- published: 09 Oct 2013
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Denver ( /ˈdɛnvər/) (Arapaho: Niinéniiniicíihéhe' ) is the largest city and the capital of the U.S. state of Colorado. As Denver County, it is the second most populous county in Colorado after El Paso County, which surpassed Denver County as of the 2010 Census. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Denver downtown district is located immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River, approximately 12 miles (19 km) east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Denver is nicknamed the Mile-High City because its official elevation is exactly one mile (1.6 km) or 5,280 feet (1,609.344 m) above sea level, which is defined by the elevation of the spot of a benchmark on the steps of the State Capital building. The elevation of the entire city ranges from 5,130 to 5,680 feet. The 105th meridian west of Greenwich passes through Union Station and is the temporal reference for the Mountain Time Zone.
Colorado (i/kɒləˈrædoʊ/ or /kɒləˈrɒdoʊ/) is the US state that encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, and the Mountain States. Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 22nd most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,116,796 on July 1, 2011, an increase of +1.74% since the 2010 United States Census.
The state was named for the Colorado River, which early Spanish explorers named the Río Colorado for the red colored (Spanish: colorado) silt the river carried from the mountains. On August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado as the 38th state. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because it was admitted to the Union in 1876, the centennial year of the United States Declaration of Independence.