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Welcome to The Midwestern Connection - Minnesota - Minneapolis

Minneapolis is the largest city in Minnesota and the county seat of Hennepin County. It adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital and second-largest city. Together they form the core of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, the 15th-largest agglomeration in the country (and roughly 65th-largest in the world), with over 3,000,000 residents. In the 2000 census, the city itself had a total population of 382,618, making it the 47th-largest city in the United States. However, in the Census' 2004 estimates, that number had decreased to 373,943, putting it in 49th place, between Honolulu and Colorado Springs. If the two core cities themselves were combined together in the census, the resulting "city" would rank 18th, just between Memphis, Tennessee and Baltimore, Maryland. People living in Minneapolis are called Minneapolitans.

The city is in the southeast portion of the state and sits along the Mississippi River. There are also 24 small lakes in the city. The abundance of lakes led Charles Hoag, an early settler and Minneapolis's first schoolmaster, to suggest a name derived from minne, the Dakota word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city. Other names considered at the time were Brooklyn and Albion. The early use of "Brooklyn" for the then-village lives on into the 21st century in the names of two suburbs north of Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. The city is also known as the "City of Lakes", a phrase that appears on many municipal vehicles and properties. The traditional postal abbreviation for the city's name is Mpls., and much old correspondence can still be found dated from "Mpls., Minn." Once a primary center of the milling industry, Minneapolis is still often known by the appellation Mill City.

Minneapolis has a long history of prominence as a center for the arts, with the Walker Art Center (opened in 1927) leading the nation in appreciation of pop and postmodern art. Adjacent to the Walker Art Center, the Guthrie Theater (opened in 1963) showcases local and international performance arts productions, and features workshops headlined by Emmy and Oscar-winning celebrities. A larger replacement to the original Guthrie is being built near the Mississippi River; the original building from 1963 is the subject of a heated preservationist debate. In the 1980s, a diverse range of musicians, including Prince, Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, the Suburbs, and Soul Asylum set the pace for the nation in pop musical innovation. This gave rise to the term "the Minneapolis sound", though the groups really shared very little in stylistic terms.

Source: Wikipedia