgency resulted in extraordinary levels of property damage in Minneapolis; destruction included a police station that demonstrators overran and set on fire. The Twin Cities experienced ongoing unrest over racial injustice from 2020 to 2022.

Geography

Main articles: Climate of Minnesota, Climate of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Geography of Minneapolis, and Geology of Minnesota

Downtown Minneapolis viewed across the city's largest lake, Bde Maka Ska

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 fed the glacial River Warren, which created a large waterfall that eroded upriver past the confluence of the Mississippi River, where it left a 75-foot (23-meter) 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 eight miles (13 kilometers) 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 59 square miles (152.8 square kilometers), six percent of which is covered by water. Water supply is managed by four watershed districts that correspond with the Mississippi and the city's three creeks. The city has thirteen lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands.

Cyclists on Midtown Greenway in Midtown Phillips, one of the 83 neighborhoods of Minneapolis

A 1959 report by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service listed Minneapolis's elevation above mean sea level as 830 feet (250 meters). The city's lowest elevation of 687 feet (209 m) 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 965 and 985 feet (294 and 300 m) above sea level.

Neighborhoods

Main article: Neighborhoods of Minneapolis

Minneapolis has 83 neighborhoods and 70 neighborhood organizations. In some cases, two or more neighborhoods act together under one organization.

In 2018, Minneapolis City Council voted to approve the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which resulted in a city-wide end to single-family zoning. Slate reported that Minneapolis was believed to be the first major city in the U.S. to make citywide such a revision in housing possibilities. At the time, 70 percent of residential land was zoned for detached, single-family homes, though 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.

The Minneapolis skyline seen from the Prospect Park Water Tower in July 2014

Climate

Minneapolis experiences a hot-summer humid continental climate (Dfa in the Köppen climate classification), that is typical of southern parts of the Upper Midwest, and is situated in USDA plant hardiness zone 4b; although small enclaves of the city 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 58.1 °F (32.3 °C).

According to the NOAA, the annual average for sunshine duration is 58 percent. Minneapolis experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The highest recorded temperature is 108 °F (42 °C) in July 1936 while the lowest is −41 °F (−41 °C) in January 1888. The snowiest winter on record was 1983–84, when 98.6 inches (250 centimeters) of snow fell. The least-snowiest winter was 1890–91, when 11.1 inches (28 cm) fell.

Climate data for Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1871–present)
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Record high °F (°C)	58 (14)	64 (18)	83 (28)	95 (35)	106 (41)	104 (40)	108 (42)	103 (39)	104 (40)	90 (32)	77 (25)	68 (20)	108 (42)
Mean maximum °F (°C)	42.5 (5.8)	46.7 (8.2)	64.7 (18.2)	79.7 (26.5)	88.7 (31.5)	93.3 (34.1)	94.4 (34.7)	91.7 (33.2)	88.3 (31.3)	80.1 (26.7)	62.1 (16.7)	47.1 (8.4)	96.4 (35.8)
Mean daily maximum °F (°C)	23.6 (−4.7)	28.5 (−1.9)	41.7 (5.4)	56.6 (13.7)	69.2 (20.7)	79.0 (26.1)	83.4 (28.6)	80.7 (27.1)	72.9 (22.7)	58.1 (14.5)	41.9 (5.5)	28.8 (−1.8)	55.4 (13.0)
Daily mean °F (°C)	16.2 (−8.8)	20.6 (−6.3)	33.3 (0.7)	47.1 (8.4)	59.5 (15.3)	69.7 (20.9)	74.3 (23.5)	71.8 (22.1)	63.5 (17.5)	49.5 (9.7)	34.8 (1.6)	22.0 (−5.6)	46.9 (8.3)
Mean daily minimum °F (°C)	8.8 (−12.9)	12.7 (−10.7)	24.9 (−3.9)	37.5 (3.1)	49.9 (9.9)	60.4 (15.8)	65.3 (18.5)	62.8 (17.1)	54.2 (12.3)	40.9 (4.9)	27.7 (−2.4)	15.2 (−9.3)	38.4 (3.6)
Mean minimum °F (°C)	−14.7 (−25.9)	−8 (−22)	2.7 (−16.3)	21.9 (−5.6)	35.7 (2.1)	47.3 (8.5)	54.5 (12.5)	52.3 (11.3)	38.2 (3.4)	26.0 (−3.3)	9.2 (−12.7)	−7.1 (−21.7)	−16.9 (−27.2)
Record low °F (°C)	−41 (−41)	−33 (−36)	−32 (−36)	2 (−17)	18 (−8)	34 (1)	43 (6)	39 (4)	26 (−3)	10 (−12)	−25 (−32)	−39 (−39)	−41 (−41)
Average precipitation inches (mm)	0.89 (23)	0.87 (22)	1.68 (43)	2.91 (74)	3.91 (99)	4.58 (116)	4.06 (103)	4.34 (110)	3.02 (77)	2.58 (66)	1.61 (41)	1.17 (30)	31.62 (803)
Average snowfall inches (cm)	11.0 (28)	9.5 (24)	8.2 (21)	3.5 (8.9)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	0.0 (0.0)	0.8 (2.0)	6.8 (17)	11.4 (29)	51.2 (130)
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in)	9.6	7.8	9.0	11.2	12.4	11.8	10.4	9.8	9.3	9.5	8.3	9.7	118.8
Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in)	9.3	7.3	5.2	2.4	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.6	4.5	8.8	38.2
Average relative humidity (%)	69.9	69.5	67.4	60.3	60.4	63.8	64.8	67.9	70.7	68.3	72.6	74.1	67.5
Average dew point °F (°C)	4.1 (−15.5)	9.5 (−12.5)	20.7 (−6.3)	31.6 (−0.2)	43.5 (6.4)	54.7 (12.6)	60.1 (15.6)	58.3 (14.6)	49.8 (9.9)	37.9 (3.3)	25.0 (−3.9)	11.1 (−11.6)	33.9 (1.0)
Mean monthly sunshine hours	156.7	178.3	217.5	242.1	295.2	321.9	350.5	307.2	233.2	181.0	112.8	114.3	2,710.7
Percent possible sunshine	55	61	59	60	64	69	74	71	62	53	39	42	59
Average ultraviolet index	1	2	3	5	7	8	8	7	5	3	2	1	4
Source 1: NOAA (relative humidity, dew point and sun 1961–1990)
Source 2: Weather Atlas (UV)

