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St. Paul is the capital and second-largest city of Minnesota, with a population of nearly 300 ,000. Only about 10 miles away from Minneapolis, the Twin Cities are connected by the Mississippi River and have a growing metro population nearing the 3 million mark. With a typical Midwestern climate, the area experiences harsh, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. St. Paul is known for being a hockey town, represented by NHL team the Minnesota Wild.
Professionals in office and administrative jobs as well as sales and management make up much of the workforce in St. Paul, but it’s also a city highly concentrated with working artists. The area is known for being a hotspot for young, single and educated individuals who are upwardly mobile. Nearly 40 percent of St. Paul adults over 25 hold bachelor’s degrees and some of the city’s fastest growing companies include Aveda Corporation, Caribou Coffee, Polaris, Ecolab and Carlson Companies. St. Paul is also home to Metropolitan State University (over 6,000 enrolled students) and Saint Paul College, with almost 5,000 students.
St. Paul is divided into 17 distinct neighborhoods, including the artist hub of Lowertown, the increasingly trendy area of The Loop, with its plethora of restaurants, clubs and eclectic shops and Cathedral Hill, which is full of tree-lined streets, Victorian homes and an immense sense of community. While many residents have cars, the St. Paul/Minneapolis Metro Transit buses and trains are well connected throughout the Twin Cities.
From the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory to the Science Museum of Minnesota, there’s a ton to do in St. Paul. For green space, you can head to Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, with its bluffs, prairie grasses and cave. Lowertown hosts a Fall Art Crawl every October, while in winter the Saint Paul Winter Carnival—a tradition since 1886—brings roughly 250,000 folks together annually for an event full of ice sculpting, an ice palace, a torchlight parade, treasure hunting and hot, seasonal foodstuffs.