Biohazard Cleanup Near First Settlement Madison, WI

Madison is the capital of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County, founded in 1836 and named after American founding father and President James Madison.

Madison had a population of 269,840 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Wisconsin after Milwaukee, and it was the fastest-growing city in the state over the 2010s.

Madison has about 128,000 households according to Census Bureau QuickFacts figures, and only about 46% of its homes are owner-occupied, a reflection of its large student and renter population.

Madison is built on a narrow isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, making it one of only two cities in North America situated on an isthmus, the other being Seattle.

Madison anchors the Yahara chain of five lakes — Mendota, Monona, Wingra, Waubesa and Kegonsa — and is nicknamed the City of Four Lakes.

Madison was incorporated as a village in 1846 with just 626 residents and as a city in 1856, and it remained Wisconsin's capital when the state entered the Union in 1848.

The Wisconsin State Capitol stands at the highest point of the Madison isthmus, and the current granite Beaux-Arts building, designed by George B. Post, was completed in 1917.

Madison became home to the University of Wisconsin — now the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the state's flagship public university — in 1849, the year after statehood.

Monona Terrace, Madison's convention center on Lake Monona, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1938 but was not completed and opened until 1997, nearly six decades later.

The Dane County Farmers' Market, held around Capitol Square, is the largest producers-only farmers' market in the United States.