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Ely is a city in Linn County in eastern Iowa, part of the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area, sitting in the fast-growing corridor between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

Ely was laid out on June 5, 1872, by surveyor T. M. Johnson under the proprietorship of Dr. John F. Ely, a Linn County pioneer and an officer of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway, for whom the town is named.

Ely grew up at the site of the older Hoosier Grove settlement, and its post office was established on April 20, 1871, a year before the town itself was platted.

Ely did not incorporate until August 12, 1903, when George L. Kent became its first mayor.

Ely has a strong Czech ethnic identity — both the town and the surrounding farming community were heavily settled by Czech immigrants, a heritage preserved today by the Ely Community History Society.

The Dows Street Historic District, Ely's small downtown of late-Victorian wood-frame buildings including the historic Ely Elevator, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since November 14, 2003.

The Ely School House, a Tudor Revival building erected in 1923, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 and now serves as the Ely Community Center, housing city offices and the local history center.

For most of the 20th century Ely was a tiny farm town of a few hundred people, but suburban growth transformed it — its population jumped 122 percent in the 1990s, from 517 in 1990 to 1,149 in 2000.

The 2020 census counted 2,328 people in Ely, living in 829 households.

According to the city's comprehensive plan, Ely's average growth of about 2 percent a year from 2010 to 2020 was the fastest among comparable communities in the Cedar Rapids region.