The town of Denver is the capital of the State Colorado, with the the United States.

Located in the plain at about thirty kilometers of the Rocky Mountains, Denver counts: 557917 inhabitants (estimate 2005), and: 2640434 inhabitants with his agglomeration. It is called the mile-high city (the city with one mile (approximately 1  600  m) of altitude). Its capitole, whose dome is covered with gold sheets, has a commemorative plaque indicating the mythical height.

Denver has a male frankness professional from Hockey, the Avalanche of the Colorado, which moved Quebec in 1995.

Denver has two downtown areas, side by side: the first, similar to those of the other American cities, called Downtown consists of many skyscrapers. Nevertheless, the principal artery of this center ( 16th Street ) is pedestrian. A second downtown area, dating from the 19th century, exists around the station of the Union built shortly after the Gold rush which began in the area. This Lower Downtown or LoDo kept its seal of time and consists of buildings of three or four stages.

Denver gained the organization of the Winter Olympics of 1976, but a finance law was rejected shortly after by the voters. The International Olympic committee had to find in catastrophe another city (Innsbruck) to replace it.

The State of Colorado chose George W. Bush in 2004, but the large majority of the inhabitants of Denver preferred John Kerry.

History

The Indian tribes Cheyenne and Arapaho occupied the area during centuries.

The city began its rise in 1858, when gold was discovered in the surroundings of Denver. She knew then a formidable growth: as of 1859, it counted 50  000 inhabitants. To its beginnings, Denver belonged to the territory of Kansas. The city was baptized besides in the honor of its governor, James W. Denver. Then, the November 7th 1861, the city was integrated into the territory of Colorado. The city does not cease developing and becomes even one of most modern of the Western American: in 1900, it gathers already 100  000 inhabitants, who have of electricity, the Tramway and the Téléphone.

During the Second world war, its distance of the borders and coasts was worth to him to take part in the mobilization of the country. It accommodated an immense factory of ammunition with Lakewood, the Denver Ordnance Plant. After the war these buildings were transformed to accommodate Denver Federal Center, which makes of Denver the second city of the United States for the number of federal civils servant employed. One of the principal organizations is American Geological Institute.

Denver was had a presentiment of to organize the Olympic Games of 1976, to commemorate the centenary of its integration to the union. But they took place finally with Innsbruck, in Austria.

Denver was also an important place for the " Happy generation ". Neal Cassady passed its childhood to Denver, and part of the work of Jack Kerouac ( One the Road ) proceeds in this city. The poet Allen Ginsberg resided at Lakewood, and contributed to found the Buddhist college of Naropa University.

Culture

Located in a semi-desert area, Denver offers today the image of a city thrives whose recent development was accompanied by a spectacular transformation of the urban landscape. Emerged in less than fifteen years, the forest of skyscraper which dominates the Exchange Business District deeply modified the aspect of the downtown area. Denver astonishes today by the opulence which emerges from its many green areas, its fountains and its green residential districts, with the many private swimming pools. Water necessary to such a transformation of the natural environment is conveyed by tunnel since the Western slope of the Rock ones. In parallel, the degraded central districts, inhabited by Amerindians and the Hispanic ones, were the subject of a policy of restoration.

Denver counts several establishments of higher education among which the university methodist of Denver (1864), the university of State of Colorado (1912) or the Regis university (1877). The museum of Art of Denver exposes more than eight thousand objets d'art Amerindian. The most interesting monuments are the Zion church, which is the oldest church Baptist Afro-American of Colorado, as well as the capitole of State, granite building of Corinthian style builds between 1887 and 1895.

Urban landscape

Three skyscrapers exceed 200 m height: * Republic Plaza: 217,6 m - 56 stages - completed in 1983.
  • 1801 California: 216,1 m - 53 stages - completed in 1982.
  • Wells Fargo Center: 212,8 m - 52 stages - completed in 1983.

Economy

Denver is today the only big city of the mid-west of the United States. This central role is worth to him to accommodate the regional seat of many governmental offices and to be thus the relay of the federal administrations for the Great American West. This situation makes of Denver the urban, commercial center and the most important financier of the area of the Rock ones. It is also, in contact with the Grandes Plains and of the highlands of the West, a great center of communications, at the same time railway and air.

The quality of transport supported a recent and diversified industrialization. The main activities are heavy industries (Sidérurgie, oil refinery), the industry of the rubber, the mechanical engineering and the agroalimentary one. These activities extend until Boulder, which constitutes a Technopole specialized in the energy field. In an area having the near total of the American reserves of Uranium, half of the coal, as well as important gas reserves naturalness and of oil, Denver is today one of the American capital of energy.

Tourism (development of the winter sports), intensive irrigated agriculture and breeding (fattening) come to supplement the very diversified panoply of the activities of Denver. Located, thanks to the Irrigation, in the middle of an agricultural rich person area, the city is equipped with one of the largest markets to the sheep of the world and with one of the largest markets of bovines of the United States.

Transport

  • International airport of Denver: the international airport of Stapleton was replaced in 1995 by final Jepessen but does everyone of it uses the name of DIA (Denver International Airport).

It is the sixth American airport in term of passenger traffic and eleventh on a world level. DIA is the American airport most modern and it is also the largest airport of the world in term of surface (136 km ²). Its capacity is designed to accommodate 120 million passengers per annum. Its Teflon roof represents the snow-covered summits of the Rock ones.

Sports

Archbishop's palace

  • Archdiocese of Denver
  • Basilica-cathedral of the Immaculate-Design of Denver

Twinnings

Related articles

  • List of the mayors of Denver

External bonds

  • Principles of Denver: declaration founder of the coalition of the people reached of the AIDS (1985)
  • “Denver: The cycle paradise”, in international Mail of the 10/12/2006,

Simple: Denver, Colorado

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