Welcome
tion as a center for liberal politics. During
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of
Michigan and the county seat of Washt-
enaw County. It is the state’s seventh larg-
est city with a population of 114,024 as of
the 2000 Census, of which 36,892 (32%)
are university or college students. The city,
which is part of the Detroit-Ann Arbor-
Flint, MI CSA, is named after the spouses
of the city’s founders and for the stands of
trees in the area.
Visit Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor was founded in January 1824
by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey, both of
whom were land speculators. On May 25,
1824, the town plot was registered with
Wayne County as “Annarbour”. The city
became the seat of Washtenaw County in
1827, and was incorporated as a village in
1833. The town became a regional trans-
portation hub in 1839 with the arrival of
the Michigan Central Railroad, and was
chartered as a city in 1851. During the
1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputa-
well as urban sprawl stretching far into the
the 20th century, the economy of Ann Arbor
underwent a gradual shift from a manu-
facturing base to a service and technology
base, which accelerated in the 1970s and
1980s.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor is home to the University of
Michigan, established in 1837. As the domi-
nant institution of higher learning in the
city and one of the top public universities
in the world, the university provides Ann
Arbor with a distinct college-town atmo-
sphere. The university shapes Ann Arbor’s
economy significantly as it employs about
30,000 workers, including about 7,500
in the medical center. The city’s economy
is also centered on high-technology, with
several companies drawn to the area by
the university’s research and development
money, and by its graduates. On the other
hand, Ann Arbor has increasingly found
itself grappling with the effects of sharply
rising land values and gentrification, as
outlying countryside.
Local Attractions
Many Ann Arbor cultural attractions and
events are sponsored by the University of
Michigan. Several performing arts groups
and facilities are on the university’s cam-
pus, as are museums dedicated to art, ar-
chaeology, and natural history and sciences
(see Museums at the University of Michi-
gan). Regional and local performing arts
groups not associated with the university
include the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre; the
Arbor Opera Theater; the Ann Arbor Sym-
phony Orchestra; the Ann Arbor Ballet The-
ater; the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established
in 1954 as Michigan’s first chartered ballet
company); and Performance Network, which
operates a downtown theater frequently of-
fering new or nontraditional plays.The Ann
Arbor Hands-On Museum, located in a ren-
ovated and expanded historic downtown fire
station, contains more than 250 interactive
exhibits featuring science and technology.
Multiple art galleries exist in the city, nota-
bly in the downtown area and around the
University of Michigan campus. Aside from
a large restaurant scene in the Main Street,
South State Street, and South University
Avenue areas, Ann Arbor ranks first among
U.S. cities in the number of booksellers and
books sold per capita. The Ann Arbor Dis-
trict Library maintains four branch outlets
in addition to its main downtown building;
in 2008 a new branch building replaced the
branch located in Plymouth Mall. This new
branch is called the Traverwood Branch,
and opened on June 30, 2008. The city is
also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presiden-
tial Library.
less commonly, Tree Town. Recently, some
youths have taken to calling Ann Arbor Ace
Deuce or simply The Deuce. With tongue-
in-cheek reference to the city’s liberal
political leanings, some occasionally refer
to Ann Arbor as The People’s Republic of
Ann Arbor or 25 square miles surrounded
by reality, the latter phrase being adapted
from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus’s de-
scription of Madison, Wisconsin. Ann Arbor
sometimes appears on citation indexes as
an author, instead of a location, often with
the academic degree MI, a misunderstand-
ing of the abbreviation for Michigan.

Events

Several annual events – many of them

centered on performing and visual arts –
draw visitors to Ann Arbor. One such event Customer Service Center
is the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, a set of four (Located diagonally across the street from City Hall)
concurrent juried fairs held on downtown
streets, which began in 1960. Scheduled City Center Building, 1st Floor
on Wednesday through Saturday in the 220 East Huron
third week of July, the fairs draw upward Ann Arbor, MI 48104
of half a million visitors. One event that is
not related to visual and performing arts (734) 994-2700
is Hash Bash, held on the first Saturday of Fax: (734) 994-1765
April, ostensibly in support of the reform E-mail: customerservice@a2gov.org
of marijuana laws. It has been celebrated
since 1971.

FunFacts

A person from Ann Arbor is called an “Ann

Arborite”, and many long-time residents call
themselves “townies”. The city itself is often
called A² (“A-squared”) or A2 (“A two”), and,