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Ames was founded in 1864 as a station stop on the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad and was named for Oakes Ames, the Massachusetts congressman who championed construction of the transcontinental railroad.

The city of Ames was incorporated on December 20, 1869, in Story County, about 30 miles north of Des Moines in central Iowa.

Ames is home to Iowa State University, founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm — six years before the city itself existed.

Iowa State became one of the nation's first land-grant institutions when the Iowa Legislature accepted the terms of the Morrill Act on September 11, 1862.

Iowa State University was coeducational from its very first class, admitted in 1868, and its first graduating class in 1872 included two women among 26 graduates.

With about 30,000 students enrolled, Iowa State's student body makes up roughly half of Ames' entire population.

Ames had 66,427 residents in the 2020 census, making it Iowa's ninth most populous city, spread across about 25,579 households.

Because of the university, Ames is one of the youngest cities in Iowa, with a median age of just 23.3 years.

Iowa State's campus covers more than 1,800 acres in the middle of Ames and is known for its landscaped central campus and one of the largest university art collections in the country displayed across campus grounds.

Ames covers about 24.3 square miles in Story County, which takes its name from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story.