About our Area

About our Area

Welcome to the City of Des Moines

As Iowa's capital city, Des Moines is a hub of government action, business activity, arts and cultural affairs. With a City population approaching 200,000 and a metro population of nearly 500,000, Des Moines offers some of the nation's best schools, superb public services, and friendly, caring neighborhoods.

Affordable housing, one of the nation's shortest average commute times, and an increasingly diverse population, make Des Moines a wonderful place to live, work and visit.

The Vision

We aspire to be the city of choice for ourselves and future generations - beautiful, clean and safe.

We will achieve our vision through a healthy economy, strong businesses, vital neighborhoods, excellent schools, a vibrant downtown, and extensive recreational and cultural opportunities.

We will preserve our City's friendly, hometown atmosphere and celebrate the diversity of its people.

We require innovative governance that is accessible, accountable, and efficient with a system of funding that is fair, affordable, and stable.

Des Moines Art Center

Recognized by international art critics as a world-class museum in the heart of the Midwest, the Des Moines Art Center has amassed an important collection with a major emphasis on contemporary art. The collection’s overriding principle is a representation of artists of the 19th and 20th century, each through a seminal work. This accounts for an impressive collection that ranges from Edward Hopper’s Automat to Jasper Johns’ Tennyson, Henri Matisse’s Woman in White, Georgia O’Keeffe’s From the Lake No. 1, and Francis Bacon’s Study after Velásquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X.

The Art Center’s physical complex marries with the collection for a totally integrated experience. The collection is housed in three major buildings; each designed by a world-renowned architect Eliel Saarinen, I. M. pei, and Richard Meier.

Admission to the museum’s galleries is always free.

Adventureland

Adventureland has provided many fond memories for families over the last 29 years. It all began in the spring of 1973 when bulldozers and earth-moving machines plowed under cornfields just east of Des Moines to reshape the contour of the land to make way for what is now Iowa's largest tourist attraction, Adventureland Park.

Years before, the grounds belonged to the Des Moines Airport where Charles Lindbergh once stopped in 1924. These grounds later became a family farm where fir trees served as a windbreak for its old farmhouse. The Farmhouse and trees still stand today in the Iowa farm section of the park.

Iowa


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