Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. Located on the east bank of the Missouri River, it sits across from Omaha, Nebraska. The city had a population of 62,799 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth-most populous city in Iowa and the largest in Southwest Iowa. Council Bluffs is also a principal city in the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area.

Until about 1853, Council Bluffs was known as Kanesville. Kanesville was the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail. Kanesville is also the northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trails because there was a steam-powered boat which ferried the settlers' wagons and cattle across the Missouri River. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad to California was connected to the existing U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs.

The first Council Bluff (which is singular) was on the Nebraska side of the river at Fort Atkinson, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the city of Council Bluffs. It was named by Lewis and Clark for a bluff where they met the Otoe people on August 2, 1804.

The Iowa side of the river became an Indian Reservation in the 1830s for members of the Council of Three Fires of Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi who were forced to leave the Chicago area under the Treaty of Chicago. This cleared the way for the city of Chicago to incorporate.

The largest group of Native Americans who moved to the area were the Pottawatomi, who were led by their chief Sauganash ("one who speaks English"), the son of British loyalist William Caldwell and a Pottawatomi woman. The senior Caldwell founded Canadian communities on the south side of the Detroit River.

Seeking to avoid confrontation with the Sioux, who were natives of the Council Bluffs area, the 1,000 to 2,000 Pottawattami initially had settled east of the Missouri River in Indian territory between Leavenworth, Kansas and St. Joseph, Missouri. When the area was bought from Ioway, Sac and Fox tribes in the Platte Purchase and part of Missouri in 1837, Sauganash and the Pottawatomi were forced to move to their assigned reservation in Council Bluffs.

Sauganash's English name was Billy Caldwell, and his village was called Caldwell's Camp. The tribe were sometimes called the Bluff Indians. U.S. Army dragoons built a small fort nearby.

In 1838–39, the missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet founded St. Joseph's Mission to minister to the Potawatomi. De Smet was appalled by the violence and brutality caused by the whiskey trade and tried to protect the tribe from unscrupulous traders. However, he had little success in persuading tribal members to convert to Christianity and resorted to secret baptisms of Indian children.