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Minneapolis

Historical population

Census	Pop.	Note	%±
1860	5,809		—
1870	13,066		124.9%
1880	46,887		258.8%
1890	164,738		251.4%
1900	202,718		23.1%
1910	301,408		48.7%
1920	380,582		26.3%
1930	464,356		22.0%
1940	492,370		6.0%
1950	521,718		6.0%
1960	482,872		−7.4%
1970	434,400		−10.0%
1980	370,951		−14.6%
1990	368,383		−0.7%
2000	382,618		3.9%
2010	382,578		0.0%
2020	429,954		12.4%
2021 (est.)	425,336		−1.1%
U.S. Decennial Census 2020 Census

Racial composition

	2020	2010	1990	1970	1950
White (non-Hispanic)	58.0%	60.3%	77.5%	92.8%	n/a
Black or African American (non-Hispanic)	18.9%	18.3%	13.0%	4.4%	1.3%
Hispanic or Latino	10.4%	10.5%	2.1%	0.9%	n/a
Asian (non-Hispanic)	5.8%	5.6%	4.3%	0.4%	0.2%
Other race (non-Hispanic)	0.5%	0.3%	n/a	n/a	n/a
Two or more races (non-Hispanic)	5.2%	3.4%	n/a	n/a	n/a

Dakota tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton, occupied the area of present-day Minneapolis when European Americans pushed west. In the 1840s, new settlers came from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. French-Canadians came about this same time, and farmers from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania began secondary migration. A small fraction of the populace, settlers from New England had an outsized influence on civic life.

While few then lived in the state year around, migrant workers from Mexico came to Minnesota as early as 1860. Latinos settled in the city's Phillips, Whittier, Longfellow and Northeast neighborhoods. Just before the turn of the 21st century, Latinos were the state's largest group of immigrants, as well as the fastest growing. Settlers from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark found harmony in the Republican and Protestant belief systems of the migrants from New England who preceded them.. After the Civil War, Irish, Scots and English immigrated, followed by Germans and Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia. Italians and Greeks first came to Minneapolis in the 1890s and 1900s. Slovak and Czech immigrants lived in the Bohemian Flats alongside the Mississippi's west bank. After 1900, Ukrainians arrived, and Central European migrants settled in the Northeast neighborhood.

Facing under President Chester A. Arthur the first-ever US government ban of a specific ethnic group, Chinese began immigration in the 1870s. Moved from San Francisco, Japanese Americans worked for Camp Savage, a secret military Japanese-language school that trained interpreters and translators. After World War II, some Japanese and Japanese Americans remained in Minneapolis and in 1970, they numbered nearly two thousand—at the time, part of the state's largest Asian-American ethnic group. Around 1970, Koreans came and the first Filipinos arrived to attend the University of Minnesota. Arriving around 1975, Vietnamese; Hmong, some from Thailand; Lao; and Cambodians settled mainly in Saint Paul, and some of their organizations formed in Minneapolis. In 1992, 160 Tibetan immigrants came to Minnesota; many live in the city's Whittier neighborhood. People came from Burma in the early 2000s, many becoming secondary immigrants to Greater Minnesota. The Minneapolis population of people from India increased by 1,000 between 2000 and 2010, where the largest concentration lives in the state.

