Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 census, it is the state's most populous city. Located in the state's center near the eastern border, it occupies both banks of the Upper Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota. Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and the surrounding area are collectively known as the Twin Cities, a metropolitan area with 3.69 million residents. Minneapolis is built on an artesian aquifer on flat terrain and is known for cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. Nicknamed the "City of Lakes", Minneapolis is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks, and waterfalls. The city's public park system is connected by the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway.

Dakota people previously inhabited the site of today's Minneapolis. European colonization and settlement began north of Fort Snelling along Saint Anthony Falls—the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi River. Location near the fort and the falls' power—with its potential for industrial activity—fostered the city's early growth. For a time in the 19th century, Minneapolis was the lumber and flour milling capital of the world, and as home to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, it has preserved its financial clout into the 21st century. A Minneapolis Depression-era labor strike brought about federal worker protections. Work in Minneapolis contributed to the computing industry, and the city is the birthplace of General Mills, the Pillsbury brand, Target Corporation, and Thermo King mobile refrigeration.

The city's major arts institutions include the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Guthrie Theater. Four professional sports teams play downtown. Musician Prince played the First Avenue nightclub. Minneapolis is home to the 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.

Residents adhere to more than fifty religions. Despite its well-regarded quality of life, Minneapolis has stark disparities among its residents—arguably the most critical issue confronting the city in the 21st century. Governed by a mayor-council system, Minneapolis has a political landscape dominated by the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), with Jacob Frey serving as mayor since 2018.

Two Indigenous nations inhabited the area now called Minneapolis. Archaeologists have evidence that since 1000 A.D., they were the Dakota (one half of the Sioux nation), and, after the 1700s, the Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa, members of the Anishinaabe nations). Dakota people have different stories to explain their creation. One widely accepted story says the Dakota emerged from Bdóte, the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. Dakota are the only inhabitants of the Minneapolis area who claimed no other land; they have no traditions of having immigrated. In 1680, cleric Louis Hennepin, who was probably the first European to see the Minneapolis waterfall the Dakota people call Owámniyomni, renamed it the Falls of St. Anthony of Padua for his patron saint.

In the space of sixty years, the US seized all of the Dakota land and forced them out of their homeland. Purchasing most of modern-day Minneapolis, Zebulon Pike made the 1805 Treaty of St. Peter with the Dakota. Pike bought a 9-square-mile (23 km²) strip of land—coinciding with the sacred place of Dakota origin—on the Mississippi south of Saint Anthony Falls, with the agreement the US would build a military fort and trading post there and the Dakota would retain their usufructuary rights. In 1819, the US Army built Fort Snelling to direct Native American trade away from British-Canadian traders and to deter war between the Dakota and Ojibwe in northern Minnesota. Under pressure from US officials in a series of treaties, the Dakota ceded their land first to the east and then to the west of the Mississippi, the river that runs through Minneapolis. Dakota leaders twice refused to sign the next treaty until they were paid for the previous one. In the decades following these treaty signings, the federal US government rarely honored their terms. At the beginning of the American Civil War, annuity payments owed in June 1862 to the Dakota by treaty were late, causing acute hunger among the Dakota. Facing starvation a faction of the Dakota declared war in August and killed settlers. Serving without any prior military experience, US commander Henry Sibley commanded raw recruits, volunteer mounted troops from Minneapolis and Saint Paul with no military experience. The war went on for six weeks in the Minnesota River valley. After a kangaroo court, 38 Dakota men were hanged. The army force-marched 1,700 non-hostile Dakota men, women, children, and elders 150 miles (240 km) to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling. Minneapolitans reportedly threatened more than once to attack the camp. In 1863, the US "abrogated and annulled" all treaties with the Dakota. With Governor Alexander Ramsey calling for their extermination, most Dakota were 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. In the Dakota language, the city's name is Bde Óta Othúŋwe ('Many Lakes Town'). Residents had divergent ideas on names for their community. 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 east bank St. Anthony lost their bid to move the capital from Saint Paul, but they 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 St. Anthony.

Minneapolis originated around a source of energy: Saint Anthony Falls, the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi. Each of the city's two founding industries—flour and lumber milling—developed in the 19th century nearly concurrently, and each came to prominence for about fifty years. In 1884, the value of Minneapolis flour milling was the world's highest. In 1899, Minneapolis outsold every other lumber market in the world. Through its expanding mill industries, Minneapolis earned the nickname "Mill City". Due to the occupational hazards of milling, six companies manufactured artificial limbs.