Top Cities in Iowa

Alan Woods

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Iowa at a Glance

In Iowa City, the whole town cheers for the University of Iowa football team. On game days, you'll find it's very quiet until the final minutes -- and then it's likely to be party time. You see, our team is good. Almost always. And University of Iowa fans are loyal, no matter what!

Iowa City is also the only UNESCO recognized "City of Literature" in the United States. It's now the fifth largest city in the state, but it served for a time as the capital, and the domed building now stands proudly on the University's campus. Protests by University students in 1970 made national news, and the city was battered by 2006 tornadoes and a 2008 flood, but emerged stronger. There is a nationally recognized medical school and teaching hospital as well as an acclaimed University writer's workshop in Iowa City.

It's not the only proud city in the state, however. Iowa State University is in Ames, and residents there are justifiably proud of the ISU football team. They are also proud of the USDA National Animal Disease Center, the largest such center in the country. Ames is home to the Iowa Department of Transportation, is the birthplace of the world's first electronic digital computer, and made the 2010 list of CNNMoney.com's Best Places to Live. It also ranks as one of the safest states.

Despite its location in the Heartland, Iowa was once part of French Louisiana, and the state flag is based on the French Tri-Color.

Although Iowa has a lot of farmland, it also has a number of large cities. The list includes Des Moines, known as a publishing, insurance and financial services center; Cedar Rapids, the manufacturing and industrial heart of the state; Davenport on the Iowa-Illinois border; Sioux City, Dubuque, Council Bluffs, and Waterloo. There's also Keokuk in the far southern corner!

Top Cities in Iowa

Why You'll Love Living in Iowa

John Wayne, Johnny Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody, President Herbert Hoover. Big Band Leader Glenn Miller, twin advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, pollster George Gallup -- you guessed it. All from Iowa.

Real people, real food, real cities and miles and miles of farmland. There's a lot to love about the Hawkeye State, including 10 national forests and 83 national parks, but it's the down home familiarity of it all that will captivate you. There's nothing glitzy about this state and it's not a tourist destination for any particular reason, but it's a good place to visit for a lot of large and small reasons. This land between the rivers, with the Mighty Mississippi on the east and the Missouri and Big Sioux River to the west, is not only in the middle of the country geographically, it is in the middle in land area as well as population.

It's the home of numerous distilleries, known for some pretty special golf courses, and attracts presidential hopefuls every four years because its caucus system is not only first in the primary voting process, but a unique example of grass roots democracy in action. It's more or less a political phenomenon, and definitely a media event.

That's the norm for this state -- doing normal things in a big, unusual way.