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Rolla is the county seat of Phelps County in the Ozark highlands of south-central Missouri, sitting midway between St. Louis and Springfield along Interstate 44 and the old Route 66 corridor.

Rolla was founded in 1858 and grew up as a railroad and lead-region town on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks.

Rolla had 19,943 residents in the 2020 census and is the center of the Rolla micropolitan area, which covers all of Phelps County.

Rolla has about 8,000 households, and only about 39% of its homes are owner-occupied — a strikingly low rate that reflects its large student renter population.

Rolla is defined by the Missouri University of Science and Technology, chartered on February 24, 1870 as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy — the first technological institution west of the Mississippi River.

The university took its current name, Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), on January 1, 2008, and is an R1 research university where most of its roughly 7,000 students study engineering, computing and the sciences.

Since 1908, Missouri S&T students have celebrated St. Patrick — declared the patron saint of engineers — with the "Best Ever" St. Pat's festival, a week of traditions including a snake invasion, a knighting ceremony and a parade down Rolla's Pine Street.

The U.S. Geological Survey runs a major regional campus in Rolla, including the National Geospatial Technical Operations Center and the Missouri Water Science Center.

The headquarters of the Mark Twain National Forest is located in Rolla, making the city the administrative gateway to Missouri's only national forest.

Rolla sits close to Missouri's lead district, which produces about 70% of the nation's primary lead supply — the mining heritage that led the state to found its school of mines here.