During the 1950s, the US government relocated Native Americans to cities like Minneapolis, attempting to do away with Indian reservations.

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.

Migrating from Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois, eight Black families lived in Minneapolis in 1857. In 1910, Minneapolis had 2,500 or so Black residents. In 1930, Minneapolis Blacks were among the nation's most literate (1.7 percent of Blacks over 10 years of age could not read and write, compared to the national average of 16.3 percent). Nevertheless, discrimination against Blacks excluded them from all but the lowest paying jobs. In 1935, Cecil Newman and the Minneapolis Spokesman led a year-long consumer boycott of four area breweries that refused to hire Blacks. Employment, but not housing, improved during World War II. Between 1950 and 1970, the Black population of Minneapolis increased by 436 percent. After the Rust Belt economy declined during the early 1980s, Black migrants were drawn to the Minneapolis area by its abundance of jobs, good schools, and relatively safe neighborhoods. Beginning in the 1990s, immigrants came from the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia; however, Somali immigration slowed after a 2017 executive order from President Donald Trump. As of 2019, more than 20,000 Somalis live in Minneapolis. As of 2020, African Americans make up about one fifth of the city's population. 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.

In 2020 based on Gallup data, UCLA's Williams Institute reported the Twin Cities had an estimated LGBT adult population of 4.2%, the 18th-highest number of LGBT residents of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the US, and did not rank by percent. Human Rights Campaign gave Minneapolis its highest-possible score in 2022.

2020 census and 2021 estimates

According to the 2020 U.S. census, the population of Minneapolis was 429,954. Hispanic or Latino comprised 44,513 (10.4 percent). Among those not Hispanic or Latino, 249,581 (58.0 percent) were White alone (62.7 percent White alone or in combination), 81,088 (18.9 percent) were Black or African American alone (21.3 percent Black alone or in combination), 24,929 (5.8 percent) were Asian alone, 7,433 (1.2 percent) were American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 25,387 (0.6 percent) some other race alone, and 34,463 (5.2 percent) were multiracial.

According to the 2021 ACS, the most common ancestries were German (22.9 percent), Irish (10.8 percent), Norwegian (8.9 percent), Subsaharan African (6.7 percent), and Swedish (6.1 percent). U.S. veterans made up 3.2 percent of the population. Among those five years and older, 81.2 percent spoke only English at home, while 7.1 percent spoke Spanish and 11.7 percent spoke other languages, including large numbers of Somali and Hmong speakers. Those born abroad made up 13.7 percent of the population, 53.2 percent of whom are naturalized U.S. citizens. The most common regions from which immigrants arrived were Africa (40.6 percent), Asia (24.6 percent), and Latin America (25.2 percent). Foreign born residents who arrived in 2010 or earlier were 34.6 percent of those.

The 2021 ACS found the median household income in Minneapolis was $69,397. For families it was $97,670, married couples $123,693, and non-family households $54,083. The census found that 15.0 percent lived in poverty. Residents who had obtained a bachelor's degree or higher made up 53.6 percent of the population, and 92.1 percent had at least a high school degree. The median gross rent in Minneapolis was $1,225. The homeownership rate was 49.8 percent, much lower than the overall state rate (73.0 percent). The survey found that 92.7 percent of housing units in Minneapolis were occupied, and 43.7 percent of housing units in the city were built in 1939 or earlier.

Religion

Christ Church Lutheran is one of the city's four National Historic Landmarks.

The indigenous Dakota people believed in the Great Spirit, and were surprised that not all European settlers were religious. 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 Protestants, 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 U.S. 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 U.S. and co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, was named by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

By 1959, the Temple of Islam was located in north Minneapolis, and the Islamic Center of Minnesota was established in 1965. Somalis who live in Minneapolis are primarily Sunni Muslim. Minneapolis became the first major American city to publicly broadcast the Muslim call to prayer after March 2022, when the city council approved a resolution to allow it. 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 family from Uganda in the Twin Cities. The city has about seven Buddhist centers and meditation centers.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was headquartered in Minneapolis from about 1950 until 2001. Christ Church Lutheran in the Longfellow neighborhood was the final work in the career of Eliel Saarinen, and has an education building designed by his son Eero.

Economy

See also: Economy of Minnesota

Top 2021 Minneapolis employers

Rank		Company/Organization
1		Target Corporation
2		Hennepin Healthcare
3		Wells Fargo
4		Hennepin County
5		U.S. Bancorp
6		Ameriprise Financial
7		Xcel Energy
8		City of Minneapolis
9		RBC Wealth Management
10		Strategic Education

As of 2020, the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area was the second-largest economic center in the American Midwest behind Chicago. Early in 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. The Minneapolis Grain Exchange was founded in 1881; located near the riverfront, it is the only exchange as of 2023 for hard red spring wheat futures and options.

