Welcome
On the other hand, Ann Arbor
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.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor is home to the University of
Michigan, established in 1837. As the
dominant institution 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.
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.
Local Attractions
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 operates a downtown theater
frequently offering 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.
Annual Events
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 Customer Service Center
related to visual and performing arts is
Hash Bash, held on the first Saturday of City Center Building, 1st Floor
April, ostensibly in support of the reform 220 East Huron
of marijuana laws. It has been celebrated Ann Arbor, MI 48104
since 1971.
Phone: (734) 994-2700
Fax: (734) 994-1765
Interesting Facts E-mail: customerservice@a2gov.org
A person from Ann Arbor is called an
“Ann Arborite”, and many long-time
residents call themselves “townies”. The
city itself is often 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 latter phrase being adapted
from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus’s
description of Madison, Wisconsin.
Ann Arbor sometimes appears on
citation indexes as an author, instead
of a location, often with the academic
degree MI, a misunderstanding of the
abbreviation for Michigan.
UM Tower