Milwaukee City Map Poster

About Milwaukee

Milwaukee is considered a global city, and was ranked the "most livable city" in the United States by "Forbes" magazine in 2006. In 2018, Milwaukee was ranked as one of the best cities for working mothers. Milwaukee's name is derived from an Algonquian word meaning "good", or alternately "gathering place". The name has also been translated as "(place) where there is good fishing". Native American tribes originally referred to it as ""Goode"" (pronounced goo-dee), meaning a place where fish are plentiful. The first Europeans who reached what later became Milwaukee were French Catholic missionaries and fur traders who arrived between 1654 and 1706; they generally referred to the area as ""La Baye"" ("The Bay"). In 1816, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet became the first recorded European settlers in Wisconsin when they built a cabin along Lake Michigan near present-day Greenfield.