Along with cash requirements for the milling industry, the large amounts of capital that lumbering had accumulated stimulated the local banking industry and made Minneapolis a major financial center. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis serves Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, and parts of Wisconsin and Michigan; it has the smallest population of the twelve districts in the Federal Reserve System. Among the district's responsibilities are to supervise and examine member banks, examine financial institutions, lend to depository institutions, distribute currency and coin, clear checks, operate Fedwire, and serve as a bank for the US Treasury.

Minneapolis area employment is primarily in trade, transportation, utilities, education, health services, and professional and business services. Smaller numbers of residents are employed in manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, mining, logging, and construction.

Top 2022 publicly traded Minneapolis companies

Minneapolis rank		Corporation		US rank		Revenue (in millions)
1		Target Corporation		32		$106,005
2		U.S. Bancorp		150		$23,714
3		Ameriprise Financial		277		$13,443
4		Xcel Energy		278		$13,431
5		Thrivent		351		$103,127

In 2022, the Twin Cities metropolitan area tied with Boston as having the eighth-highest concentration of major corporate headquarters in the U.S. Five Fortune 500 corporations were headquartered within the city limits of Minneapolis: Target Corporation, U.S. Bancorp, Ameriprise Financial, Xcel Energy, and Thrivent. Other companies with offices or headquarters in Minneapolis include Accenture, Bellisio Foods, Canadian Pacific, Coloplast, RBC and Voya Financial.

Arts and culture

Visual arts

Main article: Arts in Minneapolis

The Minneapolis Institute of Art contains 90,000 objects spanning 20,000 years.

Walker Art Center is located at the summit of Lowry Hill near downtown. The center's size doubled in 2005 with an addition by Herzog & de Meuron, and expanded with a four-acre (1.6 ha) park that was designed by Michel Desvigne and is located across the street from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

Minneapolis Institute of Art, which is known as Mia since its 100th anniversary and is located in south-central Minneapolis, was designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1915; Mia 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 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

Main article: List of theaters in Minnesota

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 the Metropolitan Opera House, which opened in 1894. As of 2020, 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. Minneapolis purchased and renovated the Orpheum, State, and Pantages Theatres, vaudeville and film houses on Hennepin Avenue 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 represents more than 20 performing arts groups.

Music

Main article: Music of Minnesota

Recording artist Prince studied at Minnesota Dance Theatre through Minneapolis Public Schools.

Minnesota Orchestra plays classical and popular music at Orchestra Hall under Thomas Søndergård, the music director effective with the 2023–2024 season. The orchestra won a 2014 Grammy for their recording of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4 by Sibelius, and a 2004 Grammy for composer Dominick Argento with their recording of Casa Guidi.

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Prince was born in Minneapolis and lived in the area most of his life. Prince was a musical prodigy, enriched by a music program at The Way Community Center. 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 several 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 U.S. alternative rock boom during the 1980s. Underground Minnesota hip hop acts such as Atmosphere feature the city and Minnesota in their song lyrics. Minneapolis's opera companies are Minnesota Opera, Mill City Summer Opera, the Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, and Really Spicy Opera.

Black Lives Matter mural organized by the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery

Historical museums

Exhibits at Mill City Museum feature the city's history of flour milling, and Minnehaha Depot was built in 1875. The American Swedish Institute 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. 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. As of 2022, Alight helps 2.5 million refugees and displaced persons each year in developing countries in Africa and Asia. Catholic Charities 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 percent of the population volunteering, had the highest proportion of volunteers among U.S. cities.

Literary arts

The nonprofit literary presses Coffee House Press, Milkweed Editions, and Graywolf Press are based in Minneapolis. The University of Minnesota Press publishes books, journals, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The Open Book facility houses the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and The Loft Literary Center.

Cuisine

See also: Cuisine of the Midwestern United States § Minneapolis and Saint Paul

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 U.S. is on the north side of Minneapolis, where as of mid-2017, 70,000 people had access to only two grocery stores. When Aldi closed in 2023, the area again became a food desert with two full-service grocers. The nonprofit Appetite for Change sought to improve the diet of residents, competing against an influx of fast-food stores, and by 2017 it administered ten gardens, sold produce in the mid-year months at West Broadway Farmers Market, supplied its restaurants, and gave away boxes of fresh produce.

Minneapolis-based individuals who have won the food industry James Beard Foundation Award include chef Gavin Kaysen, writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, television personality Andrew Zimmern, and chef Sean Sherman, whose restaurant Owamni received James Beard's 2022 best new restaurant award. Kaysen and others on Team USA won a silver medal in the 2015 Bocuse d'Or.

Both purported originators of the Jucy Lucy burger—the 5-8 Club and Matt's Bar—have served it since the 1950s. The Herbivorous Butcher opened in 2016; the shop offers natural alternatives to meat that were described by CBS News as "meat-free meat" from the "first vegan 'butcher' shop in the United States". East African cuisine arrived in Minneapolis with the wave of migrants from Somalia that started in the 1990s.

