Des Moines is the capital and largest city of the State of Iowa and the seat of Polk County.

Des Moines is the commercial, manufacturing, and transportation center for the state. Principal manufactures include printed materials, farm equipment, processed food, and tires.

Numerous insurance companies have headquarters or regional offices in the Des Moines metropolitan area, making the region one of the nation’s leading insurance centers.

The city is served by the Des Moines Municipal Airport.

Drake University (1881), Grand View College (1896), the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences (1898), and a community college are located in Des Moines.

One of the cultural attractions is Living History Farms, featuring a working pioneer farm of the 1840s and 1900s, a reproduction of a village of the Iowa people, and a reconstructed town from about 1875.

Other cultural and recreational attractions include

• the State Capitol (1871-1884), containing a collection of military flags;
• Blank Park Zoo;
• Adventureland Park, an entertainment complex with a re-creation of an early 20th-century Iowa community; and
• the Des Moines Botanical Center, with one of the largest collections of tropical plants in the MidWest.

One of the city’s major museums is the Des Moines Art Center (1948), designed by the Finnish-born architect Eliel Saarinen and to which two wings have been added — one in 1968, designed by I. M. Pei and the other in 1985, designed by Richard Meier.

Other museums include the Science Center of Iowa, featuring a planetarium; the State Historical Building of Iowa; and Polk County Heritage Gallery.

The city’s Sherman Hill Historic District contains many turn-of-the-century buildings, including Salisbury House, a reproduction (1923-1928) of the King’s House in Salisbury, England, and Terrace Hill, a Victorian mansion (1867-1869), now the Iowa governor’s residence. The

Iowa State Fair, first held in 1878, is an annual Des Moines event.

Fur trading with Native Americans first attracted French explorers to the area that is now Des Moines.

The French named the city for the river. Its name may possibly have been derived from the Native American name for the river, moingwena (river of the mounds). The name may also have come from the French moyen (middle), because of the site’s position midway between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; or from the French des moines (monks), for the French missionaries in the area.

Fort Des Moines was built at the junction of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers by the federal government in 1843.

Two years later, when the Native Americans gave up their land rights and were moved, the area around the fort was opened to white settlers, and in 1851, the community incorporated as the town of Fort Des Moines.

The towns of East Des Moines and Fort Des Moines were subsequently merged and incorporated as Des Moines in 1857; the same year, the state capital was moved from Iowa City to Des Moines.

A major urban-renewal program was started in Des Moines in the 1950s. The city suffered extensive damage in the great floods of 1993 but recovered quickly due to flood protection measures that included the addition of flood gates, installation of back-up power systems, and raising of levees.