Iowa City, Iowa

Iowa City is the largest city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. At the time of the 2020 census, the population was 74,828, making it the state's fifth-most populous city. The Iowa City metropolitan area, which encompasses Johnson and Washington counties, has a population of over 171,000. The metro area is also a part of a combined statistical area with the Cedar Rapids metro area known as the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids region; collectively, this region has a population of nearly 500,000.

Iowa City is the home of the University of Iowa. It was the second capital of the Iowa Territory and the first capital city of the State of Iowa; the Old Capitol building is a National Historic Landmark in the center of the University of Iowa campus. The University of Iowa Art Museum and Plum Grove, the home of the first governor of Iowa, are also tourist attractions.

Iowa City was created by an act of Legislative Assembly of the Iowa Territory on January 21, 1839, fulfilling the desire of Governor Robert Lucas to move the capital out of Burlington and closer to the center of the territory. This act began:

An Act to locate the Seat of Government of the Territory of Iowa ... so soon as the place shall be selected, and the consent of the United States obtained, the commissioners shall proceed to lay out a town to be called "Iowa City".

Commissioners Chauncey Swan and John Ronalds met on May 1 in the small settlement of Napoleon, south of present-day Iowa City, to select a site for the new capital city. The following day the commissioners selected a site on bluffs above the Iowa River north of Napoleon, placed a stake in the center of the proposed site and began planning the new capital city. Commissioner Swan, in a report to the legislature in Burlington, described the site:

Iowa City is located on a section of land laying in the form of an amphitheater. There is an eminence on the west near the river, running parallel with it."

By June of that year, the town had been platted and surveyed from Brown St. in the north to Burlington St. in the south, and from the Iowa River eastward to Governor St.

While Iowa City was selected as the territorial capital in 1839, it did not officially become the capital city until 1841; this was after construction on the capitol building had begun. The capitol building was completed in 1842, and the last four territorial legislatures and the first six Iowa General Assemblies met there until 1857, when the state capital was moved to Des Moines.