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 22-mile (35-kilometer) cross-country ski race; and the Saint Paul Winter Carnival. The annual MayDay Parade is held on Bloomington Avenue. 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 2,300-mile (3,700 km) migration; and the Twin Cities Marathon in October.

Libraries

The Minneapolis Public Library, founded by T. B. Walker in 1885, merged with the Hennepin County Library system in 2008. Fifteen branches of the Hennepin County Library serve Minneapolis. The downtown Central Library, designed by César Pelli, opened in 2006. Seven special collections hold resources for researchers.

Sports

Main articles: Sports in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and Sports in Minnesota

Target Center

Target Field

U.S. Bank Stadium

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 (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 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), winning four WNBA championships from 2011 to 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 Gophers' college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The Gophers football team plays at Huntington Bank Stadium and have won seven national championships. The Gophers women's ice hockey team is a six-time NCAA champion. The Gophers men's ice hockey team plays at 3M Arena at Mariucci, and won five NCAA national championships. Both the Golden Gophers men's basketball and women's basketball teams play at Williams Arena.

The 1,750,000-square-foot (163,000-square-meter) 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, and the WNBA All-Star Game.

Minnesota Wild, an National Hockey League 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 the 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 is a Boston Marathon qualifier.

Parks and recreation

Main article: Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

In his book The American City: What Works, What Doesn't, Alexander Garvin wrote Minneapolis built "the best-located, best-financed, best-designed, and best-maintained public open space in America".

Minnehaha Falls after significant rainfall. Established in 1889, Minnehaha Park was one of the first state parks in the United States.

Minnehaha Falls, within Minnehaha Park; established in 1889, it was one of the first state parks in the United States. The city's parks are governed and operated by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, an independent park district. Foresight, donations, and effort by community leaders enabled Horace Cleveland 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 51-mile (82 km) route of the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Theodore Wirth 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 one-half mile (0.8 km) of a park.

Parks are interlinked in many places, and the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area connects regional parks and visitor centers. The five-mile (8 km), hiking-only Winchell Trail runs along the Mississippi River, and offers views of and access to the Mississippi Gorge and a rustic hiking experience.

Minnehaha Park contains the 53-foot (16 m) waterfall Minnehaha Falls. 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, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall.

Minneapolis's climate provides opportunities for winter activities such as ice fishing, snowshoeing, ice skating, cross-country skiing, and sledding at many parks and lakes between December and March. When there is sufficient snowfall or in the presence of snowmaking, a partnership between the park board and Loppet Foundation provides for the grooming of 20 miles (32 km) 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 rinks in winter and the city's Lake Nokomis is host to the annual U.S. Pond Hockey Championships.

Government

Main articles: Minneapolis City Council, Government of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Police Department, Timeline of race relations and policing in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, and 2021 Minneapolis Question 2

Built between 1887 and 1906, Minneapolis City Hall (seen from The People's Plaza) is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Minneapolis is 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. The city adopted instant-runoff voting in 2006, first using it in the 2009 elections. DFL council member Jacob Frey was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 2017, and was re-elected in 2021. The Park and Recreation Board is an independent city department with nine elected commissioners. The board levies its own taxes subject to city charter limits. Also an independent department, the Board of Estimation and Taxation oversees city levies.

Representing the city's 13 wards, the Minneapolis City Council is progressive with 12 DFL council members and one from the Democratic Socialists of America. Andrea Jenkins was unanimously chosen as president of the city council in 2022. In 2022, the council has seven political newcomers and for the first time had a majority of non-White council members.

The city council approves the mayor's budget making amendments as needed. The city's primary source of funding is a property tax. As of 2023, sales (and local use tax for out-of-state purchases) charged within the city totals 8.03 percent, a combination of state, county, special district, and a city sales tax of 0.50 percent.

In 2021, a ballot question shifted more power from the city council to the mayor, a change that proponents had tried to achieve since the early 20th century. 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.

Police guard the third precinct the day before it was burned down during the George Floyd protests.

In 2021, the U.S. Justice Department began to investigate the city's policing practices, and in 2022, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights completed its two-year investigation of the police department that found a "pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act", The 2023 city budget planned for one negotiated consent decree, and the statutory minimum of 731 officers in the police department which was 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 investigation found that killings surged when a "hands-off" attitude resulted in fewer officer-initiated encounters. As of July 2022, violent crime rose three percent across Minneapolis compared with 2021, and in 2020, it rose 21 percent.

Violent crime was down for 2022 in every category except assaults. Carjackings, gunshots fired, gunshot wounds, and robberies decreased, and homicides were down 20 percent compared to the previous year.

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's 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.

At the federal level, Minneapolis is within Minnesota's 5th congressional district, which since 2018 has been represented by Democrat Ilhan Omar. Minnesota's U.S. Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, were elected or appointed while living in Minneapolis, and are also Democrats.

