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Capital of Colorado · City and County of Denver · capital since 1867 · 39.7°N 105.0°W

Denver, Colorado

Denver, the Mile High City, is the capital and largest city of Colorado. It has held the capital since 1867, when it replaced Golden as seat of the territorial government.

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Denver lies where the Great Plains meet the Front Range of the Rockies in north-central Colorado. Press Major cities to see Colorado Springs to the south.

Where Denver is

Denver is a consolidated city and county at 39.74°N, 104.99°W, on the western edge of the Great Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The city grew up in 1858 around the junction of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. A step on the west side of the State Capitol is set at exactly 5,280 ft above sea level, the source of the Mile High name. The foothills begin about 15 miles west, and the Continental Divide is roughly 50 miles away.

How it became the capital

Colorado Territory was created in 1861. Its first legislature met in Denver, then named Colorado City (now part of Colorado Springs) as capital in 1862, then moved to Golden the same year. Denver, the largest town and the hub of the mining trade, recovered the capital in 1867 and kept it when Colorado became the 38th state in 1876. The name Centennial State refers to that year, the hundredth anniversary of independence.

Population

Denver had 715,522 people in 2020, the largest city in Colorado and the 19th-largest in the United States. Colorado Springs (478,961) and Aurora, which adjoins Denver on the east, come next. The ten-county Denver metropolitan area has about 2.96 million people, a little over half of the state's 5,773,714. The larger Front Range corridor from Fort Collins to Pueblo holds about four-fifths of all Coloradans.

The capitol

The Colorado State Capitol was designed by Elijah E. Myers, who also drew the Texas and Michigan capitols, and was occupied in 1894 after eight years of construction. It is built of Colorado white granite with a dome that was covered in gold leaf in 1908 to mark the state's gold rush; the gilding has been renewed several times, most recently in 2013. The interior uses Colorado rose onyx, a stone so rare that the building used the entire known supply.

Distances to other cities

CityDirectionRoad distance
Colorado Springs, COsouthabout 70 mi
Cheyenne, WYnorthabout 100 mi
Salt Lake City, UTwestabout 520 mi

Denver is on Mountain Time, as is all of Colorado.

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