Welcome
established in 1837. As the dominant institution
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan
and the county seat of Washtenaw County. It is
the state’s seventh largest city with a population
of 114,024 as of the 2000 Census, of which
36,892 (32%) are university or college students.
The city, which is part of the Detroit-Ann Arbor-
Flint, MI CSA, is named after the spouses of the
city’s founders and for the stands of trees in the
area.
Visit Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor was founded in January 1824 by
John Allen and Elisha Rumsey, both of whom
were land speculators. On May 25, 1824,
the town plot was registered with Wayne
County as “Annarbour”. The city became the
seat of Washtenaw County in 1827, and was
incorporated as a village in 1833. The town
became a regional transportation hub in 1839
with the arrival of the Michigan Central Railroad,
and was chartered as a city in 1851. During the
1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation
as a center for liberal politics. During the 20th
century, the economy of Ann Arbor underwent
a gradual shift from a manufacturing base to a
service and technology base, which accelerated
in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan,
operates a downtown theater frequently offering
of higher learning in the city and one of the top
public universities in the world, the university
provides Ann Arbor with a distinct college-
town atmosphere. The university shapes Ann
Arbor’s economy significantly as it employs
about 30,000 workers, including about 7,500
in the medical center. The city’s economy is
also centered on high-technology, with several
companies drawn to the area by the university’s
research and development money, and by
its graduates. On the other hand, Ann Arbor
has increasingly found itself grappling with
the effects of sharply rising land values and
gentrification, as well as urban sprawl stretching
far into the outlying countryside.
Many Ann Arbor cultural attractions and
events are sponsored by the University of
Michigan. Several performing arts groups and
facilities are on the university’s campus, as are
museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and
natural history and sciences (see Museums
at the University of Michigan). Regional and
local performing arts groups not associated
with the university include the Ann Arbor Civic
Theatre; the Arbor Opera Theater; the Ann Arbor
Symphony Orchestra; the Ann Arbor Ballet
Theater; the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established
in 1954 as Michigan’s first chartered ballet
company); and Performance Network, which
new or nontraditional plays.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, located in
a renovated and expanded historic downtown
fire station, contains more than 250 interactive
exhibits featuring science and technology.
Multiple art galleries exist in the city, notably in
the downtown area and around the University of
Michigan campus. Aside from a large restaurant
scene in the Main Street, South State Street,
and South University Avenue areas, Ann Arbor
ranks first among U.S. cities in the number
of booksellers and books sold per capita. The
Ann Arbor District Library maintains four
branch outlets in addition to its main downtown
building; in 2008 a new branch building
replaced the branch located in Plymouth Mall.
This new branch is called the Traverwood
Branch, and opened on June 30, 2008. The city
is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential
Library.
Sunday Morning by Carl Milles in Ann Arbor
Several annual events – many of them centered
on performing and visual arts – draw visitors
to Ann Arbor. One such event is the Ann Arbor
Art Fairs, a set of four concurrent juried fairs
held on downtown streets, which began in 1960.
Scheduled on Wednesday through Saturday in
the third week of July, the fairs draw upward
of half a million visitors. One event that is
not related to visual and performing arts is
Hash Bash, held on the first Saturday of April,
ostensibly in support of the reform of marijuana
laws. It has been celebrated since 1971. Sweet Home
A person from Ann Arbor is called an “Ann
Arborite”, and many long-time residents call
themselves “townies”. The city itself is often
Ann Arbor
called A² (“A-squared”) or A2 (“A two”), and,
less commonly, Tree Town. Recently, some
youths have taken to calling Ann Arbor Ace
Deuce or simply The Deuce. With tongue-in-
cheek reference to the city’s liberal political
leanings, some occasionally refer to Ann
Arbor as The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor
or 25 square miles surrounded by reality, the Customer Service Center
latter phrase being adapted from Wisconsin (Located diagonally across the street from City
Governor Lee Dreyfus’s description of Madison, Hall)
Wisconsin. Ann Arbor sometimes appears on City Center Building, 1st Floor
citation indexes as an author, instead of a 220 East Huron
location, often with the academic degree MI, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
a misunderstanding of the abbreviation for (734) 994-2700
Michigan.
Fax: (734) 994-1765
E-mail: customerservice@a2gov.org