Education

Primary and secondary education

Minneapolis Public Schools serves 28,689 students as of October 2022, in more than fifty schools, divided between community and magnet. As of 2023, enrollment is declining about 1.5 percent per year, and approximately 60 percent of school age children attend district schools. Many students enrolled in alternatives such as charter schools, of which the city has thirty as of 2023. By state law, charter schools are open to all students and are tuition free. In 2022, about 1200 at-risk students attended district Contract Alternative Schools.

The public school district adopted a comprehensive district design beginning with the 2020–2021 school year to address academics, equity, financial sustainability, and to end disadvantages for students of color and students from low-income neighborhoods. The design changed student placement, changed the boundaries for almost all schools, moved magnet schools to central locations and narrowed the magnet types, standardized many start times to improve bus service, and gave every student a community elementary and middle school in their neighborhood. Students may attend a community school by request, and be accepted to the school in their neighborhood. Students enter a lottery to be enrolled in a magnet school. School district demographics differ from the city's. White students make up 41 percent, Black students 35 percent, Hispanic 14 percent, and 5 percent each are Asian and Native American. Students qualifying for free or reduced lunches number 48 percent, and English-language learners are about 17 percent, in a district that speaks 100 languages at home. About 15 percent are special education students. In 2020, the district's drop out rate decreased to 3.7 percent and its graduation rate was 74.24 percent.

Colleges and universities

See also: Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system

University of Minnesota teaching art museum, teaching hospital, and student union (left to right)

The main campus of the University of Minnesota is in Minneapolis; with more than 50,000 students, in 2023 it is the sixth largest campus in the US by enrollment. College rankings for 2023 place the school in a range of 44th to 185th (2021) for academics worldwide. QS found a decline over a decade. Shanghai finds excellence in ecology, business management, library & information science, and biotechnology. The university has unusual autonomy—regents are in control, independent of city government—that has existed in Minnesota since 1851, when the provision was included in the state constitution.

Augsburg University, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and North Central University are private four-year colleges; the first two also offer master's programs. The public two-year Minneapolis Community and Technical College and the private Dunwoody College of Technology provide career training and associate degrees and the latter also offers a bachelor's program. Saint Mary's University of Minnesota has a Twin Cities campus for its graduate and professional programs. Opening a new Minneapolis site in 2023, Red Lake Nation College is a federally recognized tribal college site that teaches Ojibwe culture. The large, principally online universities Capella University and Walden University 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.

The city has more than twenty-five licensed career schools that offer short term training, some diplomas and certificates in a wide variety of fields including business, yoga, pilates, portfolio development, CompTIA certification, floral design, cosmetology, construction, healthcare, information technology, and for those who wish to become a personal trainer, ophthalmic technician, or phlebotomy technician.

Media

Main article: Media in Minneapolis–Saint Paul

Several newspapers are published in Minneapolis; Star Tribune, Finance & Commerce, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, MinnPost, and the university's The Minnesota Daily. Two magazines are published in the city, Mpls. St. Paul and Twin Cities Business. Other publications include Minnesota Women's Press, North News, Northeaster, Insight News, The Circle, Southwest Voices, The Monitor, Longfellow Nokomis Messenger, the Southwest Connector, Streets.mn, Dispatch and Racket.

In 2023, Nielsen finds the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area to be the 15th largest designated market area, down from 14th in 2022. Nielsen has 39 radio station subscribers in the Twin Cities' market. The area has 1,742,530 TV homes. TV Guide lists 151 TV channels for Minneapolis.

Krista Tippett, awarded the National Humanities Medal, produces the On Being project from her Minneapolis studio.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Main articles: Transportation in Minnesota, Metro (Minnesota), and Trails in Minneapolis

Metro Blue Line downtown at Government Plaza

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. As of 2021, 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 travels east from downtown through the University of Minnesota campus to downtown Saint Paul. A 14.5-mile (23.3 km) 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 40-mile (64 km) Northstar Commuter rail runs from Big Lake, Minnesota, to downtown Minneapolis.

The 2020 census found that the average commute to work for the Minneapolis population was 22 minutes. The most common means of transportation to work was driving alone (45.0 percent), carpooling (6.5 percent), public transit (5.6 percent), walking (4.8 percent), and bicycling (1.7 percent). However, the 2015 ACS put the proportion of workers commuting to work by bicycle in Minneapolis at 5 percent, one of the highest percentages in the nation.

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 on how to best address the problem.

BRT lines are 25 percent faster than regular bus lines because riders pay before boarding, stops are limited, and sometimes they employ signal prioritization. The newest BRT line, the D Line, runs along one of Minnesota's most used bus lines, the 18-mile (29 km) 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 was part of a national trend in falling local bus ridership. Ridership on the Metro system remained steady or grew slightly.

A cyclist in winter

About four percent of commuters cycle to work as of 2019. Minneapolis has 16 miles (26 km) of on-street protected bikeways, 98 miles (158 km) of bike lanes and 101 miles (163 km) of off-street bikeways and trails. Off-street facilities include the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway, Midtown Greenway, Little Earth Trail, Hiawatha LRT Trail, Kenilworth Trail, and Cedar Lake Trail. Seeking funding for 2023, bicycle-sharing provider Nice Ride Minnesota served 70,000 riders in 2021.

In 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi, which was overloaded with 300 short tons (270,000 kg) of repair materials, collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was rebuilt in 14 months.

The Minneapolis Skyway System, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) of enclosed pedestrian bridges called skyways, links 80 city blocks downtown with access to second-floor restaurants, retailers, government, sports facilities, doctor's offices and other businesses 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. 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

See also: COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota and COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota § Economy

Abbott Northwestern Hospital was founded in 1882.

Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Children's Minnesota, Hennepin Healthcare, M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital, M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, Minneapolis VA Medical Center, and Phillips Eye Institute serve the city.

Cardiac surgery was developed at the university's Variety Club Heart Hospital, where by 1957, more than 200 patients—most of whom were children—had survived open-heart operations. Working with surgeon C. Walton Lillehei, 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. In 2022, the Hennepin Healthcare safety net counted 626,000 in-person and 50,586 virtual clinic visits, and 87,731 emergency room visits.

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 is funded by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Services and utilities

Xcel Energy supplies electricity, CenterPoint Energy supplies gas, Lumen Technologies provides landline telephone service, and Comcast provides cable service.

Downtown Improvement District (DID) 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 that is paid for by a special downtown tax district.

Notable people

Main article: List of people from Minneapolis

Sister cities

Minneapolis's sister cities are:

• Bosaso, Somalia (2014)
• Cuernavaca, Mexico (2008)
• Eldoret, Kenya (2000)
• Harbin, China (1992)
• Ibaraki, 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
• USS Minneapolis, 4 ships (including 2 as Minneapolis-Saint Paul)

References

Works cited

Books

• Anderson, Gary Clayton (2019). Massacre in Minnesota: The Dakota War of 1862, the Most Violent Ethnic Conflict in American History. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806164342.
• Atwater, Isaac, ed. (1893). History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Vol. 1. Munsell & Company. OCLC 22047580 – via Internet Archive.

• Baldwin, Rufus J. (1893). "Early Settlement". History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. pp. 29–48.
• Chapin, N. C. (1893). "Charitable Institutions". History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. pp. 240–269.
• Atwater, Isaac (1893). "Public Buildings and Institutions". History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. pp. 270–329.

• Barlow, Philip; Silk, Mark (2004). Religion and Public Life in the Midwest: America's Common Denominator?. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 978-0-7591-0631-4.
• Blegen, Theodore Christian (1975) [1963]. Minnesota: A History of the State. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-0754-9.
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (August 15, 2019) [October 2016]. The Federal Reserve System Purposes and Functions (10th ed.). Federal Reserve System. ISBN 978-1686425318. Retrieved February 22, 2023 – via Amazon.
• Chalmers, David Mark (1987). Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke University Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-8223-0772-3. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
• Davis, Julie L. (2013). Survival Schools: The American Indian Movement and Community Education in the Twin Cities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7429-9.
• Garvin, Alexander (2013). The American City: What Works, What Doesn't (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Education. p. 75. ISBN 978-0071801621.
• Gras, Norman Scott Brien (1922). An Introduction to Economic History. Harper & Brothers. ISBN 9780598780898.
• Gray, James (1954). Business without Boundary: The Story of General Mills. University of Minnesota Press. LCCN 54-10286.
• Holmquist, June D., ed. (1981). They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 0873512316.

• Taylor, David Vassar (1981). "The Blacks". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 73–91.
• Vecoli, Rudolph J. (1981). "The Italians". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 449–471.
• Saloutos, Theodore (1981). "The Greeks". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 472–488.
• Mason, Sarah R. (1981). "The Chinese". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 531–545.
• Mason, Sarah R. (1981). "The Filipinos". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 546–557.
• Albert, Michael (1981). "The Japanese". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 558–571.
• Mason, Sarah R. (1981). "The Koreans". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 572–579.
• Mason, Sarah R. (1981). "The Indochinese". They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the States Ethnic Groups. pp. 580–592.

• Jeffrey, Kirk (2001). Machines in Our Hearts: The Cardiac Pacemaker, the Implantable Defibrillator, and American Health Care. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6579-4.
• Larson, Agnes Mathilda (2007) [1972]. The White Pine Industry in Minnesota, A History. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0816651498.
• Lass, William E. (2000). Minnesota: A History (2nd ed.). Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31971-2.
• The League of Women Voters (December 2002). Immigration in Minnesota: Challenges and Opportunities. Saint Paul: The League of Women Voters Education Fund. ISBN 9781877889332.
• The Minneapolis '76 Bicentennial Commission (1976). Minneapolis Frontiers, Firsts & Futures: A Bicentennial Commemorative Guide to the History of the City of Minneapolis. The Minneapolis '76 Bicentennial Commission. OCLC 3804178.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Millett, Larry (2007). AIA Guide to the Twin Cities: The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0-87351-540-5.
• Misa, Thomas J. (2013). Digital State: The Story of Minnesota's Computing Industry. University of Minnesota Press. doi:10.5749/minnesota/9780816683314.001.0001. ISBN 9780816688364.
• Nathanson, Iric (2010). Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century: The Growth of an American City. Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0-87351-725-6.
• Nestle, Marion; Nesheim, Malden C. (2010). Feed Your Pet Right. Free Press (Simon & Schuster). ISBN 978-1-4391-6642-0.
• Princeton Review (2014). The Complete Book of Colleges. Random House. ISBN 9780804125208.
• Stipanovich, Joseph (1982). City of Lakes: An illustrated history of Minneapolis. Windsor Publications. ISBN 9780897810487.
• Weber, Tom (2022). Minneapolis: An Urban Biography (Updated ed.). Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-1681342603.
• Wingerd, Mary Lethert (2010). North Country: The Making of Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0816648689.

Journal articles

• Blegen, Theodore C. (Autumn 1963). "With Ax and Saw: A History of Lumbering in Minnesota". Forest History Newsletter. 7 (3): 2–13. doi:10.2307/3982846.
• Danbom, David B. (2003). "Flour power: the significance of flour milling at the falls" (PDF). Minnesota History. 58 (5–6): 270–285. JSTOR 20188363. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 1, 2013.
• Delegard, Kirsten; Ehrman-Solberg, Kevin (Spring 2017). "'Playground of the People'? Mapping Racial Covenants in Twentieth-Century Minneapolis". Open Rivers: Rethinking The Mississippi (6). University of Minnesota: 72–79. doi:10.24926/2471190X.2820.
• Hatle, Elizabeth Dorsey; Vaillancourt, Nancy M. (Winter 2009–2010). "One Flag, One School, One Language: Minnesota's Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s" (PDF). Minnesota History. 61 (8): 360–371. JSTOR 40543955. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
• Hispanic Advocacy and Community Empowerment through Research (HACER) (June 1998). "Realidades Latinas: Una Comunidad Vibrante Emerge en el Sur de Minneapolis". HACER. Retrieved March 27, 2023 – via University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy.
• Ladd-Taylor, Molly (Summer 2005). "Coping with a 'Public Menace': Eugenic Sterilization in Minnesota" (PDF). Minnesota History. 59 (6): 237–248. JSTOR 20188483. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 10, 2021. Retrieved March 5, 2023.
• Mitchell, Tania D. (Spring 2022). "In the Wake of Multiple Pandemics". Liberal Education. Vol. 108, no. 2. American Association of Colleges and Universities. pp. 42–47. Retrieved March 12, 2023.
• Peel, M. C.; Finlayson, B. L.; McMahon, T. A. (October 2007). "Updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification". Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 11 (5): 1633–1644. Bibcode:2007HESS...11.1633P. doi:10.5194/hess-11-1633-2007.
• Reichard, Gary W. (Summer 1998). "Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey" (PDF). Minnesota History. 56 (2): 50–67. JSTOR 20188091. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
• Soper, E. K. (1915). "The Buried Rock Surface and Pre-Glacial River Valleys of Minneapolis and Vicinity". The Journal of Geology. 23 (5): 444–460. Bibcode:1915JG.....23..444S. doi:10.1086/622258.
• Walker, Rebecca H.; Ramer, Hannah; Derickson, Kate D.; Keeler, Bonnie L. (2023). "Making the City of Lakes: Whiteness, Nature, and Urban Development in Minneapolis". Annals of the American Association of Geographers: 1–15. doi:10.1080/24694452.2022.2155606.
• Watts, Alison (Summer 2000). "The technology that launched a city: scientific and technological innovations in flour milling during the 1870s in Minneapolis" (PDF). Minnesota History. 57 (2). JSTOR 20188202. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 1, 2013. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
• Weber, Laura E. (Spring 1991). "'Gentiles Preferred': Minneapolis Jews and Employment 1920–1950" (PDF). Minnesota History. 52 (5): 166–182. JSTOR 20179243. Retrieved March 5, 2023.

Further reading

• Ellis, Justin (June 9, 2020). "Minneapolis Had This Coming". The Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group.
• Lindeke, Bill (February 24, 2015). "About that 'Miracle'". Twin Cities Daily Planet. Archived from the original on February 25, 2015.
• Richards, Hanje (2002). Minneapolis-Saint Paul Then and Now. Thunder Bay Press. ISBN 978-1-57145-687-8.

External links

• Official website
• "Minneapolis Past" — documentary produced by Twin Cities